Chinese calendar for the year 1882
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: NAA INV 10000077
 
USNM Catalog 329704
name: label: Collection Collector
content: Thayer, Alice Tracy, 1869-1959
setName: label: See more items in
content: MS 7414 Alice Tracy Thayer collection of Chinese banknotes, joss paper, and prints
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Print (black, blue, red, and yellow ink on thin paper, 12.75 x 19.75 inches)
container: label: Container
content: Box 7414, Folder 3
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Graphic Materials
label: Type
content: Prints
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The calendar is divided into several panels. Tables in Chinese writing occupy small rectangular panels in the four corners and pictures occupy the remaining panels. The table in the two top corners marks months and seasonal dates, such as the spring equinox, summer solstice, and so forth. The table occupying the two bottom corners note forbidden, or unlucky, days and auspicious days. Symbols of good fortune and prosperity are written in various places on the calendar. The border drawings show the gods of wealth and good luck, and the drawings at the top show immortals in the South Heaven Portal, possibly dead relatives of the original owner of the calendar. In the center is a drawing of a man and a woman, probably the Kitchen Gods.

Underneath the gods of the kitchen kneels a man giving offerings. This man is probably supposed to represent the owner of the calendar. Calendars such as these were mass-produced and sold to Chinese families to be pasted on the kitchen wall to keep track of important dates and as a reminder to worship the gods and the dead.