The subjects to be dealt with under the above heading afford an embarras de richesses. Next to the belief in the prophetic nature of dreams none probably is more widespread than that in charms and kindred matters. The ancient British Druids attempted to cure the generality of diseases by charms and incantations,1 and the so-called Doctors of modern China follow a similar custom hallowed by a still greater antiquity. But in addition to these, the universal belief in the influence of demons and evil spirits upon the every-day life of mortals has led to the devising of such numerous preservatives that the makers and vendors of such wares find constant employment. I propose to deal in the first instance with charms involving a certain amount of preparation, classing articles worn about the person under the head of amulets.

The superstitious regard paid to mirrors as regards their preservative qualities has been noticed in a previous chapter. This probably arises from the fact that in China they are regarded as all-efficacious household charms against the attacks of evil spirits. Nor are magic mirrors, similar in their use to the ink mirrors employed by modern Egyptian necromancers, unknown to the Chinese. At Canton, only a year or two since, a native was exhibiting for the small sum of 30 cash (about 2½d.) a jewel stated to possess magical qualities. In it the curious spectator saw various figures such as a beggar, a mandarin, a woman, &c., and was assured that his or her own future condition would be the same as that of the counterfeit thus seen. There exists a belief in many parts of the Empire that the pointed roof or corner of a house’s gable end may exert an unpleasant influence upon the dwelling in nearest proximity. To counteract this therefore a concave brass mirror—those of glass are still articles de luxe in most districts—set in a wooden frame, is arranged on the wall or roof of the threatened building so as to catch and reflect back the evil influences in question. I can find no trace of any similar practice in Western countries. Small brass mirrors hung near a bed are also all-efficacious to ward off evil influences. [46]

It is possible, that, though everybody knows how fire-crackers are used by the Chinese to frighten off evil spirits, all readers are not aware that they are charms pure and simple; the original intention of their manufacture being to imitate the crackling of burning bamboos which were supposed to frighten away a race of malignant demons called Shan siao—“beings in human shape, a foot or so in height, and by nature very fearless,” or according to another account a bird with a nest as big as a five bushel measure.2 Mr. W. F. Mayers, in his interesting article on gunpowder and firearms in China, in the Journal of the N. C. B. R. A. S. for 1869–70, ingeniously suggests that these demons are but the embodiment of the supernatural agency visible in the attacks of fever and ague to which the inhabitants of the swampy regions of Western China were, and still are, liable. I quote his remarks: “The Chinese themselves do not appear to have pursued any investigation respecting the origin or meaning of the term Shan siao, but, guided by the date of its appearance in literature and its foreign garb, we may with some confidence, ascribe the belief in this demon to an Indian parentage. As regards the myth itself, it may be permitted to hazard the speculation that fever and ague, lurking as it did and still does in the swampy regions of Western China, may, by a very familiar process, have become embodied in the conception of a supernatural agency, and that the fires which native wisdom or foreign counsel might suggest as a prophylactic device may have been invested with magical attributes, either by teachers who thought it best to fortify sanitary precautions with a cloak of fetishism, or else by the inherited tradition of succeeding ages. However this may be, the idea of exorcism, dating as far back as the sixth century, has remained inseparably connected with the use of fire-crackers down to the present day.” And in a note on the same page the writer adds that subsequently to an execution taking place at Canton in 1868 in a public square, the inhabitants of the locality were not satisfied until they had exorcised the ghost of the departed criminal by a protracted discharge of crackers. It is not difficult to trace a similar motive in the custom which obtains of honouring the departure of a popular resident in any place, in a similar manner. The crackers are to frighten away all demons from the traveller. Such a compliment is frequently paid to foreigners by their Chinese acquaintances in Hongkong. It may, I think, be taken as certain that crackers are charms pure and simple to the Chinese, their use as mere noise-producing fireworks being secondary to the idea of exorcism.

Charms of another sort are sometimes used by the Chinese. It is only three years since that H. E. Li Hung Chang, who is at this moment premier of China, fired cannon at the Peiho to make it cease inundating the surrounding country.3 The Eagre or bore of the Tsien Tang river, which flows from the boundaries of Kiang-si, Fuhkien and Chih-keang to Hang-chow Bay, and takes its name “money-dyke” from the amount expended on its embankments,4 has been treated with “charms” on several occasions, but as Chinese annals tell us, with [47]very indifferent success. Prince Wu Shu (A.D. 930) made five hundred “daring archers” let fly six arrows apiece at the dreaded tidal wave as it came rolling onwards, and then after praying to Wu Tsz-si, the tutelary deity of the stream, put the key of the dyke water gate into an envelope, and threw it into the river. Forthwith the waters retired; but as they would have retired in the ordinary course of events, even the Chinese did not consider the experiment a remarkable success. In 1131 the Emperor Kan Tsung sunk ten iron plates, each weighing over 130 lbs., in the river by way of charming the mischievous spirits of the waters, but charms and embankments were alike carried off by the resistless power of the tide. Experience however was not availed of in a case where superstition had firm hold, and time and time again was a similar experiment tried—with, I need hardly say, similar success. Such practices, however, have not been quite unknown amongst ourselves, and even at the present day there are many springs in rural Britain supposed to be guarded by spirits who require charming in a very similar way. The crooked pins cast into St. Winifred’s well in North Wales, the fourpenny pieces cast into that of Gwern Degla, the rags and clothes thrown into those of Strathfillan and Kenethmont in Scotland, and Benton (near Newcastle-upon-Tyne), and the common offering of three stones as a tribute to the spirit of the stream in Unst (Shetland), are, like the nosegays thrown into wells and fountains in honour of their presiding nymphs at the Roman fontinalia, or the cakes of bread-corn similarly offered of old to Juno in Laconia, evidences of a belief not at all unlike that which prompts Chinese acts of a similar nature.

The anti-demoniacal power ascribed to the wood and leafy branches of certain trees in our own folklore is matched by a similar Chinese belief. The elder, the rowan, the yew, and the mountain ash of rural England, or the palasa (a species of mimosa) of India, are represented, in the Middle Kingdom, by the bamboo, peach and willow, which are regarded as peculiarly powerful over goblins and imps. The dry Bamboo is supposed to attract devils. On the other hand a rod of green bamboo is carried at funerals by nearly-related mourners for a contrary purpose. It is called the “dog-driving rod,” and is supposed to be efficacious in driving away evil spirits who might stop the way of the departed. The willow is used both to drive away and to raise spirits, but in the former case a twig only must be used. The plum tree is also regarded as possessing mysterious virtues in the same direction, but is not thought equal to the willow. Two other plants are also supposed to be efficacious against evil spirits, and one of them, the Fo yeung lak 火殃䓶 is at Canton hung over door-ways to prevent them from entering houses. We too, formerly put up holly at Christmas with a similar object, though it has now become a mere decoration, and there was a pretty Druidical superstition that the Sylvan spirits would take refuge in the evergreen branches from the chill winds and snows proper to the season.5 It would be interesting to trace the superstitions connected with trees somewhat further, but I have not sufficient authorities at command.

Of the charms affixed to buildings, etc., the Chinese have a fair variety. [48]The all-potent horseshoe is indeed not found nailed against doors and gables; but, oddly enough, a horse’s hoof hung up in a house6 has the same preservative virtues in native eyes. Chinese reverence for the dead has prevented the adoption of so horrible a charm as that known in France, Germany, Spain, and Ireland as “the hand of Glory” or dead man’s hand, consisting actually of the dried hand of an executed criminal. But a nail that has been used in fastening up a coffin is a sovereign charm. This is sometimes beaten out into a rod or wire, and, encased in silver, worn as a ring round the ancles or wrists. The cat here makes her appearance, a clay image of poor pussy—with a bob-tail of course, after the Chinese model,—being frequently placed on the apex of a roof to ward off unpropitious influences. The conspicuous position thus accorded to the cat as a warder-off of evil fortune seems oddly paralleled, though not imitated, by the place accorded to the same animal in popular European folk-lore. I have already mentioned its evil repute amongst the Chinese as a harbinger of ill luck, and this agrees closely with the usual Western estimate, witches and cats being constantly associated, the former indeed being supposed to take upon themselves the shape of the latter at will. The old legend that the chariot of the Goddess Freya was drawn by cats, and that Holda was attended by maidens riding on cats, is referred by Mr. Kelly to a widespread belief in their weatherwise powers. In China the cat is supposed to be in league with the spirits of darkness, and as this includes meteorological prescience, it is propitiated accordingly, the cat’s image becoming a popular “charm.”

So too those nondescript animals which most people agree to call lions, and which may be seen keeping guard in such disconsolate attitudes on the roofs of most native buildings of importance, are mere charms. The Chinaman in fact, from his cradle upwards, seems to regard himself as ever environed by diabolical agencies, to combat which an all-pervading system of charms and amulets is a prime necessity. While we laugh at this superstition, it is perhaps only a too vivid realisation of the fact of the devil “going about like a roaring lion.” It may be interesting to note here that our own custom of depositing coins, papers, &c., in the foundation stones of new buildings is matched by a similar custom in China. I am unable to trace the superstitious origin of the practice in our own case, but the Chinese place coins under the door-sill and under the kitchen fireplace, when building, simply for luck. In some cases, following out the usual notion of contrariety, these and other charms are attached to the ridge pole of the building.

“Cash-swords,” a very common form of charm, are thus described: “What is commonly called a Cash-sword is considered very efficacious in keeping away evil spirits. It is often hung up on the front and the outside of the bridal bed-curtain, in a position parallel to the horizon. About the time of a woman’s confinement, a cash-sword is sometimes taken and hung inside of the curtain. This sword is usually about two feet long, and is constructed out of three kinds of things, each of which is regarded as a preventive of evil spirits: 1st. Two iron rods, about two feet long, constitute the foundation of the [49]sword. 2d. About one hundred cash, either ancient or modern (if ancient, or if all of the same emperor’s reign, so much the better), are ingeniously fastened on these rods, concealing them from view. The rods are placed in the centre, and the coins are tied on the outside in two rows. 3d. Red cords or wires are used in tying on the cash. These three kinds, joined together in the shape of a sword, make a really formidable weapon, of which the maliciously-disposed spirits are exceedingly afraid!”7

Another charm of extensive use amongst Chinese women is a small solid silver or golden triangle, having two little swords suspended from the outer angles and a trident from the centre of the base; on the triangle itself lucky characters are engraved. This shape appears to be a favorite one, as women always fold their written charms in a similar manner, and sew them up in pieces of cloth of a triangular pattern.

The idea of an evil eye is no less common amongst the native population out here than it was and still is in Europe; and this belief, implicitly accepted as regards their own countrymen, is intensified as regards foreigners, owing to the outrageous stories circulated about us during recent excitements. I have often been amused in the North at the request not to stare at any child whose interesting appearance might have attracted my attention. In writing letters the Chinese invoke the person addressed, to cast a glance on the epistle “with the clear part of his eye” (or, as we should say, white of the eye) that is, take a favourable view of the matter talked of. A pregnant woman or a man whose wife is pregnant, is called “four-eyed,” and children are guarded against being looked at by either, as it is thought the sight would be unlucky to the children and would cause sickness to attack them. The superstition as to the powers of an “evil eye” may almost be deemed fundamental to humanity, as I have yet to read of a people amongst whom it does not find some degree of credence.

One of the commonest diagrams to be met with throughout China is the mystic swastika or “Thor’s Hammer” 卐 (pronounced wan in Chinese and given as the archaic form of 萬). It is all-pervading, meeting the eye in all sorts of places, on the wrappers of medicines and sweetmeats, the stomachs or chests of idols, and the flanks of animals, upon dead walls, coins, etc. Dr. Eitel gives a most interesting account of this symbol in the 3rd volume of Notes and Queries on China and Japan.8 It is ordinarily accepted as “the accumulation of lucky signs possessing ten thousand virtues, being one of the 65 mystic figures9 which are believed to be traceable in every one of the famous foot-prints of Buddha. This of course stamps its Buddhistic origin so far as the Chinese are concerned. Apropos of this symbol, known by us as the fylfot, a recent review of Mr. Waring’s Ceramic Art in Remote Ages says:—“Another form of the cross which Mr. Waring has collected very completely is the fylfot. By some this is thought to be only a sort of Greek fret or meander [50]pattern; but the evidence of its having been a symbol in past times of mystic significance is too strong to allow of its being reduced to a mere ornament. It has been identified with the Hammer of Thor, the Zeus or Thunderer of the Scandinavians. With the Buddhists this cross had the very opposite signification from that of the tau of the Egyptians or the cross of the Christians. General Cunningham is quoted, who says:—‘The atheistical Swastikas received their name from their peculiar symbol, the Swastika, or Mystic Cross, which was typical of their belief in Swasti. This term is a compound of ‘su,’ well, ‘asti,’ it is, meaning ‘it is well;’ or, as Wilson expresses it, ‘so be it,’ and implying complete resignation under all circumstances.’… To Mr. Waring’s collection of facts regarding the Swastika, or fylfot, it may be added that a Hindoo woman, when she cleans out her simple cottage, and washes over the earthen floor with a thin coating of mud and cow-dung—the latter having, as coming from the cow, which is sacred, a highly purifying virtue—she usually forms the figure of a Swastika on the door-step. In the woman’s mind it is supposed to be an efficacious charm to keep away evil from the house. Along with the fylfot we have the very similar figure of the three legs which we associate with the Isle of Man. Mr. Waring’s book gives us many examples of this symbol. In some cases they are legs, but oftener they are merely three obtuse angles, or curves. This is also found in many parts of the world, as well as some examples which are given with five or six limbs. In such cases it is suggestive of a wheel; and there are a number of Buddhist symbols not unlike to these, which are understood to represent the ‘Wheel of the Law,’ or the Wheel of Buddha. It may be stated that a three-limbed figure of this kind is much used in the Punjaub, and other parts of India, by the Mohajin log—the banking or moneyed class—as a charm; they place it in their houses, and generally over the door.” But Dr. Eitel makes a yet more interesting contribution to the subject in pointing out that Scandinavians, Danes, Germans and Englishmen still attach superstitious importance to this magic charm of their heathen forefathers, and of the Chinese Buddhists of to-day. To the present time the hammer of Thor is used amongst the German peasantry, and in Ireland, as a magical sign to dispel thunder.10 The same symbol was frequently cast on bells during the Middle Ages, and many of them still bear this mark. Dr. E. mentions those of Appleby and Scotherne, Waldingham, Bishop’s Norton and West Barkwith in Lincolnshire, Hathersage in Derbyshire, Maxborough in Yorkshire, and many more. That this symbol should thus be common to Buddhistic and Scandinavian mythology argues a common fount in ages long gone by; before the Aryan races had commenced their Westward wanderings or the Shang dynasty had ceased to reign in China—coeval in fact with Cadmus, the reputed father of Western letters.

The use of the Pa-kwa or “Eight diagrams”—a collection of strokes arranged in hexagonal form and familiar to the merest tyro in Chinese studies—as a charm to ward off evil influences, is universal. It is made of all sizes and shapes, from large ones on boards one or two feet square, down to tiny [51]medals for personal wear not larger than a sixpence. In the centre is the diagram of the Yang and Yin (male and female principle), or sometimes a concave metal or glass mirror. Coarsely executed boards of this description are placed perpendicularly on the highest part of the roof. More neatly carved specimens are hung up in rooms. Go where one will, the inevitable pa kwa, carved, painted or written, is almost sure to ornament some portion of the premises. On some houses again will be seen “three arrows placed in an earthen tube, and laid on the side of the roof, the tube pointing towards some distant object—the arrows being fastened in their places by clay.” Sometimes the representation of a lad sitting on a three-legged nondescript animal, with a bow in his hands, as if on the act of shooting an arrow, takes the place of or accompanies the other objects described.11

Stone slabs or pillars erected near the entrances of alleys leading into a main street, are supposed to ward off the evil influences proceeding from them. Mr. Doolittle states that in Foochow every family on the first day of the Chinese month nails up a few leaves of the sweet flag (acorus gramineus) and artemisia on each side of the front doorway. They are held to represent swords, and so scare away evil spirits! Other charms, not personal, in Chinese use, are red cloth worn in the pockets, or red silk braided into the hair of children; a knife that has been used to kill a fellow-creature; the Chinese Classics placed under the pillow or kept near the owner; knife-cash cast for the purpose and attached to the ridgepole; pieces of old fishing nets, of which demons are said to be especially afraid as they suppose them to be used by the priests to catch spirits; and gourd shells, which it is supposed will attract to their interior such diseases as small-pox, measles, &c., which might otherwise attack children. Images or drawings of tigers, lizards, snakes, centipedes, &c.—the list is almost inexhaustible—have similar virtues, more especially guarding children from colic and other infantile diseases.

Most people are acquainted with the cant expression about “taking a hair of the dog that bit you,” now-a-days applied by those, who have drank too much overnight, to the morning glass supposed to re-steady the shaken nerves, but originating in a superstition common to both Europe and China. The idea on which it is based is that of the sympathy which a part of the body has with the whole. Thus a dog’s virus being powerless on its own body, a person will by swallowing one of its hairs enjoy the immunity possessed by the animal it came from. In Devonshire we find the idea oddly reversed, as, when a child suffers from hooping cough, a hair from its head is put between slices of bread and butter and given to a dog, who thereupon, it is believed, gets the cough instead of the child.12 In the same country it is supposed that you can give a [52]neighbour ague, by burying a dead man’s hair under his threshold.13 The fact of a dog’s hair possessing mystic powers, in Chinese Hakka14 belief, is illustrated by the following incident related to me by a distinguished sinologue in this Colony.

While on his missionary tours in the Canton province he was usually accompanied by a powerful dog, at which, in some of the villages he passed through, the children were somewhat frightened and once or twice very slightly bitten. In such a case the mother would run after him and beg for a hair from the dog’s tail, as a charm against the evil one. The hair thus obtained would be put to the part bitten in the belief that the spirit which the fright suffered by the child had caused to pass into his person, would thereby be attracted from it.

My informant used sometimes, jokingly, to say to the applicant, “Oh! take a hair from the dog yourself,” but not liking his looks, this offer was usually declined, and the alternative suggested brings into notice another curiously wide-spread superstition. He was asked to spit in her hand, as a charm against evil. Now the virtues claimed for this not very cleanly proceeding by the Chinese found a thorough belief amongst the ancients, which survives to this day amongst the lower classes in England. Brand gives a most interesting chapter on this subject.15 The Roman custom of lustrating an infant by spittle on the day of its being named, that of the Mandingoes who spit thrice in the child’s face on the same occasion, and the custom of fishwomen at home who still “spit upon their handsel,” or the first money they take in the day, all point to the same belief as that entertained by the Hakkas. There is still a rural English belief that spitting three times in a person’s face is a charm against the evil eye. The Hebrew belief in the mystic properties of saliva is said to be of considerable antiquity, and we find our Saviour on two occasions (St. John ix. 6 and Mark vii. 33) using it in curing the blind.

“Characts,” or written charms, are as common in China as in Europe. We settle the origin of our own former confidence in their efficacy by a somewhat off-hand reference to the Jewish phylactery—a derivation I am inclined to doubt—but we have nothing that I know of to guide us in finding the root of the Chinese superstition. However that may be, the fact that written charms have ever been deemed efficacious, wherever the art of writing is known, is curious. Not a very long time ago the still warm body of a deceased male child was picked up in the streets of Hongkong, having affixed to its cap one of these charms, which had evidently been sold to the parents by one of the itinerant fortune-tellers who infest the city. It was kindly placed at my disposal by the Coroner, and a facsimile of it is given on the opposite page. [53]

[54]

It is almost untranslateable, but if you bear in mind that the Chinese words refer to horary or astrological terms, the following will give you some idea of what it meant. The paper refers to an infant born in the yam shan year (1872), 2nd moon, 17th day, at noon; the character for “left” appended to the date signifies that the child is a male, that for right signifying a female.

“Being born in the yam shan year, kwai mou month and kap ng hour, the child is subject to the combined influence of these dates. Under yam shan it will be adverse to the influence of koon (officials) [that is an indication of evil], but will find powerful friends. He will have brothers who will impoverish him. According to the portents under the character kwai mou, he will always have plenty to eat and great wealth. Under Sun mi he will meet with counter influences from an evil spirit. Kap ng indicates that he will meet with good influences indicating wealth and powerful friends, but these good influences will be counteracted by an evil spirit.

“For 3 years, the first epoch under prediction, his fate is good. Thence to the age of 13, the first five years will be bad, the second five good; from 14 to 25 the first five years will be bad, the second very bad; from 26 to 33, five years will be bad, the latter five very good; thence to 43, good and very good fortune will be his fate. For five years after this his fate will be good, continuing till his death, which will happen before he is 53.

“The life of this child indicates purity and prosperity. His good fortune lies in being born at the hour of noon, as this indicates powerful friends and other good influences. His future life will be one of bliss, but he ought to adopt the Kum-fa goddess, in the municipal temple, as his spiritual mother. In selecting a name for him some character should be chosen having To, earth, as a component part. It will then be lucky. The date fixed for shaving the child should be the 18th day of the 3rd moon from 9 to 10 a.m. The child should be a year old before he is vaccinated.”

So much for this written charm;—sad rubbish no doubt, but not much worse than the whining predictions of gypsy crones in enlightened Europe, and harmful chiefly in the widespread belief attached to its value.

The charm here given was written on red paper, that colour being supposed to be peculiarly obnoxious to evil spirits. Hence the red cloth and silken twist already noted. But charms on yellow paper are quite as numerous. Yellow is the Imperial colour, one of the five recognized in the Chinese cosmogony, and a superstitious value attaches to its use. “Sometimes a picture of an idol is printed or written upon this paper, or some Chinese characters, or various scrolls, are drawn on the paper with red or black ink. It is then pasted up over a door or on a bed-curtain, or it is worn in the hair, or put into a red bag and suspended from a button-hole, or it is burnt, and the ashes are mingled with tea or hot water, and drank as a specific against bad influences or spirits. An incredible number of these charms are used in the various ways indicated. Many houses have eight or ten or more on the front side or under the eaves. Immense numbers are burnt in idolatrous or superstitious ceremonies.”16 Similar [55]charms are hung upon bed-curtains, placed upon the ridge poles of houses, and hung over door-ways. The veneration entertained for the written character in China is doubtless partially owing to the superstitious belief in the protective nature of written charms. The Biblical, or at all events Talmudical, authority for the use of Phylacteries seems to have indirectly produced a somewhat similar effect amongst the Hebrews. Brand gives numerous instances of the belief in written charms in England, and a gypsy charact, sold within the last few years, has come under the present writer’s personal observation. In this case, as in all others, it may be truly said, that the more we enquire the less do we find to be the divergence between Chinese and Western beliefs and superstitions.

But amulets and charms worn about the person are, perhaps, even greater objects of importance in Chinese estimation than household or other charms. Retaining as we do the words, now applied to harmless trinkets worn on the watch-chain,17 we are apt to forget the deep significance attached to them by our forefathers, and to somewhat unduly ignore the influence which a belief in their virtues once exercised over our own ancestors, and still exercises over people like the Chinese. I may here note that small trinkets, believed to be veritable amulets, are worn by the well-to-do Chinese just as among ourselves. The most popular form of charm is, both in China and England, a piece of money. Most boys have treasured a “lucky fourpenny” with a hole in it, and most Chinese babies have been the unconscious owners of “lucky cash” attached to them by a red string and bearing certain lucky characters inscribed on them. The cash chosen for this purpose are, as a rule, ancient. The older the cash the greater its virtue. Sometimes coins of this sort are tied on the wrists of a new-born child and worn by it for a considerable time. Similarly a number of cash belonging to the reigns of different Emperors are placed under the bed of a newly-married couple. Collectors of old coins frequently come across curious specimens of the numismatic art produced for this purpose, metals generally in China being favourite substances for amulets. One of the commonest amulets given to an only son is a small silver lock. The father collects a number of cash from the heads of a large number—strictly speaking a hundred—different families, and having exchanged them for silver has the latter converted into a native padlock which is used to fasten a silver chain or ring on the boy’s neck.18 This it is supposed will be respected by evil spirits, and will therefore contribute to the boy’s longevity. Another popular amulet is made in the shape of a flattish silver hook with some fortunate inscription thereon. But most common of all are the little bells worn by the Chinese child of every degree in the Southernmost provinces and, more sparingly, used in the North also. The origin [56]of the custom as regards Canton has been already given. But a belief in the occult qualities of bells is so wide-spread19 that considerable doubt may reasonably exist whether, even if the legend be true, the Cantonese did not merely amplify an existing practice by way of appeasing the Demon of the bell. It is at all events strange that our own ancestors should have credited bells with possessing occult powers to aid mankind in their combat with the spirits of darkness, while the Chinese propitiate the same enemies by wearing models of bells upon their clothes. But a yet more odd coincidence is found in the sixty-six bells attached to the Ephod of the Jewish High priest when engaged in sacerdotal ministration.20 At the present day we give bells to babies mounted on a piece of coral—itself a celebrated charm since the days of Pliny, by whom it is noted as an amulet against fascination and able to preserve and fasten the teeth. Few substances, by the way, except metal are used by the Chinese as amulets, jade being almost the only exception.21 It would be interesting to ascertain whether the ear-ring was ever regarded in China, as by the Semitic races, as a sort of amulet or charm.

Divination is in China as popular as, and probably more respectable than, it was amongst the Israelites in the days of the witch of Endor, and it is not perhaps going too far to say that there is not a single means resorted to in the West by way of lifting the impenetrable veil which hides the future from curious mankind which is not known to and practised by the Chinese. From “Pinking the Bible” to using the Planchette, from tossing for odd and even to invoking spirits to actually speak through crafty media, the whole range of Western [57]superstition in this regard is as familiar to the average Chinaman as to the most enthusiastic spiritualist at home. The coincidences of practice and belief are indeed so startling that many will doubtless see in them a sort of evidence either for their truthfulness, or for a common origin of evil. Divination by the ka pui has been already noted, together with that by bamboo slips. Cash and many other objects are similarly used, the mode of procedure in no way differing from our own. Such modes of consulting the gods are, however, every-day matters. It is when we come to the consulting of media, the use of a forked stick, writing on sand, and similar matters that the Chinese practice becomes singular in its resemblance to superstitions openly avowed at home. I would here remark that I am no spiritualist. But how, without any apparent connection with each other, such beliefs should at once be found in full force in the farthest East and the extreme West is puzzling. Is our Western spiritualism derived from China?

It is only within the last ten years that the attention of English readers has been markedly drawn to this strange agreement of Chinese with Western belief and practice—in the first instance,22 by the Rev. J. Doolittle, in a series of papers contributed originally to the China Mail and subsequently published in book form in 1867; and in the same and following years, more exhaustively, in Notes and Queries on China and Japan, by the Rev. E. J. Eitel, PH.D., whose thorough and scholarly papers on Chinese matters render him a high authority. Readers of that now defunct periodical will doubtless, in consideration of the papers in question being out of print and unknown to the majority of the British public, pardon my here transferring Dr. Eitel’s remarks almost verbatim; the more so as any original account I could give would be but a mere variation in language:—

“A certain form of spirit-rapping is practised among the officials and literary classes of China. A spirit is sometimes made to appear, to communicate by writing revelations about the future, and questions are answered as regards the lucky or unlucky result of intended transactions, about success at impending examinations, about progeny to be expected, and so forth. The pencil to be used by the spirit must be made from the twig of a peach-tree. But this twig should be cut off a branch pointing towards the East, and before cutting the twig the following magic formula consisting of four lines (with four syllables each) has to be pronounced: ‘Magic pencil most efficacious, daily possessing subtle strength, now I take thee, to reveal clearly everything.’23 After the recitation of this formula, a compound character is to be carved into the back of the tree. This [58]character is composed of two radicals, of which the upper one signifies water from clouds; the lower one means demon, which indicates that the spirit to be conjured up resides in the clouds. The other characters24 ‘the mysteries of Heaven wondrously mastered’ refer to the revelations which the pencil is expected to communicate under the direction of the spirit. When this compound character has been cut into the bark of the peach-tree, a twig from one of its eastern branches, which moreover must have a little curvature at its end in the form of a hook, is cut off and fitted into a small piece of wood of about six inches length, which is intended for being laid on the palms of the medium acting at the ceremony. Every one who intends to witness it, has to purify himself by fasting and ablutions and to dress in perfectly clean clothes. In the hall where the ceremony is to take place two long tables are placed together. On the upper table sacrifices are placed, consisting of wine, fruit and confectionery, while the other table is to be covered with fine red sand, which should be rolled even and smooth by a small bamboo-roller, so that characters can be traced in the sand without difficulty. All these preparations should be finished before night-fall, when a petition to the Great Royal Bodhisattwa25 is to be written on a card, informing this Deity that sacrifices are prepared, and requesting that one of the great spirits wandering through the clouds26 should be sent to the house of the petitioner whose name and address is mentioned minutely to prevent any mistake. This card, together with a quantity of gold paper, is conveyed to the temple of the above-mentioned Deity, and burnt before the idol’s shrine. On returning to his own house the petitioner writes his address, as given on that card, on a slip of paper which he pastes on one of the door-posts.

“Later in the evening two or three of the company assembled go to the door, burn there some gold paper and make then an indefinite number of bows and prostrations, receiving as it were the spirit on entering the house. Having conducted him into the hall, an arm-chair is moved to the table whilst incense and candles are lighted. At the same time the medium approaches, the handle of the magic pencil resting on the palms of both hands, but so that the end of the twig touches the surface of the table strewn with sand. He places his out-spread hands near the head of the table and addressing the spirit with becoming reverence says: ‘Great spirit, if you have arrived, be pleased to write the character “arrived” on this table.’ Immediately the magic pencil begins to move and the required character appears legibly written in the sand, whereupon all assembled request the spirit to sit on the large arm-chair, whilst the Deity, that is supposed to have conducted him thither, is likewise politely asked to sit down on another chair. The whole company now bow and prostrate themselves before the seats of both spirits, and some pour out wine and burn gold paper. Then the medium approaches again with the magic pencil on the palms of his hands, whilst all assembled say with one voice: ‘Great spirit, what was your august surname, what your honourable name, what offices were you invested with, and under which dynasty did you live on earth?’ Immediately [59]the magic pencil is seen moving and answers to these questions appear written in the sand. After this every one of the assembled may put a question one after the other, but each question is to be written on a slip of paper and burnt together with some gold paper. As soon as each paper is fairly consumed by the fire, the magic pencil writes down the answer to it, generally in poetical form, and each sentence is followed by the character27 ‘I have done,’ whereupon the pencil ceases to move. Then all assembled try to read the characters aloud. If they fail to decipher them, the pencil moves again and writes the same sentence more distinctly, until it is intelligible. As soon as one of the assembly succeeds in deciphering a sentence, the magic pencil moves again and writes on the sand the two characters28 ‘that’s it.’ When a sentence is finished in this way, the sand on the table has to be smoothed again with a bamboo-roller, and whilst this is being done the whole company address flattering speeches to the spirit, praising his poetical talents, to which the magic pencil replies by writing on the table the characters29 ‘it’s ridiculous.’ If any one present behaves improperly, displaying a want of reverence, the spirit writes down some sentences containing a sharp rebuke. The motions of the pencil are quite extraordinary and apparently not produced by the medium on whose open palms the handle of the pencil rests, and who merely follows the spontaneous movements of the magic pencil. In this way conversation is kept up without flagging until midnight (when the male principle begins to be active). Then the spirit breaks off the conversation and addressing the whole company writes on the table: ‘Gentlemen, I am much obliged for your liberal presents, but now I must beg leave to depart.’30 To this all persons present reply saying: ‘Please, great spirit, stop a little longer,’ but the spirit jots down as if in a great hurry the two characters31 ‘excuse me, I am off.’ Then all assembled say, ‘If there was any want of respect or attention, great spirit, we beseech thee forgive us this sin.’ All walk then to the house-door burning gold-paper, and there take leave of the spirit with many bows and prostrations.

“I proceed now to point out another form of spiritualism by which more especially the lower classes of Chinese society allow themselves to be blinded. There are somnambules in China,32 and no matter whether they be real clairvoyants under the influence of animal magnetism, or merely clever impostors, they are at least in the South of China everywhere to be found, enjoying the entire confidence of the mass of the people, and holding a position very much like that of the witch at Endor who conjured up Samuel before Saul, or like those priests in the temple of Pluto and Cora at Acharaca, who used to prescribe to their patients the remedies revealed to them in their dreams; in some respects also like those oracles which were obtained at the lake Aornos, and in which those consulted called up the spirits of the dead (see Smith, Dict. of Antiquities, on Oracles). The fact is that, at least as far as I am aware, [60]somnambulism in China is generally made subservient to necromancy. The Chinese mind is so deeply impressed with the stability of family ties, that even death is not considered as separating a man or woman from their respective families, and it is, therefore, the common belief of the people that the ancestors of each family, though living in Hades, are continually watching the interests and welfare of all their descendants that live on earth. Consequently if a family be in great distress on account of the severe illness of some one of its members, or in doubt with regard to the advisability of an intended marriage, or anxious to know if a certain site chosen for a tomb would ensure rest and peace to the soul of a deceased relative,—on each of these subjects the Chinese feel a craving desire to consult the spirits of their ancestors. Now as the Chinese well know that it is not so easy to influence those spirits and to induce them to submit to consultations and cross-examinations, there is a class of people, chiefly women, who make it their profession to conjure up spirits from the dead, and to act as the mediums in the consultations to be held with them. These women are called shang-pʻo in Canton city, whilst in other parts of the province they are usually known by the name of sin-pʻo.33 If there be any family in trouble or anxiety for some one or other of the reasons mentioned above, a somnambule is sent for. No preparations are required, no sacrifices are to be offered, except that some incense sticks are lighted and put into that niche dedicated to the spirit of the hearth,34 which may be seen in every Chinese house in the wall over the cooking range. When the somnambule arrives at the house, she is received by the female portion of its inmates and conducted to some quiet back room. No man is allowed to be present, especially no scholar, and great care is to be taken, that no copy of the Chinese classics, among which the ‘great learning’35 is most dreaded by the somnambules, should be left lying about in the room. If any of these precautions are neglected the somnambule will declare it impossible to hold any conversation with the spirits. When all is ready she ascertains first the nature of the difficulty under which the family labours, and the name and sex of the ancestor whose spirit is to be conjured up. As soon as she has learned these particulars she seats herself on a low stool and crouches down on it, so that her head rests on her knees. Then she utters in a low and measured tone the following incantation:—

“This incantation she repeats three times, and soon after she has spoken it for the third time a sudden change seems to come over her body. Her arms drop down, her limbs are one after the other seized by a sort of torpor, convulsions shake her all over, and cold sweat covers her face and temples. At last [61]she seems fast asleep and now questions may be put to her. ‘What do you see?’ she may be asked. ‘I see nothing,’ is the answer, ‘it is all dark and chilly.’ After a while she is again asked, ‘what do you see now?’ ‘Now,’ she replies, ‘now it is lighter; yes, at a distance I see pagodas and towers and palaces and houses.’ ‘Do you see any human being?’ ‘No, I cannot see distinctly; yes, now I see them, there are men and women with pale sallow complexions, and one approaches me, speaks to me!’ ‘How is that person dressed?’ Then the somnambule describes the dress and the whole appearance of that person, and her description coincides exactly with all that her employers can remember with regard to the peculiarities in dress and general appearance of the deceased relative whose spirit is being conjured up. The identity of the person required being thus established, questions may now be put as to the particular difficulties on account of which the family want to consult the spirit of their ancestor. This spirit, however, is not made to appear, but the somnambule pretending to see it and to be in conversation with it, acts as interpreter, and answers all questions in the name of that spirit and with an unnatural shrill voice. When the curiosity of the audience has been thus satisfied they try to awake the somnambule by shouting her name three times into her ears. Soon her body begins to tremble, one limb after another seems to shake off its torpor, the woman raises herself up, and goes through all the pantomime of a person suddenly roused from a heavy sleep, expressing most dramatically an immense surprise at finding herself in such a place and in such circumstances. Then the somnambule speedily falls into her professional swagger, asks for her wages, which, according to the means of her employers, vary from five cents to five taels or more, and departs chuckling, I imagine, over the credulity of her deluded victims.

“In conclusion I may remark that the deity to which the above given incantation is addressed, is supposed to be that popular deity which is commonly called ‘the seven sisters.’36 By some it is considered identical with the spirit of the Wega in Lyra,37 by others it is identified with the spirit of the Pleiades;38 and this latter explanation I consider to be most plausible, because the Pleiades are in Chinese colloquial called ‘the star of the seven ladies.’39”

Another mode of divination employed is by means of a small image carved out of willow wood (See supra for qualities attributed to this wood). The medium is in this case also a woman. A recent writer thus describes the modus operandi: “The image is first exposed to the dew for forty-nine nights, when after the performance of certain ceremonies it is believed to have the power of speaking. The image is laid upon the stomach of the woman to whom it belongs, and she by means of it pretends to be the medium of communication between the dead and the living. She sometimes sends the image into the world of spirits to find the person about whom intelligence is sought; it then changes into an elf or sprite, and ostensibly departs on its errand. The spirit of the person enters the image, and gives the information sought after by the surviving [62]relatives. The woman is supposed not to utter a word, the message seeming to proceed from the image. The questions are addressed to the medium, the replies appear to come from her stomach; there is probably a kind of ventriloquism employed, and the fact that the voice appears to proceed from the stomach undoubtedly assists the delusion; any way, there are scores and scores of these mediums implicitly believed in, and widows who desire to communicate with their deceased husbands, or people who desire any information about a future state, invariably resort to their aid.” In Kwang-hsi again there are wizards who use a magic water called ku-tu.40 They take this medicine and smear it on a grain of rice, which they throw away. The natives gravely believe that if any one is unfortunate enough to touch this grain of rice, he at once grows ill; his stomach swells, and continues to do so for a month or so until he at length bursts and out gush, not bowels, but unboiled rice. If the ku-tu is smeared on straw, the stomach of the person touching it, in like manner, becomes full of straw!

Mesmerism also has its Chinese votaries. A practice somewhat similar to our mesmerism and used to gain money by exhibitions on the 5th of the 8th moon, is very common in Canton. The performer reads with the person operated on certain incantations, chou,41 whereupon the patient falls into a mesmeric sleep. During this sleep, he is able, though never taught the exercise, to go through all sorts of tricks of fence—the native explanation being that the patients’ soul having departed from the body, the spirit of a deceased fencing-master occupies the empty tenement.

Divination by Virgilian, Homeric or Biblical Lots, in which the book being opened at random the sense of the words covered by the thumb is held to be prophetic, finds an exact counterpart in a Chinese practice. The classical works (an odd coincidence, as the two most celebrated of Western classics give their names to the Sortes Homericæ and Sortes Virgilianæ)42 are chiefly availed of for this purpose; but the Chinese pay more attention to the lucky or unlucky meaning of the particular characters touched than to the sense of the sentence in which they occur. Any one even but slightly acquainted with the written character of the language will easily conceive the vast field it presents for such purposes. Thus nu,43 a woman, enters into the composition of a large member of characters having an evil signification, and its presence in the word touched is therefore unlucky. The literary section of the community rather discourage frivolous appeals to such divinations, but are not above being guided by them in affairs which they deem important.

I have already referred to the omens deduced from bamboo slips selected or shaken out at random from a bamboo box. Fortune-tellers and joss-house [63]keepers divine future events for their credulous clients in a somewhat similar way. A number of papers are prepared, marked with characters the same as those on the bamboo slips, but also having short sentences added indicative of good or ill luck. A slip being thrown out, the paper containing its character is referred to, and the sentence inscribed on it is accepted as the answer. Street fortune-tellers frequently train birds to select one or more from a heap of papers, each marked with a single ominous character. The fortune-teller then proceeds to explain the prophetic meaning hidden in the character thus chosen. Or, if he does not possess a trained bird, the client himself picks out a paper for similar interpretation. A very popular form of domestic divination is that already noted as availed of at the new year—going out into the street and accepting the first words heard as an omen.

Chiromancy or Divination by Palmistry has its votaries in China as in Europe, the predictions of our English gypsies being arrived at in very nearly the same way. The lines in the palm of the hand known as the “line of life or longevity,” “line of fortune,” “line of the stomach,” bear similar names in the vocabulary of native chiromancers, the same line both in China and England being referred to as that of longevity. A native account says: “The lines indicate whether a man be spendthrift or the reverse; whether he will be lucky, wealthy, and prosperous, or attain high position; whether he will have children, their sex, and whether or not they will survive; and finally whether he will have more than one wife.” The skin peeling from the palm of the hand (a common occurrence when a person unused to manual labour performs work which abrades or blisters the palms) is looked upon as an unlucky omen. The evil omen attached to white specks on the finger nails has been already noticed; but there does not appear to exist any practice of divination by this means such as was formerly practised in England under the name of Onychomancy or Onymancy.44 Physiognomy is however much believed in by the Chinese, and auguries from the countenance—a form of divination which we all more or less unconsciously adopt, as witness such phrases as “he looks born to be hanged,” &c.—are frequently drawn and believed in. The Chinese have a quaint way of dividing off the facial ages. At 30 years a man is said to have arrived at the epoch of the eyebrows; at 36 at that of the eyes, and so on, at the epoch of the nose, lips, cheek, bone, chin, &c.

Finally the “Divination by a green ivie leaf” recorded by an old writer,45 in which the health or sickness for the coming twelve months of the party practising it is divined by the green or black appearance of a leaf immersed in water for six days, is faintly paralleled by the ominous virtues attributed by the Chinese to the leaves of the juniper tree and pumelo plant. No doubt a fuller investigation than the present writer is able to institute would elucidate other points of agreement in this class of superstitions. But enough has been given to shew that the Chinese mind has for ages been subject to the same influences as obtain amongst ourselves, though happily in our case (with the exception of spiritualism) now only surviving amongst the lowest classes of the community. [64]