their departure. The names of the contributors to the feast are read aloud, and on a signal given by the priest, the spectators make a rush at the table and carry off all the dishes they can lay hands on. The pillars of rice and fruit are precipitated to the ground, and the whole material of the banquet cleared off in an incredibly short space of time, by hands infinitely less ethereal than those of spirits. Hence this feast is termed by the Malays, Sambayang Merrabút, the plunder ceremony. The feast concludes by the burning of the images, paper-houses and mountains, gold and silver paper which are consumed in one large blazing pile, for the use of the departed spirits in the other world. According to an article in the Indo Chinese Gleaner, (ii. 360). "The burning of paper (for a religious purpose) whether gilt or plain, of whatever shape, appears to have been adopted immediately after the abolition of human sacrifices on the death of Che kwang (who died about 150 years before Christ), when he caused his domestics to be put to death to attend on him in a future state.[1] At present the consumption of paper which is annually used on all religious occasions, is very considerable, and forms an extensive branch of trade with the Chinese. The more usual offering is a piece of paper, about a foot long and eight inches broad, in the shape of the front of a bonnet, with a small piece of gold foil on its back; besides which they have representations of men and women, with various dresses, with houses, servants, boats, boatmen, &c. which are burnt and passed into the invisible state for the use of the deceased. Many well-disposed persons in China, allow the priests a certain sum monthly to offer up prayers, and burn the paper offerings for them; and wealthy people often employ men for the sole purpose of offering incense, burning paper offerings, and letting off fireworks on their festivals." The Chinese ordinary oath, as I have witnessed it taken in our Courts of Justice, consists in the person holding in his hand a slip of yellow paper, on which is inscribed an imprecation of divine wrath on his head, should he declare what is false. The paper is set fire to and burnt while retained in the hand. It, together with the inscription, is supposed by this process to pass into the other world and be there recorded.
- ↑ The Scythians, it is said, and some of the Tartar tribes, observed this horrid custom. In China, they anciently made bundles of straw in the shape of human beings, and in the time of Confucius, images of wood, which were interred with the dead. It is to this practice that Mencius alludes in the Shang Mung (page 6).
