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KEITH STEVENS
C. as a fierce, two or six-armed, three-eyed general or two-eyed Taoist priest.
d. as an array of sixty rather characterless seated images, each with a two-character cyclic date on a scroll or tablet (...), or a number between one and sixty painted on the stand or pedestal, or painted over its head. The sixty statues have been seen only in Cantonese and Shanghainese areas though reported on one occasion by Hodous in Foochow. Sometimes all images are identical, sometimes they are a mixture of fierce and gentle, and in one particular Cantonese temple they were beautifully finished. Werner, however, says that the 60 cycle-gods are represented by most grotesque images. (See plate 16).
In Ningpo in the 1890s the gods of time, gods of the year, months, days and the hours were all represented with long black moustaches. The central one was seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella, richly embroidered in gold and colours representing the highest emblem of authority. They are also represented in the temple of the Thunder God in the same town. Rev. Henry in Canton saw sixty small images each one to the presiding genius of each year on a minor shrine in the temple of the City God. Some were raised on tiles and some bedecked with gaudy red coats, the gifts of those who had received special favours in their particular years.
C. B. Day says that in Buddhist temples in Chekiang province these are 12 protectors of the Chinese cycle of years. In Suifu, Graham9 saw two images of the 12 rulers of the cyclic year (元甲).
The Cantonese version of the youth in a. above, is more often than not dressed only in an apron and shoes. The apron is gilt or green, covering the chest and below the waist only, and is secured by a string around the back of the neck and by a girdle around the waist. In several Cantonese temples he is the main deity. The bell he carries has magical properties. Very occasionally he is to be seen with either a sceptre or a silver shoe in his hands; and on still rarer occasions he can be bearded.
7 Henry, Rev. B. C., The Cross and the Dragon (London, Partridge 1883).
8 Day, C. B., Chinese Peasant Cults (Shanghai 1940).
9 Graham, W., "The temples of Suifu" in The Chinese Recorder, (vol. LXI, 1930).