76
HELGA WERLE
which has the shape of a miniature temple, has the three characters Han-lin yuan embroidered on its red curtain; it is not General T'ien who is sitting behind the ever closed curtain, but the San t'ai-tze lao-yeh
the 3 princes (Mu-ch'a, Chin-ch'a and No-ch'a).*
The birthday of the San t'ai-tze lao-yeh is celebrated yearly by this troupe with special performances in the first month of the Chinese calendar in the public housing estate Tung Tau Tsuen ✯✯, not far from the airport, where a whole community considers the San t'ai-tze as their patrons.
At this birthday celebration in 1976, between 9 and 10 p.m. a man suddenly came running to the temple facing the stage and donned the costume prepared on the table. No-ch'a is usually represented as a young boy: his hair tied in a bob over each ear, with his feet on fire-wheels. The man, a medium, is believed to be an ordinary man who might have never thought of No-ch'a. But on his birthday the god (here No-ch'a) will possess a person who will then only act as a medium. The man or sometimes a woman will get up from his bed, if he is sleeping, or from the table if he is eating, and rush to the square where the festivities are held without talking to anyone. Sometimes 3 people appear being possessed by the 3 princes. If the god in this temple has proved to be particularly efficacious (ling) then this event is expected and the respective clothes for the god are already prepared on a table specially marked with a green bamboo 3m high attached to its leg. The costume for the god is usually put into a flat round basket and a weapon is placed beside it. The medium puts on No-ch'a's costume, a yellow silk blouse and trousers and on the head he puts a band with the two hair-knots attached, shaking all the while and aided by those who have expected his arrival. When dressed the medium takes up the weapon, a solid spiky iron-ball on a chain, and wields it against his own body, beating his back and chest, perhaps to prove that he is actually possessed by the god.
* Doré, Chinese Superstitions, Taipei 66, Vol. 7, p. 413 and Vol. 9, p. 111; E. T. C. Werner: Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, page 247.
† Such a bamboo is also fastened to the roof of the stage or where rituals for the dead are held: it indicates the presence of spirits or marks the place to which spirits are invited to come.