UNDER ALTARS
95
God of Loyalty and patron of businessmen, soldiers, detectives and firemen. When represented, this stands near the entrance to his temple and is held on a short rein by a standing groom. The second is the paper horse used for carrying messages to the dead ancestors during the Yu Lan festival (15th of the seventh lunar month). These white or red horses look very similar to the Green Horse and are burnt during ancestral rituals. The third is the White Horse of the monk Hsuan Chuang, Tripitaka, who brought the Buddhist Sutras back from India in the 7th Century, and is only to be seen in one temple in Macau and not at all in Hong Kong.
An interesting observation which would appear to have no special significance, and one which surprised many Chinese temple keepers, is the sighting of the Green Horse on the altar of the maids and attendants of Chin Hua, the Goddess of Childbirth, in some thirteen temples.
Offerings, Charms and Messages
Apart from the force feeding of the White Tigers at the festival in Spring, an offering of a large slab of cooked fatty pork is frequently placed on the Tiger's head, and sometimes several ounces of Chinese yellow wine is then poured over it. Charms, printed on yellow or red paper, are pinned to the Local Wealth God and incense and candles are burnt before the whole Under Altar. Offerings of paper money on the "Bank of Hell" are piled onto some Local Wealth Gods, as are paper taels of gold and silver. On occasions particular to the individual devotee and connected with calamities in their lives, he or she may place five yellow paper charms, purchased from the temple keeper, beneath each of five oil lamp saucers with glowing wicks. These, together with fresh eggs, are offered to the spirits in the Under Altar.
Individual devotees who wish to report their particular misfortune to the Disaster Spirits obtain slips of paper from the temple keeper. These are normally some four inches long and two inches wide, in either red or green, with a regular pattern of diamonds and circles cut out by folding and snipping in a special way. In a few cases, temple keepers require details of the "disaster" to be written on them, with dates and names of the people involved. The slips of paper are then burnt in the temple incinerator. In rare cases where devotees confuse the message papers with charms, they are