345
level. The rest of the group (on the middle level) included a scene from the story of the Baishe Zhuan, the legend of the love between a snake-turned beauty and a virtuous scholar. The episode represented was that of the monk exercising his supernatural power to kill the lady, so as to free the scholar from the seduction of the demon. The other group bore the sign Wudan Shan, at once one of the famous mountains of China and a well-known place for Taoism. The top level of the group included the Jade Emperor. On the lower levels of these two groups were a temple, runners escorting a sedan chair, and the scene of the Eight Immortals Turning the Sea Upside Down.
51
Decorated with embroidery hangings, the Taoist altar had at its centre portraits of the Three Pure Ones and on either side the Heavenly Master and Taai-Yut Jan-Yan. Further from the centre were portraits of four minor “generals", named “dragon", "tiger", "fire" and "water". On the inner walls of the partitions hung pictures of the ten Kings of the Underworld. There was also a backroom to the altar, where the priests stayed between rites. Hanging in this room was an umbrella-shaped object with many charms trailing from it. There were, a priest told me, 28 in all, one for each of the 28 sau constellations. It was called the luo-tian, which meant, he said, the same as xian-tian, the Taoist primordial heaven." In the room was a temporary altar set up for the Three Pure Ones, plus a place with two red slips of paper saying "May Tao be popular with people" and “Good Luck in the rites".
52
On the day before the seven-day period of rites, the villagers decorated the room for their own gu in the main paang. Before each of the rooms stood a Luk Gwok flag, which was the same as the flag used in the Cantonese opera of the same name to announce the identity of a player; and a lo-gu ga; i.e. “drum and gong holder". Hanging from the top of the opening were mechanical "hanging puppets". Inside near the front was a heung-on incense burner set of the siu-cheng type. The tables inside were decorated by toi-wai embroidery that hung from the edges. Hanging from the "ceiling" were similar pieces of embroidery known as waang-mei.
Some of the villages put on displays in these rooms of relics of their illustrious ancestors. In the room for Shui Mei was the screen presented to Dang Git-Sau by relatives and friends to congratulate him on the occasion of his 61st birthday, which I mentioned previously. In the room for Wing Lung Wai was a series of scrolls presented in 1919 to celebrate