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two actors resume their normal human identity at the conclusion of the ritual before they can step into the backstage.
At this moment, troupe members who stay onstage cry out loudly to signal the removal of the taboo which prohibits the opening of mouths. Joss papers are then burned as offerings to the spirits and deities. The whole White Tiger ritual lasts approximately from about three to five minutes.
Conclusion
As pointed out by both Tanaka Issei and Barbara E. Ward, there is an inseparable relationship between Chinese opera and religious rituals. The Offering to the White Tiger aptly illustrates how the performing conventions of Chinese opera are incorporated into the staging of an exorcistic act. On the other hand, as many scholars believe that Chinese opera grew out of religious roots, we might also say that the former adopted the conventions of the latter for dramatic expression.
What is discussed in the present article relates to the White Tiger ritual and describes only some of the taboos and religious practices which are preserved in the tradition of Cantonese opera. As the present writer has pointed out in his other articles, other taboos and religious practices require troupe members to pay respect to the local deities upon their arrival at the place where they are hired to perform. Troupe members should also offer incense to the shrines of the profession's patron deities backstage, and place joss sticks at the edge of the frontstage to appease the spirits, ghosts and deities which will then protect them from falling off the stage. On the second day of the performance series, before the evening's play starts, joss papers should be burnt, as an offering to troupe members who have died. Moreover, as in many other Chinese regional operatic genres, whenever a troupe first arrives at a performing hall, even if it does not contain a "new stage," the principal comic role actor has to write the Chinese characters dai ger (big fortune) on the wooden or bamboo pillar closest to the Tiger Gate at stage right, with a brush and using a type of red pigment made from a combination of oil and cinnabar, before the other actors can start their make-up. Such a ritual is known as hoi ber (to open a brush'').
A traditional taboo prescribes that the strokes in the radicle hau ...