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descends to the underworld, where a series of terrible punishments depicted on the scrolls that Taoist priests bring to funerals awaits the person adjudged guilty of such serious crimes as murder, theft, and unfilial behavior; a second takes up permanent residence in the ancestral tablet, and a third at the grave.35 In her recent field work in the Taiwanese village of Ch'i-nan, Emily Ahern discovered much the same thing, which reminds us that, at least in Taiwan and the New Territories, the ancient beliefs persist even in the face of rapid industrialization and contact with the outside world."
Unlike the Romans, the Chinese rarely deify the spirits of their deceased; nevertheless, the latter demand and receive the same attention as their Roman counterparts. The details of the funerary ceremony vary, of course, from one locality to the next, but what occurs in Ch'i-nan may be taken as representative, particularly with regard to the vision of the afterlife that supports the entire ritual. Here, as elsewhere, the living initially intercede for the dead on the evening of the funeral itself, at an elaborate Taoist ceremony called the kung-te. In the course of this ritual, the earth god t'u-ti-kung is bribed to assist the deceased across the treacherous bridge leading to the underworld, and the drama closes with the burning of a great pile of mock paper money, which the soul needs to purchase food and protection. Seven days later, a prolonged transition period begins with the first in a series of seven offerings, spaced at weekly intervals. These consist in part of food, but also include paper replicas of an imposing array of luxuries and necessities, ranging from a house, car, and servants to televisions, an electric rice pot, and lawn furniture. Somewhere during these 49 days, at the moment which a professional geomancer deems most propitious, the new spirit is formally installed in this otherworldly domain. The transition period comes to a formal conclusion when the paper house and the other amenities are finally consigned to the flames and thereby transferred to the underworld.38
The sole purpose of this elaborate ceremonial is to ensure the comfort and well-being of the deceased, and it is obvious that this takes a purely materialistic form. It naturally follows, therefore, that additional offerings of paper money and food will
128
'JOHN KARL EVANS
descends to the underworld, where a series of terrible punish- ments depicted on the scrolls that Taoist priests bring to funerals awaits the person adjudged guilty of such serious crimes as murder, theft, and unfilial behavior; a second takes up perma- nent residence in the ancestral tablet, and a third at the grave.35 In her recent field work in the Taiwanese village of Ch'i-nan, Emily Ahern discovered much the same thing, which reminds us that, at least in Taiwan and the New Territories, the ancient beliefs persist even in the face of rapid industrialization and contact with the outside world."
Unlike the Romans, the Chinese rarely deify the spirits of their deceased; nevertheless, the latter demand and receive the same attention as their Roman counterparts. The details of the funerary ceremony vary, of course, from one locality to the next, but what occurs in Ch'i-nan may be taken as representative, particularly with regard to the vision to the afterlife that supports the entire ritual. Here, as elsewhere, the living initially intercede for the dead on the evening of the funeral itself, at an elaborate Taoist ceremony called the kung-te. In the course of this ritual, the earth god t'u-ti-kung is bribed to assist the deceased across the treacherous bridge leading to the underworld, and the drama closes with the burning of a great pile of mock paper money, which the soul needs to purchase food and protection. Seven days later, a prolonged transition period begins with the first in a series of seven offerings, spaced at weekly intervals. These consist in part of food, but also include paper replicas of an imposing array of luxuries and necessities, ranging from a house, car and servants to televisions, an electric rice pot and lawn furniture. Somewhere during these 49 days, at the moment which a professional geomancer deems most propitious, the new spirit is formally installed in this otherworldly domain. The transition period comes to a formal conclusion when the paper house and the other amenities are finally consigned to the flames and thereby transferred to the underworld.38
The sole purpose of this elaborate ceremonial is to ensure the comfort and well-being of the deceased, and it is obvious that this takes a purely materialistic form. It naturally follows, therefore, that additional offerings of paper money and food will
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