[ { "id": 208365, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA \n\n73 \n\non one hand, have had connotations of slaughtering, and on the other, associations with 'breaking of clay or earth', as is done in ploughing. This is, of course, but a vague hunch; if, for the sake of our present argument, we accept this interpretation, we could transpose this hunch to the universe of Qingming and say that what is given to the ancestors as edible meat and drinkable wine is earth and rice. \n\n8. Order in Worship \n\nThe note from Yuanjiang, quoted above (p. ), tells us that grave worship started before Earth God Day which falls around the vernal equinox in the second moon. The ceremonies directed to the new graves took place before that particular date. Then there seems to have been an intermission of thirty days before the ritual was continued, and then it was focussed on the old graves. There is no explanation given in the chronicle for the different categories of 'new' and 'old' graves, so we will assume that new graves were those of the recently deceased. If we accept this we must look for possibilities to account for this difference between the two categories as it is represented in time, and why in that mode of representation the point of reference is She ri, Earth God Day. \n\nThis particular day was devoted to offerings to She ji, the Earth God.75 Meat and wine were used in this ritual. From Jiangling we learn that the meat for the She offerings was a mixture of pork and mutton which was placed inside a pumpkin.76 In Wuling the term sheng describes the meat. The day was generally for divining about the coming crops, and qi gu 'prayer for grain'. In Zhongxiang, according to the chronicler, there were shamanistic performances accompanying the offerings.78 \n\nThere are at least some superficial similarities between the Qingming practices and the offerings on She ri. In this context one main question concerns the sort of relations conceived of in this area of China as linking the grave ancestors and the She. I have found no substantial information from the Dongting area to provide us with any further clues. But it appears as if it was necessary to do the grave rituals for the recent dead before one could go ahead with the worship of the Earth God. And perhaps the She offerings were a necessary precondition for a successful grave worship at the older graves. At any rate, the note from Yuanjiang stresses the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208897, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n31\n\nrural areas, and the very ancient agrarian cult, the God of the Harvest, Soil and Grain, She Ji(4) whose shrines are found usually at the edge of villages and, like those of the Earth God, are too numerous to count.\n\nThe only general conclusion to be drawn from all this suggests that the vitality of the cults of deities has in general declined, whereas a limited number, in squatter resettlement areas, continue to thrive by acting as a focus for the minority Chaozhou, Hakka and Minnan immigrants.\n\nNOTES AND REFERENCES\n\nThis is Hong Kong: Temples. By Joyce Savidge, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1977.\n\n2 Dong Fong Ri Bao.\n\n* In this article the English word \"temple\" is used to include uniquely Buddhist and uniquely Daoist temples and monasteries; popular or folk religion temples (which may or may not contain Buddhist and Daoist deities); community temples (both private and public), and ancestral or clan temples. A shrine is an open-fronted room or box-like construction, either at the wayside, under a tree, outside a temple or monastery or hanging on a wall. Outside permanent shrines are referred to in Hong Kong as \"Exposed temples\" (露天廟). They are by definition unmanned.\n\nA \"community temple\" is one built by funds raised within a limited community and administered by a committee, either of a city, village or suburb, or of an ethnic group of expatriates. Private temples are built by private bodies such as:\n\n(a) A family or clan.\n\n(b) An individual monk or nun who raises funds by subscription and who leaves the temple to an acolyte at his or her death.\n\n(c) A trade or profession.\n\nPrivate temples, despite being private and closed to outsiders, are also usually controlled by a committee. A few private temples continue to remain so but gradually most become public, particularly as the number of devotees and images of deities within the temple increase. Some Buddhist temples, privately owned with the affairs and finances in the hands of the owners, are usually also the home of the owners and the ancestral tablets of the owner's family appear on the altars with or beside the deities. Privately owned is not the same as being open or closed to the public. Some indeed may be closed, but the majority are open to the public.\n\nOnly very occasionally are icons or images of deities to be found in clan temples, whereas ancestral tablets are frequently to be seen in community temples. Advantage is taken in the latter of the duties performed by the temple keeper (which clan temples do not have) which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211936, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 351, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "326\n\nwere listed for me as follows: Wing Lung Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Shui Tau Tsuen, Shui Mei Tsuen, Tsi Tong Tsuen, Tai Hong Tsuen, Kam Hing Wai, Ko Po Tsuen, and Kam Tin Shi.\" Four wai, five tsuen (chyun) and one shi. It does not agree with the numbers of 5 wai and 6 chyun. The expression no longer corresponds to the present situation. Their explanation for the discrepancy was that some of the original villages did not exist anymore. One example they gave is the case of Pak Wai, which had become a tsuen (chyun) after its wall had fallen. Some of the villages have very small populations nowadays, and some of the eleven original villages are now missing. Another factor involved is that, to many of the villagers, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen were not quite distinct from one another, and sometimes the two names were used interchangeably. The name San Wai was quite often used by them to refer to Tai Hong Tsuen, sometimes both.\n\n \n Village\n 1895\n 1960\n \n \n Kat Hing Wai\n 308\n 410\n \n \n Shui Tau\n 416\n 655\n \n \n Shui Mei\n 181\n 250\n \n \n Tai Hong Wai\n 176\n 215\n \n \n Wing Lung Wai\n 154\n 250\n \n \n Tai Hong Tsuen\n 33\n 155\n \n \n San Wai (Tsi Tong Tsuen)\n 28\n \n \n \n Kam Hing Wai\n 69\n \n \n \n Ko Po\n 64\n 205\n \n \n Kam Tin Shi\n \n \n \n \n Total\n 1412\n 2140\n \n\nAs can be seen in the table above, the populations of the Kam Tin villages are very uneven. Five of them are often referred to by the local villagers as \"the five main villages\". They were Shui Tau, Shui Mei, Kat Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, and Wing Lung Wai. Among the smaller villages, Tai Hong Tsuen and Tsi Tong Tsuen are considered part of Tai Hong Wai. They take part in the dim-dang ceremony for the newborn at the shrine of the God of Earth and Grain at the Wai and join the jiu of the wai.\n\nOn a higher level, the Kam Tin villages are divided into two groups:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 362, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "337\n\nThe Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to \"heroes\". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies.\n\nKam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist.\n\nThese temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated.\n\nFui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nThe titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211949, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 364, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "339\n\nbut moved the Dei-Jong Wong inside the Buddhist hall instead.\"7 After the building of the Buddhist hall two of the nuns were added to the managers of the trust, and since then the Dangs did not have much to do with the nunnery except that the related ritual associations go annually to worship at the charitable grave.\n\nB. Household and village worship\n\nEveryday worship is local and is mainly performed by women. Such is the case of a family of Tsi Tong Tsuen who gave me information on this point. This family seldom worshipped in any temple. For weddings they worshipped at the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall, where the head of the family also went when he was small for the annual worship, and to get his shares of the ritual pork. This he no longer does, having stopped a few years ago. In some years he also joins the ancestral grave worship in Tsuen Wan. On Ching Ming and Chung Yeung his family went to worship their own near ancestors. On festivals his family worshipped at Tsi Tong Tsuen's shrines to the Earth God and the God of Earth and Grain and the place for the Well God.\n\nI was able to talk with some of the older women. One Tai Hong Wai woman born in the 1910s told me that ordinarily her family worshipped at home. They went to neither the Jau and Wong Temple nor the Hung-Sing Temple. They had no share in the Hung-Sing Temple. They did go to the Daai-Wong Temple at Yuen Long, early in the first month of the lunar calendar, but it is the business of their men only: the temple belonged to their distant ancestor. Similarly, an elderly Kat Hing Wai lady told me that Pak Wai Tsuen (i.e., Shui Tau and Shui Mei) people worshipped at the Hung Sing Temple. I have witnessed part of a waan-san (“thanksgiving”) ritual in Kat Hing Wai, which took place at the san-teng. I was told that for impromptu religious activities such as divination, some of the Kat Hing Wai women went to a temple at Tai Shue Ha [which is, as far as I know, not otherwise of interest to the Dangs of Kam-Tin] and some went to Ling-Wan Ji. They went to the Jau and Wong temple mainly during the jiu, and the temples at Shui Tau and Shui Mei were for their respective villagers alone.\n\nA san teng was probably considered to be of central importance to its village. When I walked with an elder to his house we passed the san-teng of Tai Hong Wai. He explained to me that it was the wai-jyu, and he compared its status in the village to that of the most senior and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211950, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 365, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "340\n\nrespected person in a family. I found in Wing Lung Wai that the households take their turn to take care of the incense and lamps of their san-teng. It probably plays an important part in major celebrations: in Tai Hong Wai I noticed that wedding deui-lyuns couplets had been put on both the san-teng doors and the village gate.\n\nOf a similar status were the places for the Gods of Earth and Grain, where communal worship (jou-se) is held once or twice a year. In addition, there is the hoi-dang ceremony for the new born children of the village. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, and Wing Lung Wai village-level collective worship includes a jiu. It is held once in seven years at Tai Hong Wai, once in five years, at Kat Hing Wai, and once in ten years at Wing Lung Wai. The Tai Hong Wai case is probably representative. The rituals are simpler than the one for Kam Tin as a whole, and lasted only two days and one evening. The main feature is the offering of paper clothing to hungry ghosts.\n\n49\n\nIn some cases the social unit involved in the rites for the new born and other collective rites is a lineage segment in a village and in one case a main village and its associated smaller settlements. Some villages have more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain. Shui Tau has two. The one belongs to the whole village of Shui Tau while the other one belongs only to the descendants of Gam-Tin jou, who have their hoi-dang there. Similarly, there is more than one place for the God of Earth and Grain in Shui Mei. One of them is worshipped by the Git-Sau jou people alone, who make offerings of paper clothing there at the Yu-Laan Festival. In the case of Tai Hong Wai, its jiu, and the rite for the newly born include as participants the villagers of Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. The hoi-dang at the Ching-Lok ancestral hall is not precisely a lineage event: only his descendants living in Shui Tau and Shui Mei take part.\n\nBesides worship associated with membership in residential and sometimes partially lineage segment units, there is worship organized by ritual associations. There are quite a few ritual associations (san-wui) in Kam Tin. Each has its landed property, which ranges from one daam-jung (about 65 thousand square feet) to about 500 thousand square feet of farm land. A share was inherited by all the descendants of the original shareholders. In some cases, one share was actually shared by a few dozen people. Some of the shares were acquired by the present holder by purchase. Worship by these associations takes place once a year, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211971, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 386, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "361\n\nBack at the ritual site, the ritual representatives installed the image of Gwun-Yam in the temporary altar dedicated to her, and the spirit tablets for the others in the san-paang altar for general gods. These, with the spirit tablets for the gods from the villages, gradually filled up the three levels of the temporary altar. Two ritual representatives fetched the tablet of Hung-Yi from the Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall to his altar on the stage. The portrait of the Heavenly Master was fetched from the village gate of Tai Hong Wai, and installed at a temporary altar set up for him in the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall.\n\nThere were also a few deities to be invited from the sky. They included Tin-Dei-Sheui-Yeung, the gods of the realms of Heaven, Earth (the Underworld), Water, and the human world; Gods of the Naam-Dau (\"North Dipper\") and Bak-Dau (\"South Dipper\"), both for blessings to men; the City God and the Lei-Wik (who supervises the local Gods of Earth and Grain and the Earth Gods); Tin-Chyun San-Gwan (two common titles of the highest deities); and the Dragon King. In the last stage of the Opening Rite there were complaints that those gods were omitted. But later on that day temporary spirit tablets for them were seen in the san-paang.\n\nD. Procession of incense I\n\nThe first Procession of Incense took place on the main day of the ritual, to the participating villages of the Kam Tin heung. It was to visit all the temples, shrines, and major ancestral halls to worship the gods and higher-level ancestors. There did not seem to have been a clearcut rule about the lower-level ancestral halls. When I mentioned to an elder that the procession had stopped and worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, his first response was that the procession should not have worshipped there. But he changed his mind later: the worship in the rite was indiscriminative, it went to every ancestral hall if the doors were open.\n\nA very large number of villagers participated. Priests took part in the procession as well, but their part was limited to a brief invocation. Most of the villagers wore hats with special ornaments indicating their villages. The procession was accompanied by the sound of large gongs, a flag saying jeun-heung (\"to offer incense\"), and the priests' musician playing sona. There was one lion dance group, and Luk Gwok flags and percussion teams playing drum and gong on lo-gu ga frames representing each of the five main villages. There were also flags", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211972, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 387, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "362\n\nassociated with lion dance groups. The ritual representatives held incense burners, but the joss sticks in them were not lighted from the beginning to the end of the procession.\n\nMr. Dang Jik-Wai, an elder of Tai Hong Wai, with an outsider who had lived in Kam Tin since shortly after the war and was employed by the rural committee, led the procession. Mr. Dang had a list on a piece of paper of the gods to worship. The procession left the main ritual area where the participants had been waiting since the end of the rite of posting the Memorial.\n\nThey first stopped at the Wa-Bou altar for the God of Earth and Grain at Shui Tau. From there they proceeded to the Tin-Hau Temple at Shui Mei and worshipped at the Temple, and two nearby altars for the God of Earth and Grain. The procession then turned south to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall at Shui Tau, and worshipped at the Ancestral Hall, and at the Hung-Sing Temple. Next they worshipped at another altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shui Tau, the Yi-Dai School (i.e. Man-Cheung Temple), and the altar for the God of Earth and Grain for the Mui Jai Yun section of the village.\n\nThey entered Kam Hing Wai and worshipped at the san-teng, the earth god's place at the former village gate, as well as the altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe party proceeded to Kam Tin Shi, where they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. They intended to enter Yau-Leun Tong to worship too. But it was locked and no one in the procession had the key. So they made the offerings at the door. They then entered Sa Bui Leng and worshipped at the ruin of a former san-teng and the god of the well.\n\nThey continued the procession to Ko Po, where they worshipped the God of the well, the God of the village gate, and an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession turned back and continued towards Kat Hing Wai, where they worshipped at its altar for the God of Earth and Grain outside the village wall, and then entered the village and worshipped at the san-teng. The procession then took Kam Sheung Road to the san-teng (?) of Naam-Teng.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211973, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 388, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "363\n\nThey now entered Tai Hong Tsuen. They first worshipped at the san-teng. The party worshipped at a well of Tsi Tong Tsuen. Next they worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, and then at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThey made offerings at the spot where Gau Ga Chyun used to be.\n\nThen they proceeded to Wing Lung Wai, where they worshipped first at an altar of the God of Earth and Grain, then at the village gate, then the san-teng, and finally at the ancestral hall of Gwok-Yin Jou.\n\nThe procession turned back and went to worship at the altar for the God of Earth and Grain of Shing Mun San Tsuen, a village of outsiders who moved to Kam Tin when their village, Shing Mun, was destroyed in the 1930s for the construction of the Shing Mun Reservoir. Then the procession entered Tai Hong Wai to worship at its san-teng, village gate, altar for the God of Earth and Grain and well. After this the procession went back to the festival site.\n\nThe procession was received and treated to soft drinks and cakes at Shui Mei, Shui Tau, Sa Bui Leng, Ko Po, Kat Hing Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Tai Hong Wai by the local villagers.\n\nE. Procession of incense II\n\nThis second procession took place on the day after the main day. It was to visit Ying Lung Wai, the village of Hung-Yi's descendants outside Kam Tin, as well as the Yuen Long Old Market and the villages in its vicinity. The other spots were included because the Yuen Long Market had once belonged to a segment of the Kam Tin Dang lineage, and they used to have landed property in the surrounding villages.\n\nThe procession started at 12:40. The equipment involved was more or less the same as the previous day, but I also noticed something I had not seen before: two lanterns saying \"to offer incense\" and two banners saying \"keep quiet\" and \"keep clear\", and burning incense inside a \"pavilion\" on a table carried by poles. There were a very large number of people again, but less than the previous day. The same Dang Jik-Wai, and the headmaster of Mung Yeung School, originally from Ko Po, led the procession.\n\n363", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211974, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 389, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "364\n\nThey left the festival site, passing Tai Hong Wai and Ko Po, where those who took part were offered drinks. They next reached Ying Lung Wai, where they were met by the lion dance of the village, and treated to soft drinks. They first worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain of Ying Lung Wai, then the san-teng and the village gate.\n\nThey proceeded to Tung Tau Tsuen, where they worshipped at the Tin-Hau Temple and then the Gwun-Yam Temple. No one came to meet them. But nearby two elderly ladies exchanged these remarks among themselves, \"The two temples belong to Kam Tin fellows, they wanted to repair them, but Tung Tau Tsuen would not let them\".\n\nThey proceeded to the Old Market. First they worshipped at the market gate then at the Bak-Dai Temple, and then at the Daai-Wong Temple.\n\nThen they moved on to Nam Pin Wai, where they worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain, the san-teng and the village gate. A man in his fifties sitting under a tree cursed the Dangs when he saw the Ambulance which was in attendance in case anyone was overcome by the heat. He said, \"Right. Let this Ambulance carry these Kam Tin fellows\".\n\nAt the nearby Sai Pin Wai they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. There was a reception. They proceeded to a Lam Yi-Hing Tong” inside Sai Pin Wai, and then the village gate and an altar of the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession finished with the Old Market and the surrounding villages, and went on to Yuen Long New Market. When they reached Sau Fu Street, they were offered soft drinks by people who had come from Kam Tin for that purpose. From there they walked back to the festival site at Kam Tin.\n\nF. The Procession with the King of Ghosts\n\nThe procession with the King of Ghosts took place during the evening before the Great Offering to Ghosts. In the first stage the Bak-Bin villagers carried the huge image of the Daai-Si Wong through their villages. Their Naam-Bin counterparts waited near Kam Hing Wai to take over the paper image for the second part of the procession. These were 22 young men, many carrying long bamboo poles with metal ends", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211984, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 399, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "374\n\nwhich has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library.\n\n37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92).\n\n38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179).\n\n39\n\n40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1.\n\nProbably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies.\n\n41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands.\n\n42\n\n41\n\n44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers.\n\nSee Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple.\n\nThis was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later.\n\n45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei.\n\n46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial.\n\n47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi.\n\n48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone.\n\n49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple.\n\n50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares\".\n\n51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription.\n\n52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215300, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "25\n\nEARTH GOD WINE AND THE MEETING OF THE FLUTTERING BUTTERFLIES LOCAL CUSTOMS OF EARLY SPRING IN LATE IMPERIAL CENTRAL CHINA\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nAs spring was approaching in the lake lands of Southern Hubei and Northern Hunan, people became increasingly involved in the new agricultural season. Once snow and frosts were part of the past, the new season for rice began. In the first place the irrigated seedbeds were prepared to receive the sowing of the grain, and later to see the sprouting of the first thick green carpet of the young shoots. Irrigation systems had to be looked over and repaired in anticipation of the period when the large paddy fields were to be set under water.\n\nAfter the celebration of the Lantern Festival as the finale of the New Year season, on the fifteenth of the first moon of the lunar year, there was a bit of a ritual slack season. The advantage of this for people was that there was then a period of uninterrupted time necessary for the urgent agricultural spring tasks. What followed after New Year was a string of smaller seasonal events, somewhat more modest than the big cardinal festivals. Even so these celebrations were certainly of some importance - at least they provided a few short but joyful breaks in days otherwise filled with heavy loads of work. In this essay I shall examine two relatively minor festive events which were celebrated in the early spring, in the second lunary of the year or around that time.\n\nWe must remember that Chinese reckoning of time in Imperial days was structured by two main and different annual calendars. One was based on the phases of the moon and comprised twelve lunaries. The other took account of the annual behaviour of the sun and contained twenty-four solar phases. The lunar dates varied in terms of the sun calendar, but it was the latter which gave the pragmatic landmarks in terms of seasonal weather and rural tasks for the countryman, whereas various celebrations of agricultural achievements and social events were held in accordance with the moon year. The lunar New Year could fall any time from the twenty-first of January to the nineteenth of February, Gregorian reckoning, and thus varied a great deal from year to year in\n\nI have dealt with these elsewhere: Aijmer 1964; 1968; 1979; 1991; 2002.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215302, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "27\n\n'Establishment of Spring' starting on the fifth of February, Gregorian reckoning. A wu day would have been a day which showed a stem-branch combination that contained the character wu. The day of interest here would occur some forty to fifty days after the first day of the Li Chun. So this day would have fallen sometime by mid-March, generally in the second moon, but at varying dates there. This day was called She Ri 'She Day'. It seems likely that it was celebrated according\n\nto the date provided by the official calendar-chronicles from Yingshan Magistracy (in De'an Prefecture), Suiyang Magistracy 陽縣 (in Wuchang Prefecture 武昌府) and Wuchang Magistracy 武昌 (also in Wuchang Prefecture) place the festival in the second moon.3\n\nIt is not so easy to say what the She was in late imperial times in this lake land in Central China. In terms of State rituals there was still an imperial sacrifice in the spring on an altar southwest of the palace in the capital, devoted to She Ji *. Sometimes this two-character name is understood as referring to one deity, sometimes as to a combination of two-She being the god ruling the land and Ji the divine controller of grain crops. There was a hierarchy of provincial, prefectural and magistratial She Ji, who were all part of the imperial official state cult. The imperial offering was the exclusive privilege of the Emperor. Before his sacrifice the altar was covered with earth of five colours - a colorific togetherness which expressed the total universe, and thereby the generative and destructive power of the five activities, wu xing 4. A special stone tablet was erected in the middle. After the ceremony this was taken down and buried in the ground until the next occasion for worship.4\n\nIn some areas in the south, present-day villagers tend to see the She as a chthonic registrar of deaths and births, an earth god who is thus associated with both death and human fecundity. More generally it appears as if the She in many areas of China signified a notion of locality. Both the Imperial cult and the present day Cantonese example may serve us as pointers, but what the demotic ideas about the She, and the She Day, actually were in the area surrounding Lake Dongting a few hundred years ago, is something we must try to glean from the\n\n3 古今圖書集成.1888. VI,1166: 風俗考毯4a; 1120:風俗考2b4b.\n\n4 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1972: 63-64.\n\n5 Aijmer & Ho 2000: 37-41 and Yang 1961: 98-99.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]