[
    {
        "id": 208068,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 107,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n91\n\nThirdly, there is the incense pot, in dull bronze, pewter, or earthenware pottery, besides which one or more small oil lamps stand with their tiny wicks lying across the bowl of oil smudged with soot.\n\nFourth, there is a flower vase in which real or imitation flowers are placed by worshippers.\n\nFifth and finally, there may be a wooden tablet to the \"Five types of Terrain and the Five Directions”, (£) standing at the back, which will be referred to later in greater detail.\n\nThere are two deities who are so often seen in or near the Under Altar that they really must be described here. Only one is connected by title, and both may be seen just as frequently on the altar above the Under Altar, on a separate altar or, divorced completely from everything else, down one side wall of the temple. The first is the White Tiger (), who is sometimes referred to as the White Tiger of the Dark Altar (6). The second is the Green Horse.\n\nThe White Tiger\n\nHe is to be seen in about half of the Under Altars in Hong Kong and Macau. In most temples he is made of stone, though occasionally of paper or wood. Sometimes he crouches at ground level, obliquely, on the opposite side of the altar to the Local Wealth God or elsewhere in the temple on the floor and on the altar. He may even be seen in groups of twos or threes, or even more, in very rare sightings.\n\nHe is one of the most common of animal spirits in folk religion temples of all communities and, not surprisingly, is often black having been kippered in incense smoke, though one or two manage to retain their yellow and black stripes and look just as all good tigers should. White Tigers, who are not really white at all, are mostly poorly shaped lumps of stone with a tail, tiny ears and a cavernous mouth. The largest number seen together in an Under Altar was seven, but even that number did not look incongruous as one big one was surrounded by what seemed, at first glance, to be six kittens.\n\nWhite Tigers are fierce and must not be offended. Should you offend one he causes a sickness of the chest or stomach called",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208069,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 108,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "92\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\n\"White Tiger Disease\" which cannot be diagnosed further, and which can only be cured by offering him expensive propitiation.\n\nThe White Tiger's full title is \"The White Tiger of the Black Altar\" but even though the Wealth God, Hsuan T'an (literally “Black Altar\" and whose name, as we saw above is Chao Kung-ming) is always accompanied by a tiger, no temple keeper has had the courage of his convictions to connect the White Tiger with him, although the connexion seems obvious enough.\n\nWhite Tigers fight evil, destroy demons—particularly sickness demons—and, more mundanely, prevent squabbles and strife between women. Though many temple keepers spoke confidently, they tended to connect the attributes of any one deity with others on the same altar, thus claiming that White Tigers are prayed to stop scandal and rumours, and also prayed to by gamblers who are having a run of bad luck. In former days, so several temple keepers claimed, ritual purification before worshipping the Gods was carried out at the White Tiger Altar, as he was a stellar deity who warded off baneful influences.\n\nOn the day of the Excited Insects, (the 17th of the 1st lunar month, one month before Ch'ing Ming), White Tigers are propitiated by temple-goers, who crowd around them force-feeding them with delicacies known to delight them. These include raw eggs still in their shells, which are rammed willy-nilly into the tiger's mouth together with lumps of white cooked fatty pork, raw liver, chick peas and silver coins. Pork fat is a delicacy beloved of tigers who, according to temple keepers, will not eat beef or fish! One particularly stomach-churning sight was of a temple keeper pushing his fingers into the Tiger's mouth through the mush of raw egg, liver, paper, shell and fatty pork, to recover the coins. For the very poor, a mere smear of pork fat on the lips of the White Tiger is sufficient to bring his aid. Elderly ladies also offer oranges, minute packets of tea and three sticks of incense before the Tiger.\n\nAt the same ceremony devotees burn, or again thrust into the mouths of the White Tigers, dozens of tiny printed paper tigers with yellow and black stripes, folded in half lengthways and filled with cold cooked rice, slivers of raw liver and a few peas. Some of the elderly ladies took the paper tiger cut-outs and removing a shoe walloped the tiny paper tiger unmercifully. Such chastisement is to ensure that gossips and trouble from demonic sources do not",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208070,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n93\n\nenter the homes of the beater and her family. (Incidentally, they did the same with the \"small people\" a common man (Hsiao Jen A) who are gossips causing untold trouble. They are depicted on a black-printed charm as a row of men, and represent anyone who bears a grudge or gossips about their neighbours.)\n\nThough Ch'ao Chow and Hoklo temples have no Under Altars, keepers in temples used by these communities claim that other unspecified Hoklo and Ch'ao Chow temples do have them. In practice, however, most have a stone White Tiger, blackened with age, crouching on the floor in front of one of the secondary altars. In one Ch'ao Chow temple, what at first glance could be confusing, were two large and untarnished black and yellow striped tigers seated before the temple's Earth God. According to the watchman, they were normal tigers and not White Tigers, awaiting his orders.\n\nThe Green Horse\n\nThe second is the Green Horse (*) who occasionally has a groom though, rarely, a rider. Not surprisingly the horse actually is green, although it is possibly called so because Liu (green) is a homophone for \"lucky\". In a few temples he is colloquially referred to as the \"Money Horse\". He is to be found in several temples where there is no Under Altar, no White Tiger, and no Local Wealth God. Green Horse stand on their own four legs and are seldom made of a permanent material, though two in Macau and one in Hong Kong are made of what appears to be painted concrete about half life size. Most are coloured paper pasted over a bamboo frame, frequently decorated with tall, gold paper floral crowns and red rosettes.\n\nThe Green Horse is variously offered prayers and incense for assistance in keeping in touch with distant relatives, for bearing petitions to unapproachable Gods, for stopping quarrels and rumours and, according to some, for wealth. Some even refer to the Green Horse as the Protector of Women. Many Green Horses seen in temples are heavily ensnared or trussed with long, fine red (or on very rare occasions, white) cords bound around the forelegs. Occasionally pairs of red chopsticks are bound to the Horse by these red cords. Both the chopsticks and the cords are charms, placed there by wives who pray that their travelling or erring husbands will be faithful to them, or return immediately to them leaving the...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208072,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 111,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n95\n\nGod 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.\n\nAn 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.\n\nOfferings, Charms and Messages\n\nApart 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.\n\nIndividual 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",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213063,
        "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-1993",
        "page_number": 131,
        "title": "RAS-1993",
        "content_text": "112\n\nduring which he acquired extraordinary powers having been provided with a set of secret prescriptions, exorcists and talismans by the major goddess, Hsi-wang Mu'. He was a Taoist Master, a vegetarian who never married and a philanthropic doctor who died at the early age of 58 having worn himself out in the service of his fellow men. A tale told by a Taiwanese related how Wu T'ao's father, Wu T'ung and his mother, née Huang, fled from their home in northern China, during the troubled times of the Sung, to a village near T'ung-an on the Fukien coast where they settled and built a thatched cottage. His mother realised after a dream that she had become pregnant by a famous deity and eventually bore a child naming him T'ao. In another version his mother conceived after she had dreamt that she had swallowed a white tortoise.\n\nWu T'ao, or as he is known in a number of temples, Wu Chen-jen [Wu the Perfected Man] is often claimed to have come from Ch'uan-chou in Fukien, although in SE Asia there have been several other cities and areas claimed by devotees to have been his birthplace, including T'ung-an, Swatow and Chang-chou [in practice, as we have seen, he came from a small village in the centre of a triangle between T'ung-an, Amoy and Chang-chou]. As Wu T'ao grew up he travelled far and wide studying Taoist disciplines and grew strong and healthy but remained celibate and vegetarian. A temple keeper in Singapore understood that by vegetarian it was meant that he could eat buffalo and goat meat but not dog.\n\nImages of Pao-sheng Ta-ti in general represent him as a black-bearded middle-aged man dressed in court robes and an imperial crown consisting of a flat mortar board with a bead screen hanging down before his face, and sitting on a dragon throne. There are a number of variations such as the scholar's gauze cap instead of the crown. His images are generally identifiable by the convention of the cuff of his left sleeve being clutched by the thumb of his right hand, with only this thumb visible. In Singapore where all carvers were aware of this convention such images are universal. However, the carvers all added that they were unsure whether such a convention was known elsewhere. It is, and in a number of temples in Taiwan the images of Pao-sheng Ta-ti have the right thumb just poking out of the right sleeve, although in Chia I the convention has added one finger to the thumb. In the majority of temples he is portrayed with small animals under his feet, said to be lions, whilst in two temples, both in Taiwan, he has two tiny tigers protruding from his clasped hands within the long sleeves of his robes.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302",
        "rank": 0
    }
]