Publisher's Synopsis
An excerpt from CHAPTER I. Names and Preparatory Arrangements: IN general the masses for the dead are said soon after demise, because it is considered unfilial to keep a soul long waiting for relief and comfort in its miserable state. Hardly ever they are said twice for one person, not even when a family, formerly too poor to spend much money in behalf of a deceased dear one, afterwards gets into better circumstances. In such a case the surviving relatives will rather take advantage of the death of an other family-member to send by his care paper trunks filled with paper mock-money and paper clothes into the world of spirits, convinced that these articles, when properly burned, will be honestly remitted to the real owner (comp. chapt. IV, 8). A solemn mass usually lasts several days. The day on which it should begin and that on which it should finish are both fixed by a fortune-teller. This personage refers for the purpose to different dates, among which those of the birth and the decease of the departed are considered to be of special importance. The birth-days and the age of the nearest relatives also enter sometimes into his calculations. It is a necromancer's rule that the number of the days which separate the end of the mass from its beginning, should correspond with the years of age of the dead. Occasionally more than one fortune-teller are consulted, the mass being, in this case, not begun until they agree with one another on the most important points. One should not think that all the days between the beginning and the end of the mass are devoted to the performance of rites. Only a few lucky ones are picked out for the purpose by the fortune-teller. Their number depends in the first place upon the wealth and devotion of the family and, besides, upon some necromantic rules, the principal of which is, that the said number must be odd. In general thirteen is the maximum, but the rich mostly celebrate eleven, and the middle-classes seldom less than seven days. If practicable, the days selected are made to be new moon's days and full-moon's days, because these are generally believed to be lucky and auspicious and, in consequence, able to exert a salutary influence upon the fate of both the soul in Hades and its offspring in this world. It follows from the above that the intervals between the days of mass-reading will mostly be of different length. Nevertheless, these days are, at Amoy, incorrectly called "sun" or "decades." Performing the appropriate ceremonies on them is called tsoe sun: "to celebrate the decades." During the said intervals eatables are offered to the dead every morning and every evening, before the members of the family take their usual meal. They then place a bowl of cooked rice, three or four other dishes of eatables and a pair of chopsticks in front of the image wherein the soul is supposed to reside (see below), or, if the corpse has not been buried yet, upon a table before the coffin. After this, the children and grandchildren kneel down, wailing and lamenting, and inviting the soul to eat; they bow their heads towards the ground, and after somewhat half an hour take the food away to eat it themselves. This ceremony is called hau png or kia png: "to offer or to send rice." And towards bedtime cups of tea and small cakes are arranged as before and offered in the same manner to the dead, after which the mourners kneel down, weeping and lamenting as if to bid goodnight to the soul. This is called kia khun: "to call to sleep." At the break of the day the same ceremony is repeated in exactly the same way with similar edibles; and this they call "to call the soul to rise": kio khi. These customs are also observed on the days when mass is said..."
