ANCESTOR-WORSHIP

[s. 58] : The worship of deceased ancestors has been an important feature of the religious practises among widely sejjarated In modern times it peoples from remote ages. has chiefly attracted popular attention in China, but it exists in Africa (See Bantu Race); traces of are found among the American Indians; it is discovered among the Hindus, who have in the book of Vishnu a ritual for its proper performance; it can be noted in Western Asia in a reverence toward the graves of sages and heroes, which leads Mohammedans and others to pray with equal fervor at the tomb of Hannibal or at the mausoleums of forgotten Christian saints, and it appears in the early religious observances of Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Its e ential features are: (a) unshakable belief in the immortality of the soul (fc) trust in the power of the dead to help or harm the living and (c) a sense of personal privilege through ties of kin to enjoy the protection of the deified or The mind of the man who semi-deified ancestor. worships his progenitors is in an attitude resembling that of those who appeal for help to patron saints in some branches of the Christian Church. In China Ancestor-worship is a part of the Confucian system, but is older by centuries than the time of Confucius, and its claims are more binding on a Chinaman than those of any other form He may sneer at Buddhism, ridiof worship. cule the outrageous claims of the Taouist exorcists, and may even be brought to see that the teachings of Confucius himself are but moral aphorisms incapable of changing the life and bettering the future of his disciples, but he will not give up the worship of the ancestral tablet, and the paying of that honor and reverence to deceased parents which is the outcome of filial piety, the root of all Chinese institutions, the bulwark of her government, the strong chain which has bound the people together as a nation. The worship of ancestors is the real religion of China, and as long as the incense is smoking on the ancestral altar, so long will Christianity find in this practise a formidable foe, founded as it is on the best and most natural instincts of the it human heart. When a man dies one of his three souls is supposed to go into the grave with the body, one goes to Hades, and one goes into the tablet which is prepared for its occupancy by his oldest m The use of the tablet originated the Chau dynasty, 350 B. C. Rev. Dr. J. Campbell Gibson thus describes this resting place for the soul The tablet itself is a small block of wood eight inches to a son. foot in height and a few inches in breadth, on the front of which is written the name of the person whom it represents. It is sawn through its thickne into two portions, and on the Amraoti Am lev or an to 41 inner surface thus exposed the inscription of the name is repeated, and usually the date of birth and of death s added. This tablet is prepared soon after death takes place, and it is retained during one or two generations in the home of the Offerings are made to it from time to time. family. As the tablets of succe ive generations take their places in the home, those of earlier date are removed to join those of past generations in the ancestral temple. Every clan and every section of a clan has its oun ancestral temples, and few villages, however small, are without one at least. On the new and full of every moon special offerings and worship are paid, and in the spring pilgrimages are made to the tomb, which is swept and put in repair. There is no need of priestly interference in this worship; the head of the family is the high-priest, and as the older ones die the younger ones take their places in this as in all other family matters. Ancestor-worship binds family ties, it perpetuates mutual interest, and is the least objectionable and therefore the most dangerous form of pagan worship. While it is founded on high principles the reverence and love of parents it is, in fact, a duty rendered — — from motives of self-protection and self-interest, for if the tablet is not erected, if the worship be not paid, it is believed that the wandering spirit will wreak its wrath on the offending descendant. The fear of this wrath is more real, more vivid than the fear of any of the other gods. Each succeeding generation in bequeathing property a igns a portion to be used for the permanent maintenance of offerings on behalf of the The practise affects the laws of land dead. tenure; it modifies the laws of inheritance, giving a larger share of the property to the eldest son, because responsibility for keeping up the worship upon him. It also makes the birth of numerous daughters a calamity, because sons only can a ure maintenance of that worship rests which is supposed to benefit the departed soul. Ancestor-worship has been of benefit to China in this respect: it has preserved the reverence of parental authority, which reaching upward has caused national respect for the bead of the nation as the father of his people, and it has preserved the position of woman more on an equality with man, and has defined the position of the mother Only one “illustrious of the family as the wife. consort” can be named on the tablet to father and mother, so there is but one wife, tsih, in the family. Concubines there may be, but they are not admitted into the worship of the ancestral hall, and this one fact has done much to preserve the legal, social and domestic position of woman. Moreover, the system not only forms a link between the living and the past generations of the clan, but it also unites all contemporary branches descended from a common stock. In fact it has been said that Ancestor-worship is the only point upon which all the Chinese unite. This peculiarity of the effects of the worship of In ancestors is seen wherever it is practiced. ancient Greece and Rome, as among the wild tribes of Africa to-day, the tie of blood relationship to a common object of worship always tended to knit the clans or tribes together into a close corporation, admi ion to which was almost impo ible. It also tended to cultivate an exclusivene which regarded all who are not members of the tribe as barbarians without rights and to whom enmity is a duty. In Africa this natural enmity is sometimes set aside and a stranger is admitted to security by mingling his blood with that of a tribal chief. In this ceremony, intended to establish a sort of blood relationship between the foreigner and the savage tribe, there is ample reason for believing that its effect in requiring the foreigner to venerate the ancestors of the tribe is presupposed by those who accept him as a friend. The Christianity formed barrier against by Ancestor-worship is solid and hard to pa . In China the people feel a shock of pain and revulsion on learning that Christians do not worship their deceased parents. When a Chinese becomes converted and abandons the practise he is regarded as having inflicted irreparable injury upon all of his ancestors. He has perhaps reduced them all to beggary. The stigma resting upon Christians is the more ineffaceable and painful to endure because at the spring “feast of All-souls”, every person in the Chinese Empire except the Evangelical Christians takes part in the worship of the dead. Under these circumstances many wise men have advised against a too rigid rejection of Ancestor worship, which may after all be nearly akin to filial respect. But the attitude of Christianity to this form of worship can easily be determined when its true character is understood. Dr. E. Faber succinctly stated its position when the question was discu ed in the Mi ionary Conference of 1890. In brief, “Ancestral worship presupposes disembodied souls to be subject to the same wants as living bodies; it demands real sacrifices to them; it makes the happine of the living depend upon appeasing the desires of the dead; it is not merely commemorative, but it is a pretended intercourse with the world of spirits; it has developed an extreme view of paternal authority, placing it above the authority of God,, and crushes individual liberty and it chains millions of people to the past and prevents sound progre . (J. C), Mi ion Problems in S. China, New York,, Revell, 1900; Yates (M. T.), Ancestral Worship, Shanghai, 1867; Maine (H.), Early Law and Custom; Seebohm (H. E.), Structure of Greek Tribal Society, London; Religious System of the Amazulu; Ancestor Worship, Call away (H.), London, 1870. Gibson AN-CHIA-CHWANG A town in the province of Shan-tung, China; station of the ME, with 6 native workers, men and women, 2 village schools, 2 outstations and 200 church members. AND A MAN ISLANDS A long narrow group of’:: small islands in the eastern part of the Bay of” They inBengal. Area, 2,000 square miles. clude the North, Middle, South and Little And a man islands, with a number of islets, and all are They are used as a penal col densely wooded. ony. The climate is very unhealthy. The population in 1901 was 17,500 of whom 11,465 were convicts and 1,882 native aborigines. The natives are a diminutive and barbarous people, who seem to be distinct from all other known races in physical features, language, and customs. The people of these islands are averse to inter Their religion is little course with strangers. known but seems to consist of worship of good and evil deities. Mi ionary effort has been mainly directed toward the convicts at Port Blair. 59