"M. Polo Reports, That The Chinese Worship Their God Offering Incense,
Raising Their Hands Aloft, And Gnashing Their Teeth.
Of course he means
that they placed the hands together, or held kindled joss-stick bundles in
their hands, according to the Chinese custom.
The statement of M. Polo
sbattendo i denti is very remarkable. It seems to me, that very few of
the Chinese are aware of the fact, that this custom still exists among the
Taouists. In the rituals of the Taouists the K'ow-ch'i (Ko'w = 'to
knock against,'ch'i = 'teeth') is prescribed as a comminatory and
propitiatory act. It is effected by the four upper and lower foreteeth.
The Taouists are obliged before the service begins to perform a certain
number of 'K'ow-ch'i, turning their heads alternately to the left and to
the right, in order to drive away mundane thoughts and aggressions of bad
spirits. The K'ow-ch'i repeated three times is called ming fa ku in
Chinese, i.e. 'to beat the spiritual drum.' The ritual says, that it is
heard by the Most High Ruler, who is moved by it to grace.
"M. Polo observed this custom among the lay heathen. Indeed, it appears
from a small treatise, written in China more than a hundred years before
M. Polo, that at the time the Chinese author wrote, all devout men,
entering a temple, used to perform the K'ow-ch'i, and considered it an
expression of veneration and devotion to the idols. Thus this custom had
been preserved to the time of M. Polo, who did not fail to mention this
strange peculiarity in the exterior observances of the Chinese.
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