This Language In
Modern Mongolia Answers To The Latin Of The Mass Book, Indeed With A
Curious Exactness, For In Both Cases The Holy Tongue Is Not That Of The
Original Propagators Of The Respective Religions, But That Of The
Hierarchy Which Has Assumed Their Government.
In the Lamaitic convents of
China and Manchuria also the Tibetan only is used in worship, except at
one privileged temple at Peking.
(Koeppen, II. 288.) The language
intended by Polo may, however, have been a Chinese dialect. (See notes 1
and 4.) The Nestorians must have been tolerably numerous in Tangut, for it
formed a metropolitan province of their Church.
NOTE 3. - A practice resembling this is mentioned by Pallas as existing
among the Buddhist Kalmaks, a relic of their old Shaman superstitions,
which the Lamas profess to decry, but sometimes take part in. "Rich
Kalmaks select from their flock a ram for dedication, which gets the name
of Tengri Tockho, 'Heaven's Ram.' It must be a white one with a yellow
head. He must never be shorn or sold, but when he gets old, and the owner
chooses to dedicate a fresh one, then the old one must be sacrificed. This
is usually done in autumn, when the sheep are fattest, and the neighbours
are called together to eat the sacrifice. A fortunate day is selected, and
the ram is slaughtered amid the cries of the sorcerer directed towards the
sunrise, and the diligent sprinkling of milk for the benefit of the
Spirits of the Air. The flesh is eaten, but the skeleton with a part of
the fat is burnt on a turf altar erected on four pillars of an ell and a
half high, and the skin, with the head and feet, is then hung up in the
way practised by the Buraets." (Sammlungen, II. 346.)
NOTE 4. - Several of the customs of Tangut mentioned in this chapter are
essentially Chinese, and are perhaps introduced here because it was on
entering Tangut that the traveller first came in contact with Chinese
peculiarities. This is true of the manner of forming coffins, and keeping
them with the body in the house, serving food before the coffin whilst it
is so kept, the burning of paper and papier-mache figures of slaves,
horses, etc., at the tomb. Chinese settlers were very numerous at Shachau
and the neighbouring Kwachau, even in the 10th century. (Ritter, II.
213.) ["Keeping a body unburied for a considerable time is called khng
koan, 'to conceal or store away a coffin,' or thing koan, 'to detain a
coffin.' It is, of course, a matter of necessity in such cases to have the
cracks and fissures, and especially the seam where the case and the lid
join, hermetically caulked. This is done by means of a mixture of chunam
and oil. The seams, sometimes even the whole coffin, are pasted over with
linen, and finally everything is varnished black, or, in case of a
mandarin of rank, red.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 403 of 655
Words from 210351 to 210852
of 342071
