Note 157 — Chapter VIII · VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS AND FOLK-LORE
Reading edition
There is some reason to believe that the Hearth-god was once regarded as an anonymous ancestor of the family, though nowadays this relationship is ignored. The Chinese Tsao shên may be compared with the Japanese Kojin. For some valuable notes on Hearth-worship in general, see Gomme's Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life, pp. 87 seq. The cult of a hearth-god has been known in western Europe and also in New Zealand.