Note 35 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

A home belief in the efficacy of burying the dead in woollen clothes, and originating in an Act passed in the reign of Charles II. “for the encouragement of the woollen and paper manufactures of the kingdom,” has its parallel in China. They here think that every one should be buried in his best clothes, but in some localities except the use of satin or a girdle, on account of the characters which signify those articles being pronounced in the local dialect the same as words signifying “to cut short—sons,” and so implying the speedy death of the sons of the family. The usual rule is to select silk, crape, or the finest cotton for grave clothes,35 care being always taken to put two more articles of dress on the upper than on the lower part of a corpse: thus it will have 3 jackets and 1 pair of trowsers, 5 jackets and 3 pairs trowsers, and so on, the very rich being buried in as many as nine upper garments. The corpse is then bound with long strips of cloth, two of which must be white and one red. After swathing, the ends are tied in an “auspicious knot;” and as many of these knots are tied at various places on the body as the material used will allow.