Note 38 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

A superstition prevails amongst the Chinese regarding “watching spirits” to which I am tempted to accord a rather lengthy notice. The unwillingness of the natives to help a drowning man, or any one in absolute peril of life, is based upon a belief that the ghost of the last man killed, always acts as watchman of the purgatory into which, according to Chinese belief, the spirit of the departed first enter, and from which he can only be relieved by the arrival of a fresh defunct. If, therefore, a man’s life be saved, the spirit of the person who died last before him is, in a manner, cheated out of his relief, and will assuredly haunt the person whose misplaced humanity has condemned it to a fresh term of dismal servitude. Now this belief in a “watching spirit” is essentially Gaelic: and the following extract from a recent issue of the Inverness Courier shews a parallelism so close as to be very singular. A correspondent writes:—“I was sailing past the beautiful island of St. Mungo, in Loch Leven, the burial place for many centuries of the people of Nether-Lochaber and Glencoe, when the following conversation took place between myself and an old man who managed the sails while I steered. It was all in Gaelic, of course, but I give the substance in English:—‘You were at the funeral on the island the other day, sir?’ interrogatively observed my companion. ‘I was, indeed,’ I replied. ‘John ——,’ he continued, naming the deceased, ‘was a very decent man.’ ‘He was a fine old Highlander, shrewd and intelligent,’ I replied, ‘and, what is more, I believe a very good man.’ ‘Donald ——,’ naming a person we both knew, ‘is very ill, and not likely to last long.’ ‘I saw him to-day,’ I observed, ‘and I fear that what you say is true: he cannot last long.’ ‘Well, sir, it will be a good thing for John —— (the person recently buried): his term of watching will be a short one.’ ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ I observed, with some curiosity. ‘The man is dead and buried; what watching should he have to do?’ ‘Why, sir, don’t you know that the spirit of the last person buried in the island has to keep watch and ward over the graves till the spirit of the next person buried takes his place?’ ‘I really did not know that,’ I replied. ‘Is it a common opinion that such is the case, and do you believe it yourself?’ ‘Well, sir, it is generally believed by the people; and having always heard that it was so, I cannot well help believing it too. The spirit whose watch it is is present there day and night. Some people have seen them; my mother, God rest her! once pointed out to me, when I was a little boy, an appearance, as of a flame of light on the island, slowly moving backwards and forwards, and she assured me it was the watching spirit going his rounds.’ ‘What particular object has the spirit in watching?’ I asked. ‘Well, I don’t exactly know,’ was the answer. ‘He just takes a sort of general charge of the Island of the Dead, until his successor arrives.’ I have since found that a belief in this superstition is common among the old people. The spirit or ghost is supposed to be to a certain extent unhappy and impatient of relief while in the discharge of this office, and thus, it is considered that the sooner after a funeral there is occasion again for the opening of a grave, the better it is for the spirit of the last person interred, who then, and not till then, passes finally and fully to his rest.”38