Note 2 — V.—CHARMS, SPELLS, AMULETS AND DIVINATIONS.

It is possible, that, though everybody knows how fire-crackers are used by the Chinese to frighten off evil spirits, all readers are not aware that they are charms pure and simple; the original intention of their manufacture being to imitate the crackling of burning bamboos which were supposed to frighten away a race of malignant demons called Shan siao—“beings in human shape, a foot or so in height, and by nature very fearless,” or according to another account a bird with a nest as big as a five bushel measure.2 Mr. W. F. Mayers, in his interesting article on gunpowder and firearms in China, in the Journal of the N. C. B. R. A. S. for 1869–70, ingeniously suggests that these demons are but the embodiment of the supernatural agency visible in the attacks of fever and ague to which the inhabitants of the swampy regions of Western China were, and still are, liable. I quote his remarks: “The Chinese themselves do not appear to have pursued any investigation respecting the origin or meaning of the term Shan siao, but, guided by the date of its appearance in literature and its foreign garb, we may with some confidence, ascribe the belief in this demon to an Indian parentage. As regards the myth itself, it may be permitted to hazard the speculation that fever and ague, lurking as it did and still does in the swampy regions of Western China, may, by a very familiar process, have become embodied in the conception of a supernatural agency, and that the fires which native wisdom or foreign counsel might suggest as a prophylactic device may have been invested with magical attributes, either by teachers who thought it best to fortify sanitary precautions with a cloak of fetishism, or else by the inherited tradition of succeeding ages. However this may be, the idea of exorcism, dating as far back as the sixth century, has remained inseparably connected with the use of fire-crackers down to the present day.” And in a note on the same page the writer adds that subsequently to an execution taking place at Canton in 1868 in a public square, the inhabitants of the locality were not satisfied until they had exorcised the ghost of the departed criminal by a protracted discharge of crackers. It is not difficult to trace a similar motive in the custom which obtains of honouring the departure of a popular resident in any place, in a similar manner. The crackers are to frighten away all demons from the traveller. Such a compliment is frequently paid to foreigners by their Chinese acquaintances in Hongkong. It may, I think, be taken as certain that crackers are charms pure and simple to the Chinese, their use as mere noise-producing fireworks being secondary to the idea of exorcism.