THE RED SPEARS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 184, 2 May 1929, Page 17

THE RED SPEARS

A BUDDHIST BROTHERHOOD. Most newspaper readers have been puzzled by occasional references in news despatches from the Ear East to Chinese troops termed “The Red Spears,’’ whose elusive leaders have been using them for this purpose and that in the far interior. They are not, as a matter of fact, troops in the usual sense of the word. They might be described as an adult Buddhist Church Lads’ Brigade, with the functions of special constables, under the combined control of the local church and the village (or rural district) council. Nowhere else in the world have they a counterpart. Their formal name is The Buddhist Brotherhood of Sacred Soldiers of the Virtuous Way. They ■ act as organised militiamen or special constables, purely on the defensive, as local patriots, deputed to save their district from the depredations alike of bandits and roving armies. The bandits get Short shrift; the soldiers—who have always been looked on by the Chinese farmer and peasant smallholder as pretty well as bad as bandits and locusts—are not attacked at sight, but warned. If they then loot or billet themselves too long on the district they too are subjected to a kind of harassing guerilla warfare. The Generalissimo of these protectors of the countryman is Hsiang Tin-Pu, a devout Buddhist. AU his followers, too, are supposed to be devotees of the faith. They are expected to pray morning and evening, and before going into action, and to worship in a temple once a week. It is impressed on them that their mission is religious even more than secular. As in the case of the Buddhist priesthood of Mongolia, every Buddhist family is expected to supply a man. There is no age limit. The men are all local persons, labourers, farmers, shopkeepers, and village school teachers. They serve without pay, but are ready for a call to duty at any moment. Each Red Spear recruit swears assent to an oath, which runs thus : 1. You shall not have any private and personal motive for joining the brotherhood. 2. You shall not reveal any of the secrets of the brotherhood. 3. You shall reverence your father and mother, nnd all officers of the brotherhood. 4. You shall not depart from the path of virtue, nor despise heaven. 5. You shall not covet, nor love, wealth. He is informed simultaneously that the punishment of a breach of any clause is death; by the sword, in the case of clauses 1,2, and 5; by lightning. in the case of clause 3; and by fire in the,case of clause 4. Having taken the oath, the recruit is handed a talisman, a small piece of red paper which he is supposed to scan, and then to swallow, as an aid to immunity from bullets. The Red Sponrs destroy all rifles and revolvers which fall into their hands, and arm themselves only with spears, pikes, and swords, declaring that foreign weapons have become the curse of China.