HEAD BURNING RITES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 8

HEAD BURNING RITES

INCENSE SEARS SCALPS. The roofs of Kui Ling Si, ancient forest temple, could be seen in the distance. It was early morning and raining softly. We crossed the fields, now walking on a narrow cobblestone road, now on the narrower paths that lead betwen the fields. Past young bamboo groves with stalks so close that the rain did not penetrate, and in this natural cage birds were singing; past green fields and brown mud houses ; across a hill bumpy with graves, says a writer in an American paper. Within the gates all was quiet. All the usual activity of a temple was today concentrated in the hall of the Buddhas where sixty young priests were to have burned on their heads the outward and visible signs of vows taken. We passed between The two round stones with the phoenix bird carved on them into the lower court, for we heard the droning voice of a priest. Across this quadrangle we saw a ragged crowd of Chinese men in blue, and above them, inside the building, a tremendous gilded Buddha not at all unpleasing. A grey-padded priest smiled at us and motioned in the direction of the crowd and the golden Buddha.

Inside in a dirty garish robe sat the abbot of the monastery behind a lectern. A curtain had been draped in front of the Buddha so that only the upper part was visible at each side of the abbot stood four assistants in mussy black robes, and in front knelt the sixty novices with brown grass linen over their padded grey robes. The fore part of their heads had been shaved, and on the nearer ones could be seen the round marks indicating the place to be burned. Here was none of the glory and richness of the East; but, lacking that, there was the dignity of the East. With the exception of the abbot, these priests were young, and a Chinese youth’s face has something clean and polished about it, entirely unrelated to the cleanliness of soap and water.

The droning of the abbot stopped; His assistants began giving instructions in a high nasal sing-song, very disagreeable to the Western ear. The novices moved to one, side, the abbot left hastily and alone. The novices knelt again and each was given a small yellow package; the abbot returned. From quiet and worship, the temple became excited and busy. Only the novices remained immovable on their knees. About six in the front row bristled with conical pieces of incense, which had been stuck on by the bustling assistants. A priest examined the placing of the cones critically. The spectators began to press close about the abbot and the novice who knelt before, him. He graciously gave permission for the Westerners to use their Kodaks. Attendants were moving here and there, probably remembering their own service and the pain of the fire and wondering how these would take it. When each cone of incense was lit a priest placed his hands on each side of the novice’s head and began to chant. From all parts of the temple priests were chanting independently and the hubbub filled the place. In this confusion only the neophytes knelt motionless.

Slowly the ring of fire burned down. The chanting priest would relieve the nerve tension by stratching the back of the novice’s head. The fire neared the flesh. Suddenly all the muscles in the body would contract and the novice would clutch at the priest’s robe. He would begin a responsive chant which was really a quick, nervous moan. Another cone would burn down and yet another and another. The perspiration would stand out on the neck and head. There was the odour of burning flesh.

Now it is over, the priest was dusting a powder on the. drawn, burned skin. The youth would get up, wipe the teams from his eyes, and smile proudly. Then, taking his square of grass linen, he would kneel and touch his head to the floor three times before each of the eighteen representations of the Buddha.

The place was becoifiing a bedlam. Here a novice cried out in pain and here one—but only one—screamed and wept and refused to go further. All sense of ceremony was gone. Two women with fore part of the head shaved appeared in an inconspicuous corner and reminded us that there are Buddhist nuns. The calm Buddha, seated on lotus, looked down. But now we seemed to be detached from his calmness and more in harmony with the scowling, grinning Buddhas along the sides of the temples. Before these the novices were busily kowtowing. ’ Where was I? What was I? I looked into the faces of the foreigners, Christians. There was written a mixture of disdain, curiosity, pity. These the faces said plainly, are pagan rites. They were right, of course, but then every religion has its paganism and its spiritual heights.