[VOL II] FEAST OF LANTERNS

FEAST OF LANTERNS

Cover Image: Feast of China Lanterns / China / Drawn by Unknown Engraved by R.Sands – ALAMY Image ID:2X3H91Y

*The title page of the second volume mentions the Lantern Festival, which is a traditional Chinese festival celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar new year. It symbolizes the arrival of spring. During this festival, Chinese people traditionally eat sweet rice dumpling, enjoy lantern displays, and participate in riddle guessing to celebrate and make wishes.Engraved by R.Sands, from a Painting in the possession of the East India Company.

“They gave themselves up to a superstition, the lights of which mocked their own darkness.”

JOHNES.

NO hebdomadal rest, or day of worship, belongs to Chinese idolatry, but feasts, or festivals, or processions, are held occasionally, in honour of some fabled monster, some contemptible superstition, or some great natural object. Funeral processions, as well as marriage ceremonies, are amongst their festivities; the feast of “the Dragon-boat” is perhaps the most silly of their exhibitions, and the feast of lanterns the most magnificent and universal. Each year is commenced by a day of public rejoicings, the festival being held on the first day of the first moon, which falls in the middle of February. Labour is then suspended for forty days, visits of ceremony paid by the rich, and gaiety of all sorts indulged in by the poor. It is during this festive season, that the most superstitious light a taper at the altar of some neighbouring temple, with which they proceed directly towards their homes. If the light escape unextinguished, the votary is to be prosperous; but if otherwise, his lot will be as the darkness around him.

On the fifteenth of this moon, the feast of lanterns is celebrated; it was instituted during the Tang dynasty, but did not find that general acceptance which it now enjoys, for three centuries later. Notwithstanding its resemblance to the Egyptian “feast of lights,” its object is imperfectly understood, and it now appears to be little more than an annual occasion for the exercise and display of the nation, in the manufacture of lanterns and the pyrotechnic art. On this occasion the whole empire is illuminated from one end to the other, as we are told by Herodotus, that Egypt used to be “from the cataracts of the Nile to the Mediterranean.” Every elevated point is decorated with a lantern; every house, turret, temple, bridge, and boat, is adorned by these resident national emblems. Nor is the number, said to exceed two hundred million, that is employed in their shape, design, and material. Birds, beasts, fishes, the whole animal kingdom, is made tributary to the occasion, by furnishing forms; fancy supplies the designs painted on the transparent panels of each lustre; and, pearl-shell, mica, horn, glass paper, cotton, silk, and other fabrics, are pressed into the service of the manufacturers. While these lights remain suspended from the house-tops, every subject of his Imperial majesty is also supplied with a hand-lantern, and in front of each dwelling fireworks continue to be displayed, until both purse and powder are exhausted.

Visits are paid, by lengthened processions, to the different halls of Confucius, and temples of Fo; the actors in these pantomimes bearing an infinite variety of emblems, all, however, of the lantern family. Some lanterns resemble illuminated fish, continually spitting fire from their mouths; others, the favourite dragon, from whose eyes flames of fire dart at intervals; the figure of an animal suddenly bursts out into a terrible explosion, or rises majestically into a pyramid of flame. The effect in the darkness of night is highly amusing; as the object is always elevated on the top of a pole, the air seems filled with birds, fish, and quadrupeds, passing and repassing in all directions.

No people, perhaps, excel so much in the pyrotechnic art as the Celestials, of which their festivals afford the most convincing demonstration. During the late war, upon a temporary cessation of hostilities, the Cantonese treated their visitors with a specimen of their ability in this peculiar accomplishment, the following account of which is taken from a volume, modest in pretensions, but in execution meritorious.( *Ten Thousand Things relating to China and the Chinese, by W. B. Langdon, Esq.)

“A representation was made of an immense vine arbour, which burned without consuming; the trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit, appeared in their natural colours, with occasional, butterflies flitting among their branches. This succeeded an immense number of rockets, which formed themselves into innumerable stars, serpents, comets, and flying dragons. This magnificent display was followed by a grand discharge, on all sides, of a shower of fire, with which was intermixed variegated lanterns, some with sentences written on them, together with figures of fruit, flowers, and fans. Then ascended a display of columns, formed by rings of light, which lasted a few minutes, and was unequalled in brilliancy by any previous device. At last the grand finale took place; the Chinese dragon, of an immense size, appeared in all his majesty, surrounded by ten thousand winged reptiles, standards and banners, when, in an instant, appeared, upon the back of the monster, the figure of the emperor in blue lights. These successively changed to yellow, and lastly to the most intense white. A deafening report now rent the air, while a green veil rose over the emperor, from the midst of which a volcano of rockets ascended.”

END OF VOL. II.