Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1919 — HOW KOREANS HONOR DEAO [ARTICLE]

HOW KOREANS HONOR DEAO

Weird Ceremonies Commemorative of the Departed One Described by American Woman Traveler. A little round-facud nua from- the nunnery up the ruountainsiile above the monastery was giving a commeinorsitlve service for her dead fiSrents. We "WTEut into the temple about eight ■o’clock. It was almost dark ins Me. The one large standing Buddha, was dimly lit by four tapers set in high • tands. Before him on tiie altar stood I'l copper plates piled high with different kinds of breads and above these were heaped rakes and fruit between the artifi<-i:ii flowers. To one si<)< were the nuiLS_frlmi the nearby nunnery with shaven heads, and baggj white trousers and long gray robes ex actly like the priests. The faces were indistinct in the dimness. Hour aftei hour we sat cross-legged on mats. Ah around us was the sound of intoning “Kwanzean Posal, Kwanzean Po<al Kwanzean Posal, Kwanzean Posal, with slow genuflections, till the bead touched tiie floor, slow risings, then genuflections, endlessly repeated. The abbot struck on a wooden gong, faster and faster came the calls to Kwanzean Posal; the incense from tiie censer fillet! the -room. The reiterat ion of the liturgy grew almost hypnotizing —then suddenly when I felt that I could beat it no longer, the neophytes carried in numbers of little tables, one for each priest, lighted a candle on each, spread out one of the holy books and retired silently. The candles brought the faces into sudden relief against the darkness. At a signal the bonzes. opened their books; each chose whatever passage he .wished and began intoning. each voice at a different key and rhythm and words, yet all blending together Into a. twisted strand of sound. And over the genuflecting monks and the funny wrinkled roundfaced nuns stood the one dim golden -Buddha-with folded hands. —At -Iwoo’clock —in the morning beneath a westerning moon the priest, led by the abbot, filed out and performed what looked for all the world like a solemn snake dance in the middle of the court. We were each presented with a large pink lotus, and then all marched to a lower terrace, where in the shadow of the gateway they read for a last- time the names of the dead, and then consigned the heaps of flowers to the fire, that writhed like a tortured dragon spitting out sparks of burning petals high in the air.—Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, in Asia Magazine.