BOOK VIII—SUPERSTITIOUS DREAD
Things to be Avoided (忌諱), chi wei
The first question of importance in Ssŭch‘uan is how to gain a livelihood; the people say that every thing else is false, hunger only is real. But next to satisfying hunger, comes the great art of appeasing and hoodwinking demons. There can be little doubt that superstitious dread haunts most people from youth to old age. A young woman well known to us happened to overlay her child in the night, and next day she showed no signs of grief or trouble; on being pressed for a reason, she replied, "Oh, we must cheat the demon;" the idea being that if she had shown any sorrow, the demon would have come and taken the other child also. Much of the callous exterior of this people is not real, but put on for fear of demons.
Lucky days are chosen for almost every event of importance in life; beginning an education, starting on a journey, opening shop at New Year time, marriages, funerals, changing houses, repairing or building houses, will not only be begun on a lucky day, but in a lucky year. It has seemed to me that the day of a person's birth and the day of his death are the only events which they make no pretence at controlling.
Odd numbers are more lucky than even ones; for example, an odd number of days must elapse between a death
