Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/493

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SECT. I.
THE NÊI 𝖅EH.
459

higher in official rank than he, they should not presume to enter his house with (the demonstrations of) their wealth and dignity. Although they may have in attendance many chariots and footmen, these should stop outside, and they enter it in more simple style with a few followers.

If to any of the younger cousins there have been given vessels, robes, furs, coverlets, carriages and horses, he must offer the best of them (to his chief), and then use those that are inferior to this himself. If what he should thus offer be not proper for the chief, he will not presume to enter with it at his gate, not daring to appear with his wealth and dignity, to be above him who is the head of all the clan with its uncles and elder cousins.

A wealthy cousin should prepare two victims, and present the better of them to his chief. He and his wife should together, after self-purification, reverently assist at his sacrifice in the ancestral temple. When the business of that is over, they may venture to offer their own private sacrifice.

21. Of grain food, there were millet, the glutinous rice, rice, maize, the white millet, and the yellow maize, cut when ripe, or when green.

Of prepared meats, there were beef soup, mutton soup, pork soup, and roast beef; pickle, slices of

beef, pickle and minced beef; roast mutton, slices


    the chieftain of the clan. They are heads of subordinate branches of it. They may have become more wealthy and attained to higher rank in the service of their common ruler, but within the limits of the clan, he is their superior, and has duties of sacrifice to the ancestors of it, with which they cannot of themselves intermeddle.