Offering Paper

About this object

History of use

Hakka and Cantonese people in Hong Kong who practice Chinese popular religion burn paper offerings as a way of transmitting them to gods and ancestors, as do other Chinese sub-ethnic groups. The imagery of the offerings represents actual objects such as clothing, money, gold and silver ingots, and even special objects believed to be desired by individual ancestors such as cars, servants, and houses. People believe that ancestors receive them as actual objects to be used by them in the underworld. These are offered during funeral rituals and at ancestors’ graves and tombs when ancestors are worshipped during festivals dedicated to this purpose, Ching Ming in the spring and Chung Yeung in the autumn. In addition, incense and candles are burned as offerings for both gods and ancestors. Paper representations of robes may be burned as offerings to ancestors, who are often portrayed in paintings as Qing Dynasty officials despite the fact the fact that they were ordinary people. Burial clothes of elderly people may have details such as rank badges that make them appear to have had official status, and paper robes burned for them serve the same function, and may be believed to give them high status in the underworld. Simpler ones like these are of uncertain use. People also make offerings of food, wine, and tea to both gods and ancestors. The food offerings are carefully prepared and arranged on serving dishes, and placed on special tables in front of the altars in temples, halls for worshipping ancestors, and shrines dedicated to particular gods. There is a hierarchy of gods and the highest are worshipped first, although not all may be worshipped in sequence. The highest are the Heavenly Gods and individual high-ranking gods with responsibility for particular territories or people in particular occupational or other categories. These gods may have temples devoted to them. Below them are gods responsible for protecting villages, wells, etc. and who have shrines where they are worshipped. Below them are gods who protect households. These gods are sometimes represented by images, but are often represented by wooden plaques painted red and inscribed with the name of the god. There are differences among the ritual practices of various south Chinese sub-ethnic groups. Hakka people worship with a whole chicken, pork, and sometimes a whole roast pig, and squid, as well as fruit. They also do not differentiate the paper offerings, and simply burn them all together. Cantonese people offer them separately, and use a whole chicken, cut up, when worshipping gods, together with a fish, a bowl of rice, and fruit. Hakka people burn incense and candles on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month, while Cantonese people should worship every morning and evening. Low-grade paper offerings are also used to placate ghosts in some situations. Some groups make special offerings to wandering ghosts in the 7th month, when they are released from the underworld, or on other occasions.

Narrative

From a ritual goods shop in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. Mrs. Kwok Fung, Yin-ha, of Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong, gave invaluable help to Elizabeth Johnson in the selection and purchase of these offering materials, a complete set of those needed by a household, and in explaining their meaning and how they were used. The use of multiples of representations of simple robes is uncertain.

Physical description

Paper offering consisting of a set of ten pieces of multicoloured tissue paper, each T-shaped with two white tissue paper triangles adhered to the sides of the vertical segment. Each leaf has an overall geometric pattern in red ink.