CHINESE BURIALS.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 66, 3 February 1883, Page 3

CHINESE BURIALS.

— ♦ We gather from the Tuapeka Times that the Chinamen in that district still keep up the custom of sending home the remains of their dead for final burhtl. Our contemporary says: —"The Chinese have now nearly finished the work of exhumation of the bodies of their Celestial brethren. The modus operandi pursued is to gather together the bones of eacii consumed corpse into a calico bag, thereafter enclosing the same in acornsackand putt ing a label thereon, so as to show the identity of the bones, four of these bngs being put into » leadeti coilin anil afterwards enclosed io a wooden one. Uuconsumed bodies are put each into c leaden coffin nnd a'terwards enclosed in a wooden box, the eadeu coffins bein^ sill well sol d'-ml tu»t'tlier, and the wooden ones irmly screwed down. A number of professional "hinese resurrectionists, who it is said, get £;0 for e lT ery body lesiurected, have been enpa^ed, and these carry on ihe work i.f manipulating tbe remains in an apparently nonchalant aud unconcerned manner, the sij^ht to any stranger, especially of delicate nervous organisation, being aity thing but a pleasant one. The cofh'us which had formerly Held the dead are all burned. A vessel from hina will tak<: the bodies to Canton upon their arrival at Port Chalmers."