Chinese

Walk The Fires

Fire-walking, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , has been practised over the ages in China and in the time of Kublai Khan. Taoist Buddhists held a great festival of the High Emperor of the Sombre Heavens. The priests walked through a great fire carrying images of the gods. They held that they would be unscathed if they had faith but they were, in fact, severely burnt. Frazer’s Golden Bough describes a fire-walking festival held by the Dosadhs, an Indian caste in Behar and Chota Nag pur. The encyclopaedia comments: "The interesting part of fire-walking is the alleged immunity of the per formers from burns. On this point, authorities and eyewitnesses differ greatly”.

It also quotes Frazer regarding the fire-walkers of the Chinese province of Fukien where the chief performers were labourers. They fasted for three days and had no sex relations for a week during which time they were taught by the priests in the temple how they were to perform their task.

The encyclopaedia makes no mention of flagellation or the use of skewers in connection with fire-walking.

A girl and a woman, palms clasped with flowers between them in the tra ditional Hindu sign of worship, walk over the fire-pit. Fol lowing them is a man dressed regally like a goddess.