Death in the Dog Days

In The Year of the Dog the eleventh day of the eleventh month is an auspicious one for the offering of sacrifices; the twelfth day favors the digging of graves, the making of coffins, and the burial of the dead. On the night of Nov. 11, 36 black-robed Taoist priests gathered in the compound of Peiping's ancient and beautiful Paiyunkuan (White Cloud temple). They had come to sit in judgment, and to propitiate the Taoist gods.

From their monastic quarters near the main temple, the priests dragged the abbot of Paiyunkuan, An Shih-lin, and his favorite priest, Pai Chin-yi. In the flickering light of oil lamps, a bitter trial began. The priestly jury found the abbot and his henchman guilty of illegal relations with women (kept in a house beyond the temple walls); of squandering temple funds (to buy heroin); and of starving two Chinese because they refused to collaborate with the Japs.

Soon after midnight, as the lamps burned low, the wailing abbot and priest were blinded with quicklime and bound hand & foot. They were stretched on a pyre of straw, twigs and wood outside the temple doors, saturated with gasoline, and set on fire. Long black shadows danced against the surrounding trees, and a strange perfume infused the darkness above the crackling bonfire.

As the bodies cooled and dawn of the twelfth day, the day of burial, began to streak the temple walls, the priests carried the charred remnants of the abbot and his aide to a pair of graves a li away. The 36 judges and executioners listed the dead men's crimes on a great sheet of yellow paper and nailed it near the temple doors. Solemnly, then, the priests surrendered to the police, said: "We have chosen to perish together."

The police (who had disregarded complaints against the abbot) now investigated. They found public sentiment in favor of the lynching. Said a farmer: "I have very little opinion, but I think if the abbot had been a good man he would not have been killed. I think he must have been bad for the priests to kill him."

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