s curiosity no longer,
and tilting up the bell saw that the dog had changed into a man
all except his head, the last day being required to complete the
transformation. However, the spell was now broken, and the result was
a man with a dog's head. Since it was the Chief's fault that, through
his over-inquisitiveness, the dog could not become altogether a man,
he was obliged to keep his promise, and the wedding duly took place,
the bridegroom's head being veiled for the occasion by a red mantilla.

The Origin of a Custom

Unfortunately the fruit of the union took more after their father
than their mother, and though comely of limb had exceedingly ugly
features. [50] They were therefore obliged to continue to wear the
head-covering adopted by their father at the marriage ceremony, and
this became so much an integral part of the tribal costume that not
only has it been worn ever since by their descendants, but a change
of headgear has become synonymous with a change of husbands or a
divorce. One account says that at the original bridal ceremony the
bride wore the red mantilla to prevent her seeing her husband's ugly
features, and that is why the headdress is worn by the women and not by
the men, or more generally by the former than the latter, though others
say that it was originally worn by the ugly children of both sexes.

And of a Worship

This legend explains the dog-worship of the Jung tribe, which now
consists of four clans, with a separate surname (Lei, Chung, Lang,
and Pan) to each, has a language of its own, and does not intermarry
with the Foochow natives. At about the time of the old Chinese New
Year (somewhere in February) they paint a large figure of a dog on a
screen and worship it, saying it is their ancestor who was victorious
over the Western invader.

Conclusion

If the greatness of nations is to be judged by the greatness of
their myths (using the word 'great' in the sense of world-famous
and of perennial influence), there would be few great nations, and
China would not be one of them. As stated in an earlier chapter, the
design has been to give an account of Chinese myth as it is, and not
as it might have been under imaginary conditions. But for the Chinese
philosophers we should in all probability have had more Chinese myths,
but philosophy is unifying, and without it we might have had a break-up
of China and perhaps no myths at all, or none specially belonging to
China as a whole and se