A one-of-a-kind state funeral will be held this month for the founder of Bendigo's Golden Dragon Museum, Russell Jack AM.
Russell Goldfield (Louey Yeung Man) Jack AM, died on August 11.
Mr Jack will be farewelled in Bendigo on Saturday, August 29, in a traditional Cantonese mourning lion ceremony, the first funeral of its kind in the regional Victorian city in more than a century.
A long-serving leader of the Bendigo Chinese Association, Mr Jack established the famous Golden Dragon Museum to ensure traditions brought to the Bendigo goldfields by generations of Chinese Australians were shared and remembered.
He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1993 for service to the preservation of Bendigo's Chinese heritage and culture.
Former premier Jacinta Allan paid tribute to Mr Russell, who she said "played a giant role in shaping" her hometown of Bendigo.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll said Russell loved Bendigo and Bendigo loved him.
“Over Russell’s lifetime of service, he built an enduring legacy for his community and our state,” he said.
Mr Jack's daughter, Anita Jack, said it was fitting her father's farewell would "return to one of the oldest and most solemn traditions of southern Chinese culture".
The traditional but rarely seen Cantonese white mourning lion will travel with Mr Jack to the Bendigo Cemetery, where the people of Bendigo will be invited to take part and pay their respects.
The lion was made by celebrated Hong Kong dragon maker, Hui Ka Hung of Hung C Lau company, who brought to life the city’s newest imperial dragon, Dai Gum Loong, which debuted in 2019.
Ms Jack travelled to Hong Kong to pay respect to Mr Hung and receive the gift of the mourning lion.
Unlike the famous Chinese imperial dragons Dai Gum Loong, Sun Loong and Loong, which are synonymous with the Bendigo Easter Festival, the white mourning lion is not a celebration lion.
Ms Jack said the mourning lion was also known as a filial lion, associated with mourning, filial piety and the final farewell to the deceased.
"White mourning lions traditionally appear at funerals of respected elders, masters and community leaders and perform solemn bows and kneeling movements before the deceased," she said.
The lion will accompany Mr Jack during a private ceremony before travelling with him from William Farmer Funeral Directors to the Golden Dragon Museum Elders' Room, where a traditional family altar blessing will take place.
The mourning lion will then accompany Mr Jack to Bendigo's Ulumbarra Theatre, where family, friends and the wider community will gather to farewell him.
The lion will continue with Mr Jack to Bendigo Cemetery, where the community will be invited to witness the final rites and take part in the mourning ceremony.
Ms Jack said their family is inviting the community to participate because her father "spent so much of his life sharing Chinese culture with the people of Bendigo".
While the ceremony will include drums, cymbals and ceremonial movement, the lion's appearance at Mr Jack's funeral will be an "act of respect rather than a public performance".
The lion will bow to Russell before accompanying him to his resting place.
"When its duty is complete, the people of Bendigo will have witnessed a rare tradition connecting the Chinese community of Bendigo today with the generations who came to the goldfields more than 170 years ago," Ms Jack said.
Those attending will be invited to light a joss stick in Mr Jack's memory.
Mr Jack's family will also follow Cantonese funeral custom and offer the gift of a coin and sweet to those attending.
The gift is given as mourners leave, "symbolically helping them leave the sadness and bitterness of the funeral behind and return safely to everyday life".
Ms Jack said the small gift was also a way of saying thank you to the people of Bendigo.
"Thank you for standing with him," she said.
"Thank you for supporting the traditions he spent his life protecting, and thank you for helping carry those traditions into another generation."
A rich history
Chinese funeral traditions were once a visible part of life on the Central Victorian goldfields.
Nineteenth-century Chinese funerals included incense, offerings, ritual burning and ceremonies for the deceased.
Bendigo Cemetery itself retains an historic Chinese Burning Tower, tangible evidence of the funerary traditions practised by Bendigo's early Chinese community.
While Bendigo's dragons and celebratory lions have survived via the city's Easter traditions, many of the older rituals associated with death and mourning gradually disappeared from public view.
The Jack family said it believed Russell's funeral may be the first time in more than a century that a traditional Cantonese mourning lion ceremony of this nature has been seen publicly in Bendigo.
They said the tradition is being brought back in this instance not as a re-enactment, but as a living act of mourning.
Mr Jack's state funeral service is being held at the Ulumbarra Theatre in Bendigo on Saturday, August 29, from 11am, with doors opening at 9:45am.
