  In the last years, the need of the colour octet state in inclusive P-wave
charmonium decay has been firmly established. However, the implications of this
in the corresponding exclusive reactions have not been fully recognized. We
argue for the necessity of the colour octet in P- and higher-wave quarkonium
decay. Using a set of phenomenologically constructed baryon wavefunctions, we
consider the Chi_J decay into octet and decuplet baryon-antibaryon pair. By
doing so, we subject the wavefunctions to a test of applicability. We show that
the colour singlet component alone is insufficient to account for experimental
measurements and only by including the colour octet contribution can the
partial theoretical decay widths be brought into range of the data. By the
present and earlier applications of the set of wavefunctions, they show
themselves to be reasonable model wavefunctions at around the scale Q^2 \sim
10-20 GeV^2.
