The new grave has been soaked by rain.
The original sentence in folklore is: "If it rains on a new grave, a noble person will appear!" or "If it rains on a new grave, a group of mules and horses will appear!" and so on.
Meaning: After the new grave is soaked by rain, a big man will appear in the family or there will be a group of mules and horses in the family, and they will become rich and powerful.
This is a superstitious statement in ancient China. It is considered a good omen for new graves to be exposed to rain. Either noble people will come out, or rich people will come out. If it rains after the burial, it can be considered that it moved God, thus blessing the descendants and bringing good luck. Extended information
In ancient times, there was the custom of burying people as sacrifices (mainly close relatives, close ministers and close attendants, and human sacrifices still existed in the Qing Dynasty). Later, they were gradually replaced by pottery figurines, and in modern times, human figures tied with paper were used to accompany them. burial.
After the funeral, there are memorial ceremonies such as the seventh, seventh, hundredth, anniversary and so on, and the tablets are returned to the ancestral hall. This has changed from the etiquette for people during the funeral to the etiquette for "ghosts", Rituals of "ancestral spirits".
In addition, the Han people also have the custom of "return burial", which is to bury the remains of those who died in other places back to their place of origin.
During the funeral, relatives of the deceased should wear mourning clothes and keep vigil in the mourning hall. In the ancient Chinese etiquette system, filial piety clothes were divided into five grades according to the closeness of the blood relationship with the deceased. In modern Chinese, there is also the word "five clothes" to indicate the distance of the blood relationship. The mourning robe is made of white cloth, which is very different from the Western custom of wearing white robes as a formal dress.
During the Qing Dynasty, an Englishman came to China for the first time and found it very strange when he encountered a funeral procession where everyone was wearing white clothes but looking painful and sad. In ancient times, people sang elegy during funerals. Tao Yuanming, the great poet of the Jin Dynasty, wrote three "elegy poems" for himself during his lifetime. The elegiac couplets and elegies of later generations evolved from the elegies of ancient times.
The scale of the funeral ceremony is closely related to the status of the deceased. In feudal society, there were strict regulations on funeral rituals for people with different statuses.
After the death of an elder, the descendants have to stay at home for twenty-seven months, during which time they stop socializing and entertainment. Officials must also leave their jobs and go home to observe filial piety to express their condolences to their elders, which is called "keeping the system".