Funeral customs vary from region to region in China, including earth burial, cremation, water burial, and sky burial among ethnic minorities. It all depends on the place and traditional customs. Most people choose to be buried in the ground. Burial in the ground has a history of thousands of years. Especially in the south, where the air humidity is high and there is a lot of rain, small mounds are built to serve as a drainage function. The top is small and the bottom is large, and the water is drained to both sides to protect the coffin and corpse from rotting and emitting stinky smells. Ancient tombs can be located in places with good drainage and moisture-proof functions. If the coffin is excavated for hundreds or hundreds of years, it will be intact. The body will not be much different from when it was just buried. When exposed to light, the air will turn into ashes. There is also a standing pile to facilitate future generations to offer sacrifices.
In short: Shantou area, especially Chaoshan, is more superstitious and attaches great importance to Feng Shui! He attaches the same importance to the cemetery as he does when building a villa: He hired a professional Feng Shui master and a professional soil master to test the direction based on the aura of the mountains...the money for the incoming and outgoing water will be determined. Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please ask in the comment circle...
In rural burials, the body is rotting without piles of soil, and the smell comes from the outside world. Who can bear it? This is also a legacy left by our ancestors for thousands of years. Everyone knows Although a coffin is used for burial and the body is contained in it, if a mound of soil is not used, it will only last for one or two years at most. The rotting smell of the corpse in the coffin will flow out. If a mound of soil is not used, no one will pass by the deceased, so A mound of earth must be made, and a tombstone must be erected in front of the grave, with the names of future generations engraved on it. In the coming years, descendants will also have a mark when they visit the grave. If the mound is not used and the coffin is placed there, the descendants will be disrespectful to the death of their ancestors, so it will not only have a certain effect on environmental protection, but also play a certain role in protecting the body of the deceased. The coffins for burials are in the soil, and the body usually has no smell after thirty years of decay. This is what I once saw when a family demolished their ancestral graves. This family demolished one or two graves, one for his mother and one for his son. Thirty-two years after his mother died, the tomb was demolished and opened. The coffin was no longer intact and had no smell. But eighteen years after her son's death, when the tomb was opened, the coffin looked the same as a newly buried one. But when it was put on a big truck, oops , fortunately, it was wrapped in several layers of plastic and tied tightly with iron wire, otherwise it would be terrible. The smell of the person who died eighteen years ago was uncomfortable. Everyone smelled the smell and ran far away, even though they were carrying masks. , are all useless. It can be seen that people generally do not smell for thirty years after death. Therefore, after a person dies, although the body has a coffin, after the coffin is put into the ground, it must be piled with soil to prevent air pollution. This is also a custom left by ancestors.
The small mounds of soil in rural graves mainly serve the following functions:
Unlike cemeteries in cities, soil graves in rural areas have special markings and neat planning. Graves in rural areas are randomly selected, and they are all uncultivated places and arranged in a haphazard manner. Therefore, the small mounds of graves are to declare that there is a detour to the tombs here. If there is no small mound, but a piece of If there is a complete flat land, no one knows that there is a coffin underneath. If someone digs out a coffin while reclaiming land here, it will be a bad thing for the person and an extremely unfortunate thing for the deceased. A matter of respect.
Burying a coffin requires digging a pit from the ground. The disposal of the excavated soil is very important. It is impossible to just lift the coffin in. In order to ensure that the coffin can be buried underground for a long time without rotting, Therefore, the coffin will be covered with soil, and this soil is the soil brought out from digging the pit, thus protecting the coffin. Without this small mound, the deceased would be no different from the corpse exposed in the wilderness. From another level, it is also an explanation of the deceased and respect for the deceased.
The small mound serves as a mark. When future generations see a small mound here, they will know that their ancestors were buried here. It also reminds future generations to come every time during the Qingming Festival or the sacrificial season. Worship is a traditional cultural custom left by our ancestors. If there were no small mounds, how could future generations find the tombs of their ancestors in a flat field? Because there are no tombstones on the tombs in many rural areas, it is difficult to distinguish them. Worshiping ancestors is very important in rural areas. During the sacrificial season, descendants will burn incense, paper money and talk at the tomb, so the role of the small mound is self-evident.
This is a mark, just like a living person’s homestead! If a small mound of soil is not piled up, farmers will cultivate the land together with other lands. In this way, who can remember their own graves after a long time?
In addition, not only must a mound be piled when a person is buried, but a tombstone must be erected after three years to show permanent memory! Every family has a family cemetery or cemetery. In the 1970s, our country carried out a tomb-leveling movement, which leveled all long-standing tombs. The main reason was that the tombs occupied more and more area, and at the same time, they also The craze of destroying the four olds and establishing new trends at once!
With the changes of the times, the continuous improvement of people's awareness, and the continuous development of urbanization, the waves of reform are getting higher and higher! Cremation has been practiced in rural areas for a long time, and the country has also vigorously promoted cremation. Now, except for some remote places where people are buried in large mounds, most of them have begun to practice cremation! After all, this not only saves land resources, but also makes it more convenient for the same burial, and it also makes it easier for the country and the collective to plan unifiedly!
During rural burials, the coffin is buried underground and a mound of soil is piled on the ground. Its role is not small. One is the identification function. With the mound of soil, you can prepare to determine the location of the coffin. When waiting for the joint burial or digging the grave, you can accurately determine the location of the coffin. When there are many graves, the number of each generation and the relationship between them can be judged. The second is to protect the coffin. Stacking mounds of earth can protect the coffin. It can prevent the coffin from being soaked by water. The third is to express the respect and remembrance of the ancestors by future generations. The more descendants there are, the bigger the mounds tend to be. When visiting the graves to worship ancestors every year, not only do they set off firecrackers and burn paper, but they also generally add new soil to the graves. This is the admiration and respect that younger generations have for their ancestors. Fourth, the so-called burial means to bury the coffin in soil, and the deeper the better, and the bigger the pile the better.
This historical allusion is related to Confucius, who lived in the Spring and Autumn Period. Confucius was the treasury clerk of the State of Lu during the Spring and Autumn Period. The civil servant status of the country, in today's terms, is that Confucius was the director of the National Library of the State of Lu at that time. In the State of Lu at that time, an official position like Confucius was actually very high.
Confucius’s father died when he was a child. He depended on his mother since he was a child. Due to his poor family, Confucius went out to work at a young age. He often went to help with funerals and rituals. He knew a lot of things, and he was very eager to learn, so he highly praised etiquette, especially Zhou rites. Funeral culture was also a part of Zhou rites.
Later, Confucius learned a lot of knowledge as he grew up, and eventually traveled to various countries. Finally, his mother passed away. After he buried her, because he traveled often, he was worried that he would not be able to find her when he came back because he traveled for a long time. In order to find his mother's burial place easily in the future, he piled a mound of soil on his mother's burial ground so that it would be easier to find and worship when he came back later.
Later, Confucius became completely famous, Rujia thought became the center of culture, Confucius was hailed as a saint, and many of Confucius's deeds and etiquette practices and Confucianism were regarded as benchmarks by later generations, and even many funeral practices The practices began to be imitated by Confucius, and the appearance of tombs was also imitated by later generations. Confucius' thoughts and etiquette culture became the core of handed down from generation to generation, and this has been the case for thousands of years.
The funeral culture that has been handed down today actually takes the Zhou rites as the core, and some processes that have evolved later, forming the current funeral culture. In fact, the core still comes from the Zhou Dynasty. Even if there are some changes in the subsequent thousands of years, there are actually not many changes in essence. It is estimated that in cities, little is known now, and in rural areas, the funeral customs have not changed much.
The tombstone is outside. In the past, tombstones were actually buried inside the grave. The predecessor of the tombstone was the epitaph. Later, it evolved to be placed outside to form the current form of tombstone. Combined with Confucius' mound of earth, it formed the current appearance of the tomb.
In the beginning, the corpses were not buried underground. In order to prevent the corpses of their companions from being eaten by wild beasts, primitive societies dug pits and buried them underground. Later, it evolved into wrapping the corpses in straw mats and burying them. In order to prevent insect damage, but this protective measure was not enough, it eventually evolved into using wood to make coffins and burying them underground. At that time, there were no marks on the surface of the burial. Later, Confucius invented the sealed mound, and funeral customs took initial shape.
In ancient times, it was originally "no trees, no seals." Later, for the needs of sacrifices and ease of search, seals were developed. Later, to commemorate people's achievements, monuments were erected to show them. The tombs of prominent officials also had There is an epitaph, which not only proves that it is the person's tomb, but also facilitates human sacrifice and finding marks. Even when digging a tomb on a high and open cliff, it still needs to be made into a mound. In the Weibei area, in addition to mounds of earth, gate towers were built in front of the tombs, with only the roof protruding from the ground. Like temples and underworlds, there may be customs and particularities.
Do you still need to answer this? The coffin is buried underground and a big pit needs to be dug. The bigger the pit, the more soil will be dug. After repairing it with stones or bricks, the bottom will be empty. Put down the coffin. Of course, the soil must be buried in a mound. This is the grave mound. In the past, if a man had three or four wives, they would be buried together in a large grave. A typical grave would occupy an area of ??three centimeters. The rich man's family would dig a large grave and have many burial objects. Of course, the grave would be much larger.
This question is easy to answer. Have you ever heard an idiom called "Exposing Corpses in the Wilderness"? If you don't pile up a small pile of soil, it would have almost the same meaning as this idiom!
China has many burial customs, including water burial, earth burial, sky burial, etc., but most of them still use earth burial. Why!
There is an old saying: "Ashes will return to ashes, and dust will return to dust." There is also a small earthen pile for burial and a stone tablet. The stone tablet is engraved with his life and descendants. Thousands of years later, where will he be? The descendants will remember that in which place and position, there is their ancestor. Where people are buried. If it hadn't been for that push, none of this would have happened. Maybe it wouldn't be found in a few years or decades!
What’s more, if you don’t push away the soil and there are still people walking on the road, it’s like making a horror movie. There are coffins and bones everywhere, it’s creepy, and the air is filled with the smell of decay. It’s scary to think about.
The soil can be used for drainage. After it rains, rainwater will not enter the tomb so easily. It can also resist the smell of rotting corpses. Finally, it can protect the tomb very well. In short, this mound is not a simple mound. Don't have such weird problems!