In the traditional geomantic omen in China, houses are generally oriented north and south, especially in the north and the Central Plains. However, regardless of the geomantic pattern, the houses in Fengmen Village face east and west or obliquely, with doors and windows facing each other, which is even more taboo. There is only one north-south house in the village (there is a plush chair in the middle of the first floor of this house, which is the first evil thing in the village, and everyone sitting in the plush chair died in an accident). In ancient legends of China, although ghosts roam, they also roam in fixed areas, such as haunted houses, ghost caves, deserted graves and ghost forests. On the one hand, ghosts are not easy to get out of places with heavy yin, on the other hand, ghosts are easy to get lost, and the road in Fengmen Village is like a maze, which makes it impossible for wandering souls to get out of the village.
There is an inscription in Fengmen Village: "To the north of Qinhuai, there is a steep mountain called Brassica with beautiful scenery. Here in Juzhuang, the place is called Fengmentun. " In the Qing Dynasty, Jiang Dahong recorded "Five Poems of Yang Zhai Tian Yuan", saying, "It's hard to avoid empty walls and houses. If the auspicious wind is prosperous, if it is killed, it will be a disaster. " It is basically determined that "Fengmen Village" is a place where good fortune increases and adversity turns to evil. For a long time, some geomantic scholars believe that although Fengmen Village is surrounded by mountains and waters, the villagers have lost the geomantic pattern, which leads to excessive yin in the village.
The funeral custom is amazing: people who live with ghosts will not die outside the village.
Although Fengmen Village is located in the Central Plains, it has its own "burial custom", which is completely different from the traditional customs of the Han nationality. The bodies in Fengmen Village were all buried with masks. This phenomenon is common in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, but it is rare in China. After death, people in China pay attention to hearing and seeing clearly, and don't keep out foreign objects. Why did Fengmen Village bury the body with a mask? In China, ghosts and souls are called dirty things and evil things. When encountering coffins, paper money and shroud, people should avoid it, or even spit a few mouthfuls, for fear of bad luck. Communities where people live are often separated from graves by dividing lines, such as a river, or cemeteries are located in uninhabited hills and Woods. No one will set the grave in their own yard or village (known villages in Anhui and Liaoning used to bury the elderly directly in their own fields next to the yard, and some funny people would say hello to their ancestors when they washed in the morning. Later, the tomb reform made it popular for the whole family to be buried together. Who made up this division and isolation? )。 Fengmen Village is different, paying attention to "people fooling around, people can't leave the village when they die". People can't be buried outside the village after death. Find a clearing near the deceased's home. The valley where Fengmen Village is located is called Ghost Valley for no reason, or it is named because there are bones in the ditch and ghosts in the bend. Because people and ghosts live in the same village, one way to suppress ghosts is to put masks on the dead.
Worship ghosts: no worship of God, ghosts, officials and dolls.
People have awe of God, which often makes them worship both God and ghosts. In Fengmen Village, it is such a temple, not a Buddha or a god, but two strange dolls, a pair of statues of men and women wearing official uniforms of the Ming Dynasty. Some scholars infer that there are two possibilities for this couple. One may be a prominent ancestor, but most ancestors are enshrined in the ancestral hall of a big clan in the form of memorial tablets, rather than in the temple for the whole village to worship. So there is another possibility. This portrait is not a portrait, but a ghost image, indicating that the sacrifice in Fengmen Village may be a ghost. Ghosts are often much more reliable than the manifestations of ancestors. The unique custom of worshipping ghosts in Fengmen Village also makes the second possibility more credible.