Li Xuan Moira's Diary
Burial
One of the oldest and most common methods. In our country, the earliest known burials are those of the Beijing Shandong Cave Man from the Paleolithic Age. A large number of Neolithic tombs have been discovered. At that time, people practiced burial mainly to prevent the deceased from being eaten by wild animals, but also to provide the deceased with eternal rest and burial. In the early days of burial, no coffin was used. The deceased was simply wrapped in bark and other materials and buried in the ground without a grave. Later, in order to facilitate identification and commemoration, the tombs were gradually erected and repaired. Burial methods are generally carried out in a straight-legged posture with the hands placed beside the hips, unlike Westerners with hands crossed on the chest. The posture of leaning back represents sleep, indicating that the deceased has found rest. The Lahu people of Yunnan believe that if the deceased is buried on his back, more people will die. Therefore, the deceased should lie on his side with his head bowed and his hands crossed on his chest.
Due to the influence of witchcraft and religion, ancient people generally recognized the existence of the underworld. In order for the deceased to have a stable destination in the underworld, the deceased was often given clean new clothes. In order for the deceased to have a house to live in the underworld, coffins and tombs came into being, and the tombs on the ground became larger and larger. The tombs of luxurious homes are luxurious and exquisite both inside and outside. In order to ensure that the deceased has enough money in the afterlife, wealthy homes also put burial objects in coffins and tombs. In the homes of emperors, people are even buried with them. The tombs of emperors are called Underground palace. In addition to placing the coffin, there are also funerary objects, everlasting lanterns, murals on the walls, etc. The underground palace is divided into several rooms, with the coffin in the main room and the funerary objects in the attached room. They will still enjoy the glory and wealth after death.
In ancient times, after the death of clan members, clan burials were carried out and buried in the public cemetery. Later, public cemeteries often became the burial places of people from the lower class, called "free graves". Because the sizes of the tombs were different, and the distance between tombs was not customized, it was quite confusing, so it was also called "mass grave". . The rulers' cemeteries evolved into family cemeteries. In ancient times, family cemeteries were a way to maintain social ethics.
There were no tombstones in the early tombs. The purpose of erecting the tombstones was just to facilitate the identification of the tombs. Inscriptions on tombstones began in the Han Dynasty. The tombstone inscription records the deceased's name, place of origin, family background, life story, promotes the deceased's merits, or writes articles, death time, burial place, and finally an inscription. Stone tablets can be preserved for thousands of years. They can not only immortalize the deceased's memory, but also play a role in persuading the world.
Cremation
Cremation is also one of the ancient and common funeral methods. It has a history of about 4,000-5,000 years in our country. Ashes were found in pottery unearthed in Lintao, Gansu, indicating that cremation had already begun in primitive society. Written records of cremation were first seen in documents from the Pre-Qin period, including Mozi, Liezi, and Xunzi. For example, the "General Chapter" of "Xunzi" says: The captives of the Di and Qiang did not worry about being tied up, but they worried about not being burned after death. At that time, cremation was a custom among nomadic people in the northwest.
Buddhism was introduced to our country during the Eastern Han Dynasty. Both monks and believers practiced cremation, which gradually affected the whole country. During the Tang, Five Dynasties, Song and Yuan dynasties, folk cremation was relatively common, especially in Jiangnan provinces. This is often the case when too many people die after a plague epidemic, or when poor families have no money or land to bury them. "Water Margin" contains a description of Wu Dalang's cremation. However, Confucian culture rejects cremation, and during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the government banned cremation. Modern society is civilized and open, customs have changed, and the country vigorously promotes cremation.
The methods of handling cremated ashes vary among different ethnic groups. Nomads have the habit of digging pits, burying them and throwing them into rivers. Buddhist monks and believers often put them in clay pots and put them in tomb towers or buried them in cemeteries. The Han people absorbed their methods, either scattering the ashes to the mountains and rivers, keeping them as memorials and offering them in mourning halls, or placing them in clay pots, stone boxes, or wooden coffins and burying them in cemeteries. As a symbol of the deceased, the disposal of ashes is a solemn matter.
The funeral methods of the Han people are generally burial and cremation. In addition to burial and cremation, there are many other burial methods in ethnic minority areas
Sky burial
This It is a very popular burial method in Tibet and neighboring areas. Beginning around the tenth century, after Tibetans die, they usually use oxen to carry them to the sky burial ground. The body is laid flat on its back, and the lama chants sutras for salvation. The branches are burned so that the soul ascends to the sky with the light smoke. At the same time, goshawks and crows are attracted. The lama uses a knife to The skin and flesh of the deceased are cut open, and then the sky burial master decomposes the corpse. The goshawks and crows feed the corpse to the goshawks and crows. After the goshawks and crows have eaten the corpse, they break the skeleton and skull of the deceased into pieces and mix them with blood. , let the goshawks and crows eat up the corpse to the best of its ability, proving that the deceased has been reborn in the Western Paradise. If the deceased has not finished eating, it means that the deceased has sinned deeply and will fall into hell. During the sky burial, the lama kept chanting sutras, and the family members knelt aside and prayed to the sky, praying that the soul of the deceased would ascend to heaven. Sky burials in Gansu are slightly different. The body of the deceased is placed on a big stone. Relatives take off the clothes of the body. The lama chants sutras and then leaves. You will come back to see the body in a few days. If the body has been eaten by goshawks and crows, The light proves that the deceased has ascended to heaven, and then the stone grave is piled on the spot.
Water burial
A water burial method is also popular in areas near rivers, lakes and seas. The Han people along the Dadu River in Sichuan practiced water burial for those who died of leprosy. For people who died of infectious diseases, Tibetans use cattle to carry the corpses to the riverside. First, the lamas chant sutras and beat drums to save the souls. Then the body was thrown into the river and buried. Ethnic minorities in Yunnan also practice water burial. There are two types of water burials: whole corpses and dismembered corpses. In some cases, the corpses are bundled into a ball, put into wooden basins and other objects and thrown into the river. In some cases, the corpses are broken into pieces and thrown into the river.
Wind burial
A wind burial method popular in Tibet, Northeast China, Inner Mongolia and other places. The Tibetan burial method is to incinerate the corpse, and then take it to the top of a mountain and scatter it in the wind. Tibetans believe that wherever the ashes are blown by the wind, that is where they will be reincarnated. The burial method of the Oroqen and Ewenki people is to put the corpse into a coffin drilled from oak wood or wrap it in animal skin, place it in the wild and stand it on a tree to let it dry, and then pick up the bones and bury it.
Cliff burial
An ancient burial method popular in ancient southwest minority areas, including hanging coffin burial and cliff cave burial. People place the coffin on a platform dug out of the cliff; or they drill holes into the cliff and drive wooden wedges, and place the coffin on the wooden wedge; or they put the coffin into a natural rock cave, and carve various patterns, inscriptions, etc. on the rock wall. wait. Hanging coffins from the Yin and Shang, Warring States, Han, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties have been discovered in our country. Most people in Sichuan believe that the souls of the dead can become immortals when they ascend to heaven, and become ghosts when they enter the earth, so it is noble to bury them on cliffs. Northerners and Han people use cliff burials in a few areas. For example, the tombs of King Jing of Zhongshan and King Lu of Qufu, Shandong during the Han Dynasty were cliff burials. Numerous cliff caves were dug manually and were large in scale, just like underground palaces.
Pagoda burial
It is the most noble Tibetan burial style, also known as pagoda burial. This kind of funeral can only be carried out after the death of a very small number of great living Buddhas. The corpse was first dehydrated, then treated with various medicines and spices, and then hidden in the tower for permanent preservation. There is such a spiritual pagoda in the Potala Palace.
High Coffin Burial
After the death of the leader of the Tlingit tribe of American Indians, the body was put into a coffin carved like a large whale, and then the coffin was placed on wooden poles. Lifted high and standing in mid-air, the coffin became a monument to the tribe.
Other burials
In the Yangshao culture of primitive society, people put children who died in urns into urns and buried them in urns and coffins, which were buried near their houses. There are holes in the bottom of the urn to allow the soul of the deceased to enter and exit.
In modern times, the Hezhen people used birch bark to hang their dead children on branches in order to reincarnate the souls of the deceased. They believe that if the child's body is buried underground, the young soul is unable to emerge from the ground and be reincarnated, and the mother may lose her fertility.
In some Yao areas, people wrap dead babies in straw mats and bury them on the hills next to their houses, or under their parents’ beds, or put them in baskets, dustpans and other containers and hang them. Hanging in the woods, hoping that the soul of the deceased will be reincarnated soon.
The ancient Lisu people smashed the hearts and bones of dead babies and threw them into the valley to prevent the souls from coming to collect debts. The ancients believed that children came to this home either to repay a favor or to collect debts. Children who scold disobedient children are often called "debt collectors". Children who died in infancy were also regarded as debt collectors.
In ancient times, ethnic minorities had burial methods of sitting in coffins and standing coffins. For example: Liao people bury their dead in vertical coffins.
The Miao people have a turned-head burial method, in which the head of the deceased is turned to the back, which means that the dead old man is turning his head to watch the growth of his descendants and can bless them. The Gaocha men dug a ridge in the ground and placed the deceased in it.
The way some Gaoshan tribesmen bury their dead is to bury the deceased vertically under their bed in a squatting position. This is the posture in which Gaoshan tribesmen eat, indicating that the deceased is still living with his family.
Burial concepts
Each ethnic group has different views on burial methods. These concepts are often associated with primitive religion and witchcraft. All ethnic cultures generally recognize that there is a world, an underworld, a heaven, and an underworld. The immortality of the soul is the core of the funeral concept, and the ultimate purpose of placing the corpse is to place the soul. However, different ethnic groups have different understandings of the immortal soul, which leads to different attitudes towards funeral methods. The Han people generally regard burial as an honor. The feng shui of the cemetery is related to the prosperity of the family and even the long-term destiny of the country, so they should be buried as generously as possible, and the emperors will carry out large-scale construction. It also contains the concept of loyalty and filial piety, which is closely related to feudal ideology and is very complicated, so I will not go into details here.
Tibetans generally believe in the afterlife, attach great importance to sky burial, in order to seek reincarnation, and regard burial in the ground as a punishment. It is the burial method after the death of prisoners and plague patients. The Pumi people of Yunnan believe that cremation can send the soul of the deceased to heaven, while burial buries the soul of the deceased together with the body in order to prevent the soul of the "evil dead" from reincarnating as a human being.
The Buyi people bury people who died normally, and cremate people who died abnormally or died in a foreign land. They believe that the souls of such people are unclean and their ancestors will not accept them.
Most of the ethnic groups in our country mainly bury people in the ground and believe that the dead "will be buried in peace".
Professional funeral services
The earliest professional funeral services in my country began in the Western Zhou Dynasty. They were the national-level officials "Tomb Doctor" and "Tomb Doctor". They only provide funeral services for state officials. This industry is also monopolistic and inherited from generation to generation.
After that, it gradually became commercialized. According to "Luoyang Jialan Ji" written by Yang Zhixuan during the Northern Wei Dynasty, there were Cixiao and Fengzhong li in the north of Luoyang City. There are people singing dirges and so on. It reflects the socialization of funeral services at that time.
Elegy singers in the Tang Dynasty
Professional elegies singers specialized in singing elegies for funerals.
In the Tang Dynasty, there were many violent crimes in Chang'an City. Xing Yangsheng in the Tang Dynasty legendary novel "The Story of Li Wa" was reduced to a "fierce place", which was a place where funeral supplies were sold and funerals were held, and he became an elegiac singer. He was invited by people from the "East Si" to compete with the dirge singers from another "fierce restaurant" - the "Xi Si". The scene was very lively.
Entertainment of funeral rituals
Funeral rituals in primitive times already had entertainment customs. Documents record that during the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a custom of "composing songs and music" and "inspiring" when worshiping gods in the south, and the ancient customs are still preserved. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, some scholars deliberately performed bizarre behaviors such as singing and dancing (and drinking and eating meat) during the mourning period. It's out of contempt for etiquette. The entertainment aspect of funerals is a characteristic of Mongolian people’s funeral rituals. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty (1368), the censor Gao Yuankan wrote a letter requesting the abolition of this custom. We can see from the description of the funeral held by the Jia family for Qin Keqing in "A Dream of Red Mansions" that it is also quite entertaining. This shows that the entertainment of folk funerals is hard to stop. It has become a supplementary form of entertainment in ancient Chinese rural areas where life content is monotonous and rigid, and can dilute the sadness and horror atmosphere of funerals.