Preparation before death
Those who have a little family wealth should prepare funerals after the age of 50, mainly making birthday banquets, shrouds and birthday graves. This is not only for the sake of dignity, but also to prevent children and grandchildren from being in a hurry once they leave.
As the saying goes, "when you enter school in the second spring, you will encounter a leap." When making longevity square, shroud and tomb, we should choose auspicious days of leap year and leap month. Shoufang's production is generally to buy "old man" Chinese fir, saw it into plates, put it on the highland, and invite Shoufang's master to come home for processing after drying. After finished, the inside and outside should be painted with raw lacquer or raw tung oil for many times. Shoufang is painted red or black, and the head is usually engraved with the pattern of "Fu" or peach.
It is easier to make a shroud. Most people in the sand are poor. Shrouds are made of new cotton, homespun and foreign cloth, and silk cotton and brocade are rarely used. The shroud is made wide, and the sleeves must cover your fingers. Cotton-padded jacket and coat need not be black, mostly gray or deep forest, while underwear is pure white. When making a shroud, you should also make hats, socks, shoes and so on. Shoes have soft soles, and the soles and uppers should be embroidered with silk thread. But the birthday quilt was not made by myself, but by my daughter's family. After the shroud is made, it should be stored in a special box and dried once a year on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month.
In the sandy plain, floods are frequent, and most of the tombs of Shoufen are selected on the slopes near Wuhang Mountain, Zheshan Mountain and Qinglong Mountain. In people's minds, ancestral graves are related to the luck of the family and the fate of future generations, so before making a birthday grave, Mr. Feng Shui should be invited to see the grave. After the cemetery is demarcated, the time for making graves is also very particular, which requires the fortune teller to make a choice. When breaking ground, first put a pair of three sacrifices, burn incense and candles, burn paper and sue the local land. Shoufen is also called "Shengfen". Instead of digging a hole in front of the grave, they dug the top of the hill, built a sarcophagus with six large stone slabs, covered it with grave soil, sharpened the top, and then surrounded it with stones, named it "luoquan" for long-term hanging. When sealing, use a big bowl filled with vegetable oil, put a wick in it, light it, put it in a sarcophagus and seal it. This is called "ever-burning lamp", which can be taken out when buried in the future. By this time, the bowl had cracked, but it was not broken. Some vegetable oil in the bowl has long been exhausted, while others have turned into yellow solidified bodies, called "oil", which is often used by the people to apply burns. After the birthday grave is built, it is necessary to erect a monument, depending on the date and time. The names on the tablet are all red, which is a symbol of longevity powder. After the funeral, they were painted black.
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Take care of a dying elder in the family
The more people die in the secular world, the greater the blessings of the deceased; Even if there are no children, there should be several nephews and close relatives and friends at home. Therefore, when people are dying, they must call the younger generation of the family to bid farewell. If the eldest son and other leading figures haven't arrived yet, let the dying people drink ginseng chicken soup and try to save their lives. This is called "hanging one's life" so that future generations can come back and see the last side and die together.
Seeing that the patient is really dying, relatives will comb his hair, wash his face and put on a shroud. Shrouds include shirts, underpants, vests, cotton-padded jackets, trousers, coats, trousers, knee-length gowns, etc. At the same time, the Buddhist scriptures were burned, and the ashes were wrapped in two pieces of red paper and stuffed into the hands of the dying. There are three kinds of Buddhist scriptures: one is burning paper, which is called "Lu Yin", that is, as a passport to the ghost country; The second is "paper money", that is, paper ingots, which are used as "tolls" along the way; Third, the classic of Gao Wang (1) means that the dead can hold in their fists, and if they are tortured in hell, they can avoid suffering.
When dying, relatives should call out loudly to show their retention. Although this has brought harassment and pain to the dying, customs must not be saved, otherwise it will be regarded as disrespectful and unfilial by neighbors. At the same time, everyone held incense and sent him away in tears, burning paper sedan chairs and paper figures outside the door. After death, relatives turned their heads and feet for the deceased in bed, saying that this would speed up the "reincarnation" of the deceased, and candles would be lit in the room, which was called "a dead light".
When a person dies, he should immediately send someone or a close neighbor to send a funeral report to his relatives and friends, commonly known as "reporting death" (the male deceased must report to his daughter's house and the female deceased must report to her family). Even if relatives know the death, they still have to send someone. Rain or shine, the deceased was presented with an umbrella as a sign of death. According to custom, no one is allowed to talk to the dead, otherwise it will bring bad luck. "Holding an umbrella backwards to report death" can also avoid wasting time because someone stops chatting along the way. When you go to a relative's house, you must put the umbrella upside down outside the door; Relatives gave the deceased some candied eggs, which were called "reported dead eggs". Eggs must be singular, usually three. When the deceased goes out, relatives will break a bowl and lamp behind his feet to drive away bad luck.
At the same time, the dutiful son was supported by an umbrella and went to the nearby land temple to burn paper money in tears, which was called "burning paper at the head of the temple". It is said that the deceased was tied to the temple post at that time, so the dutiful son had to untie the deceased three times before he could untie the temple post. The dutiful son should also "send impermanence", that is, put on mourning clothes, put rice wine, vegetables, paper money, incense sticks and three straw sandals on a rice sieve, carry them to a nearby fork in the road, burn the paper money, straw sandals and bed grass, and pour rice wine on the side of the road. It is said that impermanence is a fascinating ghost appointed by Yan Luowang, and impermanence will be sent away in this way after death.
Before sending impermanence, a Zhang Ling bed with a door panel and two stools was built in front of the hall. The eldest son and the youngest son held the head and feet of the deceased respectively, and carried the body from the room to the hearse bed, with the head facing south and the feet facing north. This is a small funeral, commonly known as "a corpse". A life pillow should be placed on the head of the corpse, but no bedding should be placed. There is a fragrant oil lamp under the door panel, commonly known as "foot lamp", which is called "indicator lamp" by Taoist priests. This light can't go out, and it should be put under the coffin after the funeral until the funeral is over. When holding a corpse, silver earrings or gold earrings should be wrapped in red paper and contained in the mouth of the deceased. Calling it "silver in the mouth" is said to save the dead from gossiping in the afterlife. In addition, we need to find a small bamboo three feet long, wrapped in red paper, as a "filial staff", also known as a "mourning staff", which is held by the dutiful son.
After the corpse was moved, the front of the hall became a mourning hall, and a white filial son curtain hung on the outside of the funeral bed. Filial piety curtain is placed in front of the table, with white candles and benzoin lit on it. The portrait hangs in the middle of the curtain of filial piety. If there is no portrait, when the Taoist priest comes, he will write Woodenhead instead. If the deceased is an elder, a piece of thick linen or white cloth must be nailed to the lintel of the gate, which is called "door filial piety"
All the children are in mourning. Filial piety adopts the "five-service system" popular in China. The so-called "five clothes" means that sons and unmarried women must take "chop" to their fathers, grandchildren, ancestors, wives and husbands, and the chop should be made of the coarsest linen, with no edges and no dew, to show that it is not decorated; Son, unmarried women are mothers and stepmother, married women are fathers, grandchildren are parents, great-grandchildren are great-grandparents, and great-grandchildren are great-grandparents. They must wear "Qi Qi", which is made of coarse cloth. Cousins, unmarried cousins, married aunts and sisters, married women as mothers, uncles and brothers should all take "big clothes" and cooked linen; This clan is the wife of great-grandfather, uncle, uncle, parents, unmarried grandfather, cousin, married cousin and brother. Outside relatives take "small tribute" for grandparents, uncles and aunts, and small tribute takes fine linen. This clan is great-grandfather's parents, great-grandfather's grandparents, great-grandfather's parents, great-grandfather's brothers and unmarried sisters, while cousins and in-laws take hemp, which is made of fine hemp. Usually, linen must be used for chopping, alignment and great achievements, while white cloth is often used to replace small achievements and great achievements. In short, the closer the relationship, the stronger the filial piety. At the same time, the hair of daughters and nieces should be combed into a "lazy head", that is, after the whole lock of long hair is wrapped with a white head rope, it should be combed into a head and then a small white circle should be erected on it; Daughter-in-law should comb it into the same "forward bun" as the old man's head, that is, two white circles, one large and one small, should be erected on the head of the vegetable. Relatives and young students should wear white shoes with white heels and red heels, and everyone should wear white-headed ropes.
Next, please ask the Taoist priest to write "bevel paper" and the wooden owner. Oblique paper is a disaster list, written on yellow paper and obliquely attached to the gate, with the date of birth and death of the deceased, the time of "collecting evil spirits" and the wrong zodiac. On the day of death, before the funeral, a Taoist priest was asked to "bow down and clear the way", also called "clear the way", which started in the evening and ended in the early morning of the next day. The specifications of the confession depend on the number of Taoist priests, with a minimum of three and a maximum of thirteen for every odd number. It is said that this is because when the deceased goes to a mansion, he can bless all the way to avoid being insulted by headhunters.
Under normal circumstances, after "reporting death", relatives and friends will come to the funeral soon to help with the funeral. Especially married women, if they are shocked to learn that their parents are dead, they will go to their parents' home immediately. When you get near your parents' home, you have to kneel down in three steps and worship in five steps, and cry while bowing down. This is called "climbing funeral", and the brothers will meet at the door. All mourners will get "Li Bai", mainly silver ingots and candles. If coins are used, they must be odd and wrapped in white paper, which is called "white bag". Daughters and nieces will also give birthday quilts. Generally, white yarn is used as the inner quilt cover and red yarn is used as the outer quilt cover. If there are many daughters and nieces of the deceased, thin quilts such as triplets or quintuplets should be used to accommodate them in the coffin (if it is really difficult to accommodate them during burial, they can be melted to the deceased). No matter how many quilts are used, they must be odd. When undertaker arrived at the door of the funeral home, the woman at the wake had to wail aloud.
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Knock sb.
Embarrassment is called "burying" in the sand. Usually three days after death. If it is a double date, the funeral will be postponed for one day.
You must "buy water" before you die. "Yue Yan" says: "When you die, bury it, take it with clothes, take it with an umbrella, take it with money, and take it with a coffin." The ceremony in the sand is usually that the eldest son puts on a quilt and another person holds an umbrella for him. * * * went to the water to worship the water god, threw a coin into the pond and scooped up a bucket of water. After the water is "bought", it is gently wiped on the chest of the deceased, meaning "bathing". It is said that without this, the deceased would have no water to drink in the underworld, and wading across the river would be blocked by the river god.
You can go into the coffin after taking a shower. First, put a triangular lime bag in the coffin. According to the age of the deceased, there are 7749 lime bags, 796 13 bags and 998 1 bags. , must be single. Then put on clothes for the dead according to the requirements of entering the coffin. There are as few as 3 pieces of mourning clothes, and as many as 2 1 piece, and only one person, not two people, otherwise it is said that there is a danger of double death. If the deceased is poor and has only one set of mourning clothes, it is called "carry-on". Buttons should not be used for mourning. If the clothes of the deceased are used for mourning, the buttons should be cut off. Wear cuffs every time you wear a shroud; Each cuff is tied with a silver ingot. The cuffs are tied in knots. After the costume is finished, the eldest son holds his head, the younger son lifts his feet, and the rest of his sons and nephews hold up their waists with yellow gauze belts and carry the body flat into the coffin. The head of the deceased must be straight, that is to say, the head on the right is beneficial to the long room and not to the small room, and the head on the left is beneficial to the small room and not to the long room. Therefore, all rooms must be inspected before the coffin is covered. Then, hang a "evocation bag" on the chest of the deceased, hold a "dog stick" in his hand, and put dirt, shoes and hats, towels, fans, gold and silver ornaments and other objects in a corner of the coffin. The remaining gaps in the coffin are filled with silver ingots, and then the quilts are covered one by one, all of which are odd. When placing objects, every time you put something, the material person will quote its name; Every time something is reported, the mourner will loudly answer "Yes!"
When you cover the coffin, press the notice on the inclined paper on the door, and all people who rush to the ecliptic should avoid it. When knocking in the coffin lid bolt; The dutiful son must rub the head of the coffin lid with burning paper to avoid shocking people. Then seal the seams of the coffin lid with yellow paper, which is called "sealing the coffin". A sacrificial platform was set in front of the coffin to offer offerings and burn incense. Before the funeral, meals should be served in front of the coffin every morning, noon and evening, which is called "providing meals". Every fifth watch, the widow at the wake must mourn.
On the night of entering the coffin, all married daughters should ask Taoist priests to do Dojo, which is called "Flower Drum Night", which not only shows filial piety to the deceased, but also shows the prosperity of the family. The number of Taoist priests must also be odd, usually five or seven. If you are particular, you can invite 13 people. Its ceremonies are mainly singing operas and Shao operas, such as "Five Dragons Will Scold Guan", "Zhao Kuangyin Borrow the Head" and "Xue Pinggui Return to Kiln". And you can sing a dozen at a time. Some wealthy families even invited troupes to sing ancient paintings, and neighbors also came to listen to operas, thus becoming many voluntary vigils. Because the scene was lively, there was no sense of mourning.
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Carry the coffin to the cemetery
Funerals are all in the morning. Cai Fu, commonly known as the "Committee for Raising Materials", has as few as six people and as many as twelve. There are two thick wooden poles tied to both sides of the coffin, which are called "Qinglong poles". The front and rear ends of the Qinglong Bar are tied with ropes, and a wooden stick is worn in the middle of each rope for four people to carry materials. Before you wake up, you must set up a sacrifice for your ancestors in front of the coffin, which is called "material head sacrifice" When you wake up, the eldest son or grandson first puts a bowl on the top of the material, and then breaks it with fire, which is called the "material bowl". It makes sense to throw this bowl. You must break it once, and the more broken it is, the better, because this bowl is the rice bowl of the dead, and it can only be taken to the underworld if it is broken. After the bowl is broken, the coffin is covered with a quilt and two benches are placed on it for use when stopping the coffin on the road. Then Cai Fu shouldered the coffin, walked back and forth three times, and let the dead wander for a while before continuing on his way.
It is customary to avoid the elders sending funerals to the dead, so undertaker is a junior or a peer. At the front of the funeral procession, in addition to "buying roads and burning paper", there are also "opening gods" made of paper and "guiding flags" made of paper to open the way. The coffins are carried by boys and girls. Then there is a band composed of gongs and suona, in which gongs are essential, called "funeral gongs", and they must be struck along the road, with thirteen strokes in each group, the first ten strokes are slightly longer, and the last three strokes are continuous. The eldest son walked in front of the coffin with a portrait or woodcut owner in his hand. Behind the coffin are family, relatives and friends. Even if it is sunny, everyone must take an umbrella. The bereaved son wore linen, sandals with hemp tendons, a straw rope around his waist and a "filial staff". On his head, he wore a three-beam crown made of straw, a double-beam crown for his nephew and grandson, a single-beam crown for his great-grandson, a white cloth "filial piety pocket" and a plain skirt for plain clothes. On the way, if Cai Fu stops to change his shoulders, his descendants must kneel and salute. No matter walking or punting, every time you cross a bridge, a village and turn a corner, you should set off firecrackers, knock gongs and cry.
When you go to the cemetery on the top of the mountain, you should first sacrifice to the local land and hold a "coffin-telling" ceremony: after the coffin enters the coffin, build a sarcophagus with "grain bottles"; Put the "three-beam crown", "double-beam crown" and "single-beam crown" on the coffin. After sealing the coffin, insert the coffin into the grave and place a filial piety stick in front of the grave for ancestor worship. Then sacrifice to the "neighbors" of the new grave.
The funeral procession went back the same way. On the way home, I still use gongs to lead the way, only a single gong, with a slightly longer interval. The eldest son is holding a portrait or Woodenhead in front and holding an umbrella for him by himself. At the intersection next to home, the helpers at home have lit the smoke pile with the garbage cleaned indoors, and undertaker must go through the smoke pile to get rid of bad luck.
Since the funeral, the bereaved family has been a vegetarian, known as "tofu rice." After the funeral, a vegetarian banquet is still held to entertain relatives, neighbors and talented people, which is called a "funeral banquet". If the children and grandchildren of the deceased are full of dignity, relatives and neighbors will fight for a funeral meal to prolong their life. After the 1980s, "funeral banquets" were mostly changed to meat banquets, but there was definitely a big plate of "old tofu". At the same time, the bereaved will wrap the noodles and cooked arhat beans in white cloth or towel and return them to their relatives and friends, commonly known as "noodles for the elderly" and "beans for the elderly". If Li Bai given by relatives is a coin, as usual, only less than half of the funeral expenses will be collected, and the rest will be returned in odd numbers.
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Do seven, answer the evil spirit, etc.
Sacrifice every seven days from the date of death, which is called "doing seven". There is a saying that "you must eat your son's rice in the first seven, but you must not eat your hometown's rice in the sixth seven", so the first seven is made by your son and the sixth seven must be made by a married woman. On February 27, my son asked the old "xianggong" to read the sutra of longevity and health and burn it for the dead. "May 7th" is the most grand of the seven, and the other seven are called "San Qi" because of their simplicity. July 7th is also called Dragon Boat Festival, but it is not celebrated until June 7th.
On May 7th, children will ask Taoist priests to worship Confessions of the Emperor, and ask Buddhist believers to light lotus lanterns to turn over the dead. Incinerate white vampires, white-headed ropes, etc. Together with the clothes of the deceased; Daughter, niece and daughter-in-law remove the white circle from the "lazy head" and "front bun" and only wrap a white rope between their heads. Relatives must send red incense and candles, and the closest relatives must prepare sacrifices to worship their ancestors and hold a banquet for the funeral. On the night before May 7th, there was a ceremony of "Greeting my hometown". It is said that after death, ghosts have just entered the underworld and don't know that they are dead. He will go to the "Homesickness Desk" on the day of returning home to visit relatives on May 7, and only when he sees his children crying and drinking will he know that his soul has returned to the underworld. Therefore, the funeral home must be greeted by tables, chairs and door panels in front of the door. The stage was covered with white cloth, and the whole family, old and young, wore linen, with Dai Xiao sitting on both sides. There is a basin of clean water beside the table for the dead to wash their faces and feet. On the inside of the platform, there is a sacrificial table, a portrait and a wooden owner, and a pair of red candles. Sacrifices are zongzi, steamed bread and various cakes and fruits, among which zongzi is essential. This is a small and pointed triangular brown, called "May 7th Zongzi". After everything was ready, the ladder was placed in front of the eaves. The dutiful son climbed the ladder and called the dead three times, letting him go to the stage to see his hometown. Everyone cried. When visiting Wangxiang, you must tear a small piece of yellow paper, cut it open and stick it on the wood owner. There should be no sticky substances such as water, rice grains and paste. Generally, many people need to take turns pasting. Posting it indicates that the deceased has returned, and the ceremony can end on time in the first half of the night. If you can't post it in the first half of the night, you should continue to post it in the second half of the night, even if it is dawn, until it is finished, but it can usually be posted before dawn.
The seventh issue still needs to be "untied". Because life is alive, it is inevitable to have some grievances with others. Starting from the desire to punish before release, children and grandchildren will lift their enmity against the dead. Jiejie ceremony is usually held around the "first seven days" and presided over by Taoist priests on a certain day. After the knot is untied, give the Taishang Laojun a paper idol, and put the copper coins on the yellow line to form 998 1 piece and put it on the table. It was a Taoist priest who deliberately untied the words that the Taoist priest drummed on the musical instrument and recited the Jie Jie mantra. Untie a knot after reading it. The spell is:
Your majesty is in a hurry,
Kings and kings come to listen:
Untie the knot, solve Chou He's resentment,
Revenge and hostility were settled before death.
Head knot to settle grievances,
Qiu Kanqi solved;
The two settled their grievances,
No more resentment;
……
Break down the ten spells * * *, repeat them in cycles, recite them collectively by the eighty-first time, and finally have a summative spell. Such a turn is called "one solution", which usually takes nine times. Then it is called "nine solutions", and then it burns paper gods and sends the old gentleman to heaven, and the ceremony is over. The calculated copper coin belongs to the Taoist priest.
Another ceremony during the Qixi Festival is "receiving evil spirits". According to Fan Yin's Yue Proverbs, there is an evil spirit. The head of a man is the body of a chicken. Within a certain period of time after death, the zodiac is in danger of death when it comes to its own funeral home through chimneys and other places. Its "pathogenic height" can be calculated according to the main branch of the dead sun and the Guiguzi algorithm. "A has meridian nine, and then count back to Hayes four. For example, on the fourth day, doing five branches and four branches is nine, which is called' nine-foot evil' and is the most fierce; Jiazi works nine times a day, making it eighteen times, which is the best. " Its arrival date is also calculated according to numbers, such as nine feet on the ninth day after death and eight feet on the eighteenth day. When picking up the evil spirit, the family avoided it. "The Taoist holds a rooster dustpan in his left hand and knocks on the balance beam in his right hand."
In addition, if the deceased dies abnormally, the Taoist priest will be asked to "turn over the ninth floor" for the deceased. Taoist priests piled up nine square tables in the open space into a "balcony", went on stage in the afternoon to simulate the songs and dances of the deceased before his death, and then walked through the "Golden Bridge" and "Silver Bridge" to pray for the deceased to enter "heaven". If the deceased hangs himself, the routine is "no hanging". That is, on the night of the funeral, undertaker tied a "hanging ghost" with paper and put it in the residence of the deceased. Prepare food and drink in the middle of the night and invite a neighbor to share it with the hanging ghost. In fact, it is a living person who drinks it himself. After drinking, he angrily denounced the hanging ghost, poked the paper ghost with a rice fork and ran to the wild to burn it. At the same time, the funeral home and the neighborhood beat gongs and drums, shouting that * * * was fired.
One hundred days after death, the children held a memorial ceremony and asked the Taoist priest to turn over for the deceased, saying that it would take "one hundred days". On this day, relatives and friends must send silver ingots and candles and hold a funeral for the guests. Children and grandchildren stripped the plain edges of clothes, and the harem dismantled the white rope at the head of the pan, all of which were burned into paper ingots.
At this point, the funeral is all over.
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(1) the high king sutra, namely the high king avalokitesvara sutra. According to "Fayuan Zhu Lin", during the Tianping period of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, Sun Jingde, Chu Shi of Dingzhou, was led by a robber, unable to copy Chu, so he had to confess his crime. Because Sun made a statue of Guanyin to worship him, so on the eve of his beheading, he dreamed that the monk gave him this sutra and asked him to read it a thousand times, so that he could be free. The next day, a company was tied to the city, and Sun walked and carried his back. The execution is repeated a thousand times, and the knife does not hurt people. The three are the same. A company heard that Gao Huan, the prime minister of Bohai Sea, was invited to pardon Jingde, and wrote this sutra, which is widely circulated in the world because it is called the Guanyin Sutra of the High King.
(2) if the father died early, at the grandparents' funeral, Sun Di called it "giving birth to grandchildren again".
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