Regarding the cave burial of the Miao people
The custom of cave burial is still a specious mystery in the eyes of folklore and historians. The Miao people first lived in the rich and developed Yellow River Basin. Because their ancestor Shennong failed in the war, they were forced to move to the mountains and forests of Guizhou.
The Miao people have never forgotten their homeland. Cave burial is actually just a temporary storage of the coffins of their ancestors, hoping that one day they can return to their true hometown and rest in peace.
There is a cave in the mountainous area of ??Qiannan, Guizhou, called Mei Cave. There are more than 400 coffins from different periods in it. It is the largest Miao cave burial in Guizhou. Walking through the coffins, you can see decay from time to time. There were coffins and bones that had not yet been weathered, and there were some broken earthen jars and other containers on the ground.
The coffins are placed in different places. They all face the north entrance and are fixed on two or three "well" frames. The coffin supported by six pillars and three "well" frames is for men. The coffin supported by two pillars and two wells is for a woman.
Coffins can be divided into flat heads and drum-shaped heads. The size of the coffin depends on the body shape of the deceased. The flat-plate flat-head coffin is from the Ming Dynasty, and the convex male-head coffin is from the Qing Dynasty. The flat-headed coffins are roughly made, while the drum-shaped male-headed coffins are mostly made of fir. The earliest coffins in the cave can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty, and the latest one is also from the late Qing Dynasty.
The people placed in the cave are all the ancestors of the Miao people with the surname Wu in the village below the mountain. They come up to worship their ancestors every Qingming Festival. Walking inside with the help of a torch, you will see that the empty cave is full of stalactites of different shapes. There is a small natural cave on the right side of the center of the cave, which was the temporary living room of the Miao king when he was hiding from foreign enemies. There is also a small cave inside the cave. , is the palace of Miao King.
Go straight in and about 100 meters from the exit. There is a man-made protective wall, which the locals call a camp. It is used to resist attacks by foreign enemies. Whenever there is harassment from foreign enemies, the man surnamed Wu at the foot of the mountain will take all his belongings with him. Come up and take cover.
The protective wall is made of stones. The wall is not high, about 3 meters. There is a lookout on the wall. There is a city gate on the right side, which is made of large bluestones to facilitate the entry and exit of people from the Wu family. On the highest points of the rock walls on both sides of the city wall, people could stand and store stones. Whenever foreign enemies came to attack, they would throw stones on it to resist. In the cold weapon era, it was a natural defensive barrier.
On March 3rd and June 6th every year, the Miao compatriots will hold a solemn ceremony of killing cattle and worshiping their ancestors outside the cave, and hold a unique cave jumping in the spacious hall inside the cave. The buildings in the village still remain today. It still retains the simple and rich Miao style.
An introduction to cave burials
The Miao people in Gaopo call cave burials "Badongdu". It is said that "Badong" means cave, "dongdu". Du? is the dead body in Miao language, and together it means "the dead body in the cave." After nightfall, dozens of young people lifted the coffin, and the whole village held torches to send the souls out of the village. According to ancient rules, they were not allowed to walk on a path that had been traveled by, nor were they allowed to use machetes to clear the way. They had to take an unfamiliar road. Dozens of people carried the coffin, pulled it forward and pushed it back, and sent the heavy coffin into the cave of the dead halfway up the mountain. Then they all turned around and left. No one could look back at the dead man again, and no one would ever walk into this cave again. resting place.
The Miao people say that there are many cave burials on high slopes. According to a survey conducted by Mr. Yang Tingshuo, a Guizhou scholar, in 1981, he discovered eight cave burial sites in Gaopo. However, more researchers believe that there are far more cave burial sites than this number, just because of their age. , and in recent years the custom of cave burial is no longer practiced, so some sites have been forgotten by people. ?There are two cave burials that have been completely preserved so far, one is the Jiading cave burial, and the other is the Shanping cave burial. ?
Jiading Cave Burial
Located on the hillside of Limu Mountain in Jiading Village, this cave is U-shaped with two openings at the top and bottom. The coffin is placed among the trees. The upper cave, which is covered by heavy shade, has an open entrance, more than ten meters high, more than ten meters wide, and about thirty or forty meters deep. Visual inspection can see hundreds of coffins placed on the "well"-shaped wooden frame. , arranged in five rows, with the coffins facing outward or inward. There seems to be rules among them.
However, this hole can only be seen but not entered.
The entrance to the cave was filled with broken and decaying coffins. I wanted to go in, but there was no way to find it. I managed to climb up to the edge of the cave and took a closer look. On one coffin was written "Rest in the Dragon Palace" with several calligraphy characters, and the inscription was "descendants of the Luo family". It was established on October 1, 1988. It is unknown whether it was written during the burial or when later generations offered sacrifices.
Shanping Cave Burial
It is located in a mountain depression directly opposite Shanping Village. In front of the cave, there is a stone tablet carved on the rock. On the forehead of the tablet, in regular script, are the four characters "Longcun Key". The inscription mentions Shanping Cave Burial and says that the tomb is a legacy from ancient times.
Cave burial process
The crew of CCTV's "Hometown" cultural column said that Yaolu Township in Libo County, a world heritage site, is the best place for my country to study the funeral customs of ancient ethnic minorities. The Yao people's funerals here are centralized cave burials.
There are three Yao tribes in Libo. The Yaolu Yao people usually wear blue clothes from top to bottom, so they are called Qingyao, or Qingtrousers Yao. Qingyao still follows the custom of cave burial. In 2008, six or seven coffins were carried into the coffin cave.
There is a whole set of horrifying procedures for cave burial. The procedures are all handled by the "ghost master" in the village. They are very solemn and solemn.
On the day of burial, the deceased put on a brand new national costume. Half a RMB is used to bury the deceased, and the other half is left to the family to keep or burn. Generally, the price paid for burials is three to four hundred yuan, but of course there are also those buried with more than a thousand yuan, which varies from person to person. At the same time, there were rice, wine, meat, etc. placed in the coffin, and some farming tools were placed next to it. The most important thing was a rain gear, which meant that the deceased could be protected from wind and rain in the other world.
On the day of the funeral, a cow (buffalo or ox) or a pig, or both, must be killed, depending on whether the family is wealthy or not, or according to the deceased's requirements during his lifetime. When killing a cow, it must be killed with one knife. The winner will be rewarded with dozens of kilograms of beef, otherwise a fine of tens or hundreds of yuan will be imposed. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for the "Killer".
On the night when the deceased enters the cave, relatives should go to the cave and light torches to show that the deceased can clearly see the way to the underworld. More than ten years ago, a family member failed to take care of the fire before leaving the cave, causing a fire and burning some coffins and trees in front of the cave entrance. They were punished by giving a banquet to the whole village to apologize.
The origin of cave burials
There is a folk saying of simplicity, but in the eyes of scholars, there is a romantic explanation. For example, a Gaopo Miao scholar believes: Their (referring to the Miao) ancestors lived in the Yellow River Basin, and the Shennong clan was their ancestor. Due to historical reasons of the failure of the war, the ancestors were forced to migrate to the mountains in the south. In Jiading, the Miao language reads "Wengle Weng Mantra", which means "flood the Yellow River". Generation after generation, their ancestors dreamed of returning to their homeland in order to carry their coffins back to their hometowns, so they had the custom of "burial in caves". ?
It is generally believed that the ancestors of the Miao people first lived in the Yellow River Basin, that is, the Jiuli tribe more than 5,000 years ago. Chiyou, its leader, was defeated in the Zhuolu War in the Central Plains. The Huangdi tribe was defeated in the south and occupied the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, forming a new tribal alliance, known as the "Sanmiao" in history. In a new round of competition, they once again lost to the tribes led by Yao, Shun, and Yu, and were defeated. They were forced to migrate, and some of them came to settle in Guizhou.
Migration is a major event in the history of the Miao people. Ancient Miao songs in many areas of Guizhou contain songs about the migration of the Miao ancestors. Connecting the custom of cave burial with history may not be entirely a fiction.
Funeral customs of the Dogon people in Mali. The Dogon people live in mountainous areas. A small minaret made of stones is built on the top of a rock in their village. Next to the tower is an unfathomable cave to bury the bodies of the dead. The Dogon people hold cave burial ceremonies for their dead. Relatives, friends and neighbors climbed to the top of the mountain with a small tower and used ropes to pull the body up and then hoisted it into the mountain where the deceased was placed. When the deceased was buried, the "cave burial" was completed, without covering it with earth or burning it.