What are the funeral customs of the Shui people?

The strong ancestor worship concept of Shui people makes them pay special attention to funeral ceremonies, and maintain relatively complete primitive beliefs and customs during the funeral process.

The funeral process of the Shui nationality is complicated, and its main procedures include six stages: mourning, funeral, auspicious choice, burial, monument erection and monument taking, many of which have the national characteristics of the Shui nationality.

After the death of the old man in the family, the family should quickly send the young men in the village to report the funeral to the relatives and friends of the deceased. The purpose of mourning is not only to prepare relatives and friends psychologically, but also to quickly prepare incense sticks, fish, glutinous rice, wine, cloth, money and other funeral objects. At the same time, it is more important to let people who are related by blood mourn all kinds of meat except fish.

At this time, survivors will also take out the straw and old clothes used by the deceased to make the bed and burn them outside the village. This custom called "burning the old nest" is said to let the god of fireworks bring these things to the dead for use, but it is actually a sanitary habit of disinfection and cleanliness. Even if you want to keep something, you should smoke it on the fire with fireworks. In this way, even if the dead end their earthly fireworks life, they will not leave unlucky things to future generations.

At the same time, the family should quickly boil warm water to wash their bodies. It is said that only when the body is washed clean and there is no smelly sweat can the soul return to its ancestral land and live with Fuxian in the underworld. When washing the body, don't let the feet of the deceased touch the ground. Put the deceased in a bamboo rice basket and scrub it with warm water from top to bottom. The water in the shower gel should be poured where no one passes by. Never let anyone step on it, otherwise, you think his feet will crack.

After washing the body, put it on a clean rice basket (it would be more glorious if it could be put on a bronze drum) and put it on a shroud. Shrouds should be 3 pieces, 5 pieces, etc. When the young daughter-in-law dies, she has to wait for her family to check. Let the victim lie flat in the coffin. Don't hold your head high and your feet low to see your feet, or you will become a ghost. When buried, let the deceased have a silver cymbal in his mouth, paper money in his hand and paper money on his head. As the saying goes, the dead go to the underworld and have money to buy water and food. When dressing the dead and placing funerary objects, be extra careful, and all clothes should not touch the ground. If you accidentally drop it on the ground, you should replace it with a new one, otherwise the undead will not receive it. In addition, don't call the names of the living at the funeral, lest the dead hook the soul of the person you call.

Whether waiting for the autopsy of a close relative, waiting for the morgue, or the funeral period after burial, in order to prevent the undead from making trouble, black cats should arrange for people to wake up during the funeral period. During the wake, except for the funeral, the neighbors in the village took the initiative to help. In order to dilute the sad atmosphere and eliminate the fear, mourners gather together to put aside the past, dance Lusheng dance, sing lanterns, or engage in folk competitive activities such as top bars.

During the mourning period, the Shui people also had an activity commonly known as "Kaikong", which was to set up a mourning hall to offer sacrifices to the dead. The time of "opening and controlling" can be long or short, and the scale depends on the family situation. "Kaikong" means burning incense and paper in front of the spirit, offering sacrifices such as fish, tofu, wine and rice. Yin Fu's family will also hang three, five and seven bronze drums with gongs and cymbals, and beat them day and night. Folk believe that the sound of bronze drums has the power to communicate with gods and release dragons, which can make gods comfort and guide the dead and make them become gods in the sky or dragons in the sea. During the period of "opening control", Mr. Shui Shu, who is familiar with the social history and migration route of the Shui people and the life of the deceased, will be invited to celebrate their life and conduct, sing praises to the ancestral home and migration route of the Shui people, and pray that the deceased will go down the river again and return to their ancestral homes.

During the mourning period, the aquarium also pays special attention to avoiding vegetarianism. Except fish and other aquatic products, poultry and livestock slaughtered before burial are called "Nande fish", and bereaved relatives and their blood relatives are not allowed to eat "Nande fish". Offenders will be condemned by the villagers. This custom was originally to sacrifice vegetarian food to ancestors to show grief. Later, it was smeared with superstition, saying that eating meat during the funeral would bring disaster to the family, and some family members would be disabled or die young. Only after three days of burial can the meat be served. At this time, you have to kill a chicken to sacrifice to the dead, and then rinse your mouth with chicken blood to serve meat.

Shui people are also very particular about burial methods, and there are many rules. The dead are buried; Abnormal death (such as maternal death due to dystocia) should be cremated before burial. Mr. Shui Shu should be asked to choose an auspicious day for burial. Because there are early and late burials, there are also convenient burials, urgent burials, deep burials and fake burials. Burial is a kind of burial in which no commemorative activities of "opening control" are held. Emergency burial is carried out when conditions are limited and it is too late to mourn. There are two forms of deep burial. First, the place and time of burial were lucky. The funeral home dug a grave once, so that all the coffins were buried in the hole, and then no more ground was broken. Second, although the burial place and time are possible, there are still some fierce people. At this time, it is necessary to spread some boards on the grave and hang the coffin to prevent it from falling completely. On auspicious occasions, after the memorial service, the board is removed, and the coffin falls into the hole and is buried as a grave. This secondary burial is commonly known as shallow burial. It was difficult to choose a burial day for a fake burial, so I carried the coffin outside the village, padded it with wood, and set up a temporary straw shed for protection. So, either dig an earthen cake and put it on the coffin, or surround the coffin with wooden boards, and then cover it with earth to symbolize that it has been buried. On an auspicious day, we will be buried again. Now this kind of fake burial is rare, and it is usually replaced by shallow burial.

On the eve of the funeral, undertaker will also invite wizards and Mr. Shui Shu to fast. They will slaughter a cow and let it bleed everywhere. Shui people think that cow blood is the water in the underworld, which will make the dead have cattle to plow fields and water to transplant rice seedlings in the underworld, and it will be safe. In some places, before sowing seedlings, sacred maple leaves are placed in the corners of the fields, leaving a small field for the dead to cultivate. Folk believe that this can be protected by ancestors and is expected to have a bumper harvest.

Every Shui village composed of blood system has a public cemetery. The tombs of the Shui nationality are very distinctive: rectangular tombs made of stone pillars, slates and strips are mostly two or three stories. The ground floor is buried in the soil with a coffin. The middle and upper floors are exposed from the ground, with a height of 1 ~ 2.5 meters, and various funerary objects are placed inside.