Do you know the procedure of Miao funeral?

The Miao dead were buried. Adults died and were buried in coffins, while underage children died and were buried in wooden boxes. When the old man dies normally, he should burn "gas money" and fire three guns at the same time, commonly known as "starting gun" Take a bath by boiling water with peach leaves or calamus, put on a shroud, go to the willow bed, and then enter the coffin.

Watch by the coffin

The coffin was placed in the center of the mourning hall and the whole family mourned. Dai Xiao Palmer posted the words "When the event is important" at the gate. In the evening, the Taoist priest was invited to "play around the coffin" to recite the scriptures and stop for three to seven days before going up the mountain for burial.

Choose an auspicious day

Some people choose "auspicious day" to see where there are no taboos before they help the coffin to the ground. When the coffin goes up the mountain, the deceased's uncle's house will find an old man, wrapped in white cloth with twenty or thirty feet and holding a straw handle to lead the way. Filial sons and grandsons will also head Dai Xiao handkerchiefs, hold incense paper and leave paper money. They will whine without detours, climb mountains, wade in water and even trample crops.

Be buried

After the coffin entered the grave, the dutiful son dug it three times with a hoe, and even called the dead three times, and then everyone began to bury it. Undertaker will all call back to Xiao Jia's house. There is a bowl of rice soaked in water outside Xiao Jia's house. Everyone will eat 1000 tablets, put them in his mouth and blow them away before entering the house. People who die abnormally, old and young, can't stay in the morgue. Most people don't choose a day, they are buried with death, and the funeral is hasty.

Dajia Ceremony at Miao Funeral

Nayong Miao people will sacrifice cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens when they die of old age. This custom originated from ancient legends and historical customs. According to Ren Fang's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Chiyou was a famous tribal leader of Miao ancestors and was described as a cow by the ancients. "As the saying goes, Chiyou has hooves ... Qin and Han Dynasties: Chiyou has ears like swords and horns on his head." This proves that cattle have a special relationship with Miao ancestors. "Biography of Chiyou in the Postscript of the History of Taoism" also said that after Chiyou's death, "there is no need to sacrifice the head of the cow to Chiyou", which proves that there is a custom of sacrificing the cow in history. Generally speaking, first, the ancient customs are passed down from generation to generation; Second, when a person is born, he cultivates cattle and raises poultry and livestock. After his death, he went to another world (the underworld), so he had to prepare everything he needed in the underworld so that he could go together. It is the most intense and grand ceremony in Miao funeral custom to make an ending, that is, to kill cattle (sacrifice cattle).

Organize the funeral and set up a funeral group.

First of all, the family members of the deceased, family elders and village elders discussed the specific matters of "settlement" and determined the members of the steward team, 1 supervisor, 1 ~ 2 deputy supervisors and several service personnel, which were divided into two groups: internal steward and external steward. The housekeeper is mainly responsible for the preparation of property, the income and expenditure of money and food, and the meal arrangement during the funeral; The foreign steward is mainly responsible for informing, receiving, preparing meals, collecting and returning tableware, and also informing relatives and friends to attend the funeral.

Where the relatives of the deceased, especially the uncle or aunt who is the guest of honor (that is, when the man dies, the aunt is the guest of honor; The woman died, and my uncle was the host and guest) and my son-in-law. Inform the host and guest that there is a set of specific etiquette rules. For example, when an aunt dies, people who go to my uncle's house to pay homage should bring a pot of wine (1 kg). When you get home, stick a branch (symbolizing the dead) on the roadside and tell you to wait here. Go to my uncle's door, clean the vinegar altar (red-hot charcoal in water), and then go into the house. Please sit down at this time, and the deceased bowed and handed the wine, saying, "The old man XX has passed away, and asked me to tell you that please go to the funeral on XX." My uncle's family will kill a chicken to collect after hearing the funeral. When the chicken is cooked, scoop up the rice and meat, and ask the mourners to sit down first. The couple put the rice and meat on the small stool outside the door, and found a wooden stick (a stick for beating straw) to stand on the edge of the stool, symbolizing the dead. Then read the confession, first worship the ancestors who died in my uncle's house, and then worship the deceased. After dinner, I will go back to my house for dinner. Later, he returned to his small home and pulled out the branches of the original roadside, indicating that the deceased had returned to his home with him.

Prepare the necessary tools for the end.

After the coffin is parked in the hall, a crossbow is hung on the left or right wall of the hall (male left and female right), several bamboo sticks (some made of bamboo) about 3 feet long and the thickness of big fingers are cut off and placed behind the door (male left and female right), and then a wooden stick with Dolye about 4 feet thick is cut off. After putting the sharp knife on it, put it behind the coffin (these crossbows, knives and sticks are symbols to protect the dead from animals. Before going out to the funeral home, they should be led by filial family members or relatives and young people, until the funeral is on the way to the funeral home, bamboo sticks are thrown away and knives and crossbows are brought into the funeral home. Paper horses and paper umbrellas should be tied. You should use a chicken with a divination and a chicken with a bowl. The chicken with divination is used to make divination utensils, and the chicken with pot cover is used for sacrifice during the whole funeral.

The making procedure of the instrument is: cut a bamboo or bamboo from Gongge in advance, cut it into three and a half sections, and the root section is about 2 feet long to make a guiding instrument; The middle one is 2 inches long and made into a sacrificial instrument-hexagrams; There was a coffin 3 feet on the top and it was inserted in the grave. The first is divination. Divination is to break the bamboo used for divination into two pieces, cut one end into a sharp bevel, and then sacrifice the teacher to crush a little hen (read the sacrificial words) and pour the wine on the ground. Secondly, make the guide. Cut the bamboo in the middle (half section) in half, attach a twine and a bone to the broken section, sacrifice the teacher to hold the unbroken section of bamboo root in his right hand, strangle a rooster with his left hand, recite the special guide, and then pass the bamboo through the chicken's ass (anus) until it passes through the chicken's mouth. Third, with the spirit, bamboo is still divided into two in the middle, and the other half is not cut. Cut strands of hemp (nine men and seven women) into 3 inches long, put them in the incision, put them next to the coffin, and put them on the grave after burial. And make covered chicken and rice for sacrifice. A sacrificial teacher trampled a rooster to death with her hand, shaved her belly, cooked the whole chicken and chicken liver, put it in a wooden bowl, cooked a pot of hand-cooked rice and put it at the bottom of the bowl. There are chickens and rice on the table next to the coffin, and the sacrifice teacher sacrifices the dead every time.

Please drum.

You can't stop drumming. Drum, there are two kinds of drums: Zhuanzhai drum and Shoujia drum. Turn the fence drum. That is, whoever holds the mourning drum will be stored in his home and collected by other residents when they are mourning; Housekeeping drums are specially kept by one household, and those who handle funerals should be put back after use. Come on, drumming has an inherent ritual. Whoever holds a funeral will send three people (1 person playing the lusheng) to carry 1 kg of wine to the drum store and explain the purpose to the host. The host will pour out the wine and give it to the drummer, then put down the hanging drum (the drum must not touch the ground), and the drummer will cover the clothes on the drum and then go back to the road. Along the way, accompanied by Sheng, the drum was carried back to Xiao Jia's house and hung on the pillar of the first house.

Hanging drums, just finished

After hanging the drum, enter the ceremony and start the formal sacrificial activities. Sacrificial activities are always presided over by the sacrificial teachers in the clan (generally called ghost teachers). Ghost teachers of all clans set an example from generation to generation. He is not only familiar with the funeral procedures and ceremonies of his own clan, but also knows a little about the rules of other different clans. We also need to know the population distribution of this family for more than five generations, and the names of the birth and death of Long Mai and his late grandparents. In this way, when offering sacrifices to everyone who died, it is good to say their names and explain them.

Welcome guide at Miao's funeral

Receive guests/tenants

On that day, relatives and friends came one after another. Especially when my uncle (or aunt) comes to pay homage, the filial family should lay a bamboo mat on one side of the intersection, which is triangular, put three grass balls, put three extinguished firewood in the middle of the grass balls, put three glasses of wine next to it, and have a pair of bamboo sticks and divination, so please wait for an eloquent housekeeper. My uncle (or aunt) also invited a leader to speak for them. Before the guests and their party came to the bamboo mat, they poured wine for each guest in advance, and then the speaker invited by the host Hakka used a song metaphor to ask if the bamboo stick divination was ready. The flight attendants answered them one by one in the same way. The spokesman picked up a bamboo stick for divination, sang three glasses of wine to the deceased and his three generations of ancestors, kicked off firewood in three directions, and the guests entered the mourning hall crying. Xiao Jia knelt in front of the hall to meet him and helped the guests enter the hall together. The housekeeper arranged one in advance for the host and guest of the filial family to stay. If the deceased's son-in-law brings cows, pigs and sheep to pay homage, he should find the person in charge himself and make it clear one by one before accepting it. He should also ask the steward's permission to attend the memorial ceremony. Some people even have to get permission for their daughters and son-in-law to cry. However, there are no such regulations in sheep farms, people, Lezhi and other areas. If any parents-in-law dies, as a son-in-law, we must bring a cow to an abrupt end, or at least a pig and a chicken to pay homage. Her crying was sincere and unforgettable.

Point out the way

Generally, a ceremony to clear the way (lead the way) is held in the afternoon, and in some places, it is after the funeral and before the mountain rises. The direction is generally presided over by a special reader. There are special guiding words, which generally point from the fire of the deceased to the east. The guide holds the guide in one hand and the guide cock in the other. He read ... the top is where you wear, the middle is where you stick your hand, and the bottom is your guidepost ... "Every time he reads a paragraph, he knocks on the coffin with a bamboo pole, stomps the chicken to death after reading it, and throws the guide out of the middle of the chicken (the guide chicken was thrown at the funeral.