The Funeral Customs of the Tibetans in Kampa and the Tujia in western Hunan Province

Tibetan compatriots have five kinds of burial after death, after death to take what kind of funeral form is mainly according to the deceased's life before the economic and social status to determine. The most solemn is the tower burial, followed by cremation. When a child dies, or a person dies of other diseases, the body is thrown into the river to feed the fish, which is called water burial. People who have done bad things in their lives are buried in the earth. The Tibetans believe that people who are buried will never be reincarnated.

The sky burials send a kind of ascension to the "heaven" fantasy. The ceremony is usually held in the early morning. In order to respect the local customs of the local people, the local government has expressly stipulated that, without permission to watch the sky burial, not to mention private photography and photography.

Xiangxi Tujia funeral customs

Xiangxi Tujia funeral, the elderly and elders are more elaborate, the young people are casual.

(1) coffin: after death, by the deceased's eldest son or daughter (childless send other juniors), to the well to take a tea can or a bamboo tube of fresh water, hot bath for the deceased, and then put on the birthday suit and red shoes, the waist should be bundled with a white veil (according to the deceased to enjoy the years, a year old one), with the door on the kang of the room, the face of the cover of a sheet of white paper, the chest pressure of a tripod pot cover, feet lit on the clear oil lamps. The dead person is then placed in a room with a fire bed. At this time, the grass of the bed that the deceased slept on during his illness was burned at the crossroads outside the house. The covers and clothes worn by the deceased should be washed and dried. The coffin will be placed in the middle of the hall, from seven to nine neighboring homes to take the fire pit ash sprinkled in the coffin, paved with paper, the coffin, to be seen by relatives and then sealed.

(2) wearing filial piety: the deceased's filial piety men and women, filial piety children and grandchildren, are to wear filial piety, close relatives to wear white linen white cloth head scarf, to wear not nailed buttons, to the cloth knotted white long shirt, called mourning clothes. The mourning hanky is to be worn for three consecutive years. The biological son of the deceased in the deceased buried within three months after the hair is not shaved to show mourning.

(3) Funeral: before the "reorganization", the funeral held by the Secretary of State. After the "return to the stream" changed to Taoist priests to open the road and hold a funeral. The dead generally have to stop the bier three to seven days before going up the mountain, set up a hearth in the hall. Within these days, an auspicious day is chosen as the "cremation day" for the funeral, and pigs and cows are slaughtered for the deceased. In the daytime to Taoist priests or soil Lao Si "knot" and "super-death".

(4) Funeral: The morning after the big funeral is the funeral. First of all, please ask Mr. Yin and Yang to choose a good place for the cemetery, "the front of the Zhu Bird, the back of the Xuan Wu, the left blue dragon, the right white tiger". When the coffin is carried out, "road money" (superstitious paper) should be thrown along the road, and a torch should be put in front of people's houses. The casket while walking someone with a "descendant stick" (bamboo pole bundled seven to nine sections of money paper) hit the coffin lid, beating the gongs and drums to send the funeral to the mountain.

(5) burial: the casket was carried to the side of the tomb well, down the well before the tomb, by the Taoist priests first in the well with millet painted on the eight trigrams, sprinkled yellow wine, the coffin can be into the pit, first by the filial son of a foot kneeling in the coffin lid digging three hoes of mud under the pit, and then the crowd piled up the soil to move the rock and the good graves. Grave to insert a paper umbrella, a "descendant stick", inverted a dustpan, inserted married daughters and nieces to send the "living umbrella" (paper such as wreaths) do a good job of the mound, and then set off firecrackers, said the burial is complete.

In addition, the families of the deceased, to the new cemetery for three nights to send torches, full of "three Chao", but also to bring wine and "knife head meat" to the new cemetery, "catching the soul", will catch spiders and other bugs to put into the paper tube sealed, and take it home for the shrine, indicating that the deceased has been to the home shrine, living together with the ancestors of all generations.