Guangxi Yulin City, Luchuan Hakka sacrificial rites

The Hakka people have a long tradition of "releasing river lanterns" when doing good deeds.

In ancient times, the Han Chinese in the Central Plains believed that after the death of a virtuous person, his soul would float to the Pure Land in the Western Paradise, and so the custom of "releasing river lanterns" was created by the relatives of the old man after his death.

Before the funeral, the relatives of the deceased "river lamps", is to let the soul of the deceased can safely cross the river and the sea, so that the soul of the deceased safely floating to the holy land of the Western Heaven. The worshippers folded many fairy boats (paper lantern boats) and put them in the water with lights on them to escort and illuminate the "boats" of the dead. They killed chickens and ducks on the riverbank, and then threw them into the river together with boiled food such as rice, food, fruit, wine and vegetables, which were sent to the "boatmen" who escorted the deceased, asking them to serve the deceased's boat well.

"River lanterns" rituals are generally held at dusk, countless paper lantern boat accompanied by "CiHang song", drifting in the vast expanse of water, just like a torch in the blue waves on the wave procession, colorful, a faction of the immortal country rhyme.

The ritual of "releasing river lanterns" costs a lot of money, and only big families will hold this ritual.

The Hakka River Lanterns folklore, is the ancient Han people of the Central Plains of reverence for the ancestors of the simplicity of the feelings derived from a ritual, it is the Hakka people reverence for the ancestors of the feelings of a way to express, which is the "River Lanterns" folklore inherited so far still has not died out of the reason.