[Chengdu Xindu Typical Funeral Ceremony "Singing Clothes"] Funeral Ceremony

Abstract: Chengdu Xindu area has an irreplaceable value and status because of the precious and typical funeral rituals it has preserved. This paper takes "Chengfu" as an example, through literature and field research, tracing its roots, comparing ancient and modern, exploring the traces of its changes, analyzing the historical reasons behind it and the cultural connotations it contains, and presenting readers with a more comprehensive, three-dimensional and clear vein.

Keywords: Xindu; funeral; adult clothing

[CCS]: G127 [ID]: A

[Article ID]: 1002-2139(2012)-16-0-02

I. Introduction

(1) Significance and value of the study

The Xindu area of Chengdu has a long history, a large population, and a rich folk culture. large population and rich folk culture. In this beautiful landscape, funeral customs are especially prominent because of their typicality. It is like a mirror, reflecting the region's way of life, cultural connotation, psychological structure. Therefore, the deepening of its understanding is not only conducive to the excavation of its intrinsic value, but also plays a positive role in recognizing the funeral culture of Xindu area.

The ceremony of "Chengdu Xindu" in Chengdu is remarkable not only because of its long history, but also because of the richness of its ceremonial process, the variety of forms, and the typicality of irreplaceable.

(B) the current state of research

According to the information we have seen so far, funeral customs, especially in the Xindu region of Chengdu funeral customs of the research results are not much, mainly focusing on the description of the whole of China's Han Chinese funeral customs, and did not do in-depth exploration. The research mainly focuses on the macroscopic surface, and seldom takes a certain point as an entry point to make detailed and in-depth analysis and investigation. Most of the information is a compendium of the entire funeral process, a simple list of each ceremony, summarized, and rarely focus on a particular ceremony to explore and carefully analyze.

The funeral customs of Chengdu Xindu area, there are fewer records in the local history, and the real significance of the study, the earlier should be counted on Fu Chongru's "Chengdu Overview", the contents of which is mainly in the description, record of the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of Chengdu's funeral customs, and put forward more recommendations to improve the customs, has been the beginning of the scientific attitude and the spirit of critique.

Second, Xindu "into the dress" ceremony

(a) Xindu "into the dress" of the origin

Mourning rituals, the younger generation to wear mourning for the elders is mainly to express filial piety and mourning. This was originally from the "Zhou Li", which was later extended to become the "forgiveness of sins" of the deceased. When there is a funeral in the family, all the family members will follow the rituals and dress according to their relationship with the deceased. Generally speaking, the children and grandchildren wear hemp or white cloth made of filial papyrus, mourning clothes, mourning shoes, waist tie hemp rope, known as "wearing hemp mourning".

From the above table, we can see that the general "into the service" are required to wear hemp wearing mourning, head wearing mourning pajamas, and "five services" is "into the service" in the important content.

Today's Xindu "into clothing", basically retained the previous ceremony. The mourning family wears mourning clothes, wearing a filial pajamas. Filial piety cloth is nine feet long [1], part of the package on the head, the back to drag a picture, about Qi to the heel, the filial pardons on top of wearing a bamboo sticky paper wrapped inlaid "hemp crown" [2].

(2) Rituals of Sindu's "Sungfu"

1. "Family Sungfu" and "Guest Sungfu"

Sindu There are two main types of "Shingon" ****, namely, the "family Shingon" and the "guest Shingon."[3] After the deceased has been placed in the coffin, the living are buried in the coffin. After the deceased into the coffin, the living should immediately rush to make mourning clothes, mourning clothes made that the family into the dress ceremony, the whole family wearing mourning clothes, in front of the spirit of three kneeling and nine kowtow, called "thank you filial piety".

"Home into service", that is, to choose a "guest into service" and the opening of the memorial, the burial period, notify friends and relatives, so the day to hang, held a guest into service ceremony. "The ceremony is more complicated, because there are friends and relatives to mourn, the funeral home must invite the master of ceremonies to the home to shout rituals, and prepare vegetarian feasts to entertain the guests.

2. Ceremony and its inherent meaning [4]

(1) filial pas

Xindu said "wearing filial piety" as "package filial pas", that is, the wife, son, daughter, daughter-in-law head wrapped in white cloth hanging to the heel, Sun's filial pas compared to the above! The filial pardons of the grandchildren are shorter than those of the above. Ordinary family members and relatives and friends of the length of the filial pas depending on their affinity relationship, there are only wrapped around the head, there and the waist, there are shoulders and back, there are different. In short, the relatives of the filial pas drag long, the alien is very short, or not drag the head.

(2) hemp crown

children and grandchildren wear, with white paper and hemp cloth paste into a circle on the head of Qi brow intersection, in front of a hemp cloth such as a sunshade. If the son has three "beams" on his head, the grandson has only one, in front of both sides of the hemp system of small cotton balls each one.

(3) cloth hat

for the daughter to wear, the cap is made of white cloth, the form of the same with the hemp hat.

(4) mourning clothes

Wife, children, women, daughters-in-law and grandchildren wearing mourning clothes made of coarse white cloth, the edge of the clothes but not the needle, buttons for the cloth. On both shoulders there is another four inches wide, long before the chest after the waist of the white cloth strips, called "filial tart". If the rich family is ordinary relatives and friends and the family are served "scattered filial piety", although the clothes are still white cloth, but the material is finer, more refined tailoring, and no "filial piety tart". And unmarried son-in-law wearing mourning clothes, the button for the red tape without "filial tart".

(5) hemp vest

made of coarse linen undershirt, wife, children, daughters-in-law and grandchildren only to wear [5], children wearers write on the back of the "woe to my father, the birth of a child for the price of the child" or "woe to my mother, the birth of a child for the price of the child," grandchildren wearers write on their backs On the backs of those worn by grandchildren, it is written "I am sorry for my grandfather, who paid for his grandchildren" or "I am sorry for my grandmother, who paid for her grandchildren".

(6) Belt

The belts worn by wives, daughters-in-law, children, daughters and grandchildren are hemp belts. In the Xindu area, the sash has different colors. A son-in-law wears a red sash, and if the deceased was a woman, the son of the deceased also wears a red sash. Ordinary family members, relatives and friends wear white belts.

(7) Filial Shoes

The cloth shoes are covered with a cloth, but the heel is not covered, unless all the old people have died.

3. Ideology reflected in the ceremony

In ancient times, the mourning clothes were three liters[6], four liters, five liters, and six liters for Qiwei, seven liters, eight liters, and nine liters for Dagong, ten, eleven, and twelve liters for Xiaogong, and fifteen liters of fine linen, and half of it was removed[7], and nowadays there is not much difference in length of the mourning clothes in Xindu, but the length of the mourning handkerchiefs is, in many places, still different.

This can be seen as an evolution of the adult clothing. Nowadays, Xindu area is the longer the filial pardons, on behalf of the living and the deceased closer to the relationship, the heavier the service filial piety, into a proportional relationship. In ancient times, the closer the relationship, the fewer the warp threads of the cloth, and the rougher the clothes, inversely proportional to each other. A positive and negative, reflecting the traditional Chinese culture of dialectical thinking, Lao Zi's "Tao Te Ching" fully embodies the idea, the blessing and the curse of mutual dependence, the combination of the real and the virtual, yin and yang **** exist. This combination of positive and negative dialectical thinking is the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancients, but also the embodiment of the essence of Chinese culture.

(C) "into the service" and affinity

Xindu area "into the service" is a good reflection of the relationship between the living and the deceased affinity. For example, the length of the filial papyrus is generally nine feet, seven feet, three feet, and the width is two feet seven, two feet four, one foot two, the length and width are different, the affinity relationship is also different [8]. Xindu unique color filial piety, filial papyrus color is divided into white, black, yellow and red, different colors, different meanings. Generally white is worn by the first and second generations, and green, red and yellow are worn by the third, fourth and fifth generations respectively [9], therefore, the color of Xindu's mourning hanky becomes an important symbol of differentiation between generations.

Conclusion

The study of the typical rituals of Chengdu Xindu region, "into clothing", is a long and arduous work, not only because of its long history, but also because it is difficult to dig deeper, more limited, but it has a great historical value and folklore value, and has great significance for the understanding of the Xindu funeral culture and even the culture of Ba Shu. culture also has great significance.