The ancient "house" burial customs

Recently I saw a photo on Ebay with the original English note: Graves, outside of south Gate, Nanjing (tomb outside Nanjing Gate). The original photo does not indicate the time.

location of the

is in the Nanjing series of photos released by the publisher Brownie Photo co. There is a photo of "Monks Worship, Nanking"(Nanjing·Monk in Sacrifice) annotated in 1920. From this, the approximate time for taking the photo in Figure 1 can be calculated.

"Outside the South Gate of Nanjing" refers to the Yuhuatai area outside Zhonghua Gate today. Most of the "Jinling Tombs" gather here.

The "cabin" photographed in the photo is the popular "cuò"(pronounced cuò) burial system in ancient times. "Cuo" means to temporarily park the coffin on the ground and cover it with bricks and stones, or temporarily bury it shallowly until it is buried. This custom existed in many areas of our country in ancient times. The name and implementation of "house" burial varied from place to place.

"Cuo" burial is also known as "temporary house","floating house","mound"... The main reason for the implementation of "Cuo" burial is that the deceased cannot return to their roots due to various factors and are buried in a permanent ancestral grave. A temporary measure that can be long or short. This kind of "temporary burial" also has different terms in various places.

The first situation of

站图片位置is more common: the deceased is far away from his hometown and is in a foreign country. Due to political, economic, travel and other reasons, it is difficult for relatives or friends of the deceased to escort the coffin back to his home in time. Relatives and friends in front of the deceased will choose a "house" for burial. When conditions permit, they will be transported back to their hometown or bought a cemetery for permanent burial. For example, after Li Dazhao was hanged on April 28, 1927, he was first placed in Changchun Temple. On May 1 of the same year, Li Dazhao's family re-buried the martyr's body. The coffin was temporarily housed in the Miaoguang Pavilion Zhe Temple next to Changchun Temple. It lasted for 6 years. Then he was buried in Wan'an Cemetery.

The second situation: the deceased died in his hometown, but the tomb was not yet completed. The coffin of the deceased was generally "housed" near the tomb site or in the family temple. For example, in "Dream of the Red Chamber", Qin Keqing left it "cheaply" in Tieyuan Temple after his death. This is the "residence".

The third situation: In China, men and women are often buried together. Most of the deceased use a "house" and are buried together after their spouse dies.

The fourth situation: the deceased died an unnatural death or was imprisoned in violation of the law, and should not be buried in the ancestral grave. They can only "live" near the ancestral grave permanently. If the deceased has descendants who will make a comeback, they can choose a new tomb, and the expenses will be the ancestral grave. Most descendants who "committed crimes" choose to flee to other places and hide their identities, making it difficult to return to their hometown. As for the coffin in the hometown, no one took care of it, the beams and walls collapsed due to the wind and sun, the coffin rotted and the wood rotted, and the bones were thrown into the wild. This kind of ending is often a way for clans to educate their clansmen to "abide by the public and abide by the law."

The fifth situation of

: The person is away, has not returned for a long time, has no letter, and is about to die. Relatives first used the clothes and clothes of their ancestors to make "fake coffins" and prayed for their ancestors to protect them and increase their official positions.

The sixth situation: Due to war and natural disasters, the family fled. Although they have found a place to live, they still hope to return to their hometown one day. "Houses" are also used to bury relatives after death. This kind of "house" burials often appear in "righteous places" and are densely packed. This should be the case in the photo "Tomb Outside Nanjing Gate". Similar "house" burials often occur along the river and lake.

The seventh situation: In some low-lying plain planting areas, such as the Hangjiahu Plain in Zhejiang, there are many people and few fields. In order to avoid allowing the cemetery to occupy a large amount of fertile land,"houses" are also used to bury them. After the coffin is stopped for a long time and the coffin rotted, relatives will pick up the remains and place them into porcelain and bury them in the soil. Formed the custom of secondary burials.

The eighth situation: Later generations wanted to bury the deceased master generously to fulfill his filial piety. However, the conditions were not enough at that time, so we could only choose to bury them in a "house" and wait until the family was rejuvenated in the future before cooking.

The ninth situation in the: Young men and women who died abnormally cannot enter the ancestral grave immediately according to old customs. Relatives have a glimmer of hope for the young people who died prematurely, so they first stop in the "house" and wait for their resurrection. Later, they followed each other into habits.

The tenth situation: Some places retain the custom of "the son's grave is smaller than the father's grave", that is, the son's grave cannot be built on a larger scale than the father's grave. Ruzi became rich and wanted to build his tomb bigger, he had to rebuild his ancestral tomb first. This is why Zhu Yuanzhang built his ancestral tomb in Fengyang so big. For older families, five generations (gold, wood, water, fire, earth) can be used to create a new place for the elders of this round to reproduce, and another poem to honor the ancestors can be established. During the construction of the branch temple, the dead had to be buried first.

This "house" burial custom is very unsanitary and the rancid smell it emits affects the environment. After liberation, it has been completely abolished in most areas. However, this custom can still be seen in the mountains near Ningde, Fujian today, where I visited in 2006. Most of the "houses" burials there belong to the dead waiting to be buried with their relatives; young people who died in an unnatural manner; and ancestors who are waiting for the emergence of descendants who can shine and rebuild their ancestral graves.