The author of this article is Ni.
In China, people call graves "yin houses". In the south of China, there is a burial method. There is no grave, no ghost house, and the coffin is placed on the edge of a cliff. The earliest existing regular script dictionary "Jade Piece", when Gu of the Southern Dynasties saw such a landscape in Wuyishan, Fujian, he exclaimed: "The fairy family is so beautiful, and the mountains and rivers are so beautiful."
This strange and mysterious burial method, the coffin is not stained with mud, and modern scholars call it "hanging coffin burial".
(Hanging coffins in Gongxian County)
Speaking of hanging coffin burial, many netizens may think of "cliff burial" (see "How did the coffin get up in the cliff tomb? There are three "secret methods", but the operational details have been lost. These two kinds of funerals have a common feature, that is, they are both buried on high mountains and belong to "cliff burial".
The difference is that the hanging coffin burial is to put the burial tools in a natural shallow cave at the height of the cliff, or in an artificial stone niche. The outside is open, not closed, and can be seen.
The most characteristic and representative is to put the coffin on the hanging rock wall crossbar.
Cliff cave burial is to put burial tools into natural or artificial caves. The caves are deep and large, and the entrance is closed, so people don't want to find and see them.
Cliff burial is mainly distributed in the Yangtze River basin and all parts of the south. This is the burial place of Guyue people, Pu people, Ba people and Liao people, so this is their burial method, not * * *.
(Hanging coffins in Gongxian County)
During the Republic of China, the Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Gelao and other ethnic minorities in southwest China still had this funeral custom.
The popular span of hanging coffin burial is very long, which is probably equivalent to from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties in the Central Plains to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The earliest time is more than 3,500 years.
For example, in Wuyishan, Fujian, there are coffins in four natural shallow caves on the cliff of Dazang Peak at the four corners of Jiuqu River. These coffins can be traced back to about 3770 -3930, presumably the remains of Fujian and Vietnamese in Shang Dynasty.
20 10 has been to Xingwen and Gongxian in Sichuan, and hanging coffins are typical. I also saw many ancient coffins hanging on the rock wall. Some coffins have fallen down, but the crossbar on which the coffins were placed is still inserted in the hole in the wall. Some coffins have rotted and fallen off long ago, but the stakes are still there. Coffin rock in Shangluole Town near the east bank of Nanguanghe River has the remains of coffin piles on the rock wall.
(Hanging coffins in Gongxian County)
The typical hanging coffin burial is mainly popular in southern Sichuan. At present, this burial method is mostly used in cliff burial in Gongxian County, Yibin.
Gongxian County is the most concentrated place of hanging coffins in China. When I came to the scene, I was shocked by the way the ancients buried me!
According to local investigation data, there are 295 hanging coffins in Gongxian County, mainly concentrated in Matangba area of Luobiao Town. There are 22 hanging coffins and 228 hanging coffins in Matangba. There are also 1 ruins, 22 rock paintings, ***37 1 paintings.
I went to Matangba before the Spring Festival. Because of the bad traffic, I found a local brother who took tourists by motorcycle to take me to see it, rented him for a day and later became friends.
(Leave a hole after the hanging coffin falls)
The cliffs here no longer face the river. In the Qing Dynasty, there was a wide river at the foot of the mountain, commonly known as Xiexi. Now the crab creek has been dry for half a year, and it will only become a river when there is enough rainfall in summer and autumn.
The mountain is not high in the distance, but when you look up, you will feel very high. On the cliff with many hanging coffins, there are many pile holes and crossbars, which are still inserted in the holes after the coffins fall. It is conceivable that there were many hanging coffins here in those days, and there should be thousands of them.
Matangba has also become a mysterious place because of the large number of hanging coffins. Coupled with the excellent local natural scenery, it has been developed into a scenic spot, and many "coffin fans" experience the beauty of hanging coffins every year.
What impressed me the most was a hanging coffin burial area called coffin shop.
("Coffin Shop" has a hanging coffin burial area)
The coffin shop is the first peak of the east rock of Matangba, which is less than 100 meters high. There are 34 hanging coffins on the rock wall with a height of 10-40 meters. Its name is because there are many coffins here, and there is a natural cave halfway up the mountain, where 29 ancient coffins are built, neatly stacked like a coffin shop, hence the name. It was also said that it was named "coffin shop" because the rock was shaped like a big sarcophagus.
There are also five wooden hanging coffins on the rocks here, and there are 14 red rock paintings around.
1985, Sichuan Provincial Cultural Management Committee and Gongxian Cultural Center cleaned 15 coffins. There are no valuable funerary objects in the coffin, mainly silk and linen clothes, coins, shellfish ornaments, bamboo utensils and burning beads.
(Bronzes unearthed from hanging coffins in Wuyishan)
One of the coffins is very unique, with a drum-shaped cross section and larger volume than other coffins. Since then, a wooden statue has been unearthed in the coffin, which looks like a human palm and a flame. Later, this funerary object was named "Finger Palm Flame Plate", where the existing "Bo People Hanging Coffin Exhibition Hall" became a symbol of "Bo People's Hometown". What does this "flame board" mean? It is difficult to solve and has not been reasonably explained so far.
In addition to piling holes in the wall, in China's hanging coffin burial, natural cracks are also made in the cliff, bars or boards are placed, and coffins are placed on the frame.
These shelves and crossbars are commonly known as "Hongqiao board", and some early coffins were boat-shaped, also known as "framed boats". For example, there are such hanging coffins on two vertical crevices in Wang Feng, Jiuquxi, Wuyishan, Fujian.
(Hanging coffin in Longhushan, Jiangxi)
Why not bury the coffin in the ground, but hang it on the mountain wall? There are too many statements.
On the need of "becoming immortal"
This mountain is closer to the fairy's residence, so Gu called the hanging coffin "the fairy's home". When ancestors died, they put coffins on the cliffs to satisfy the desire of the deceased to become immortals after death. Nowadays, many place names with hanging coffins are mostly "immortals", which should be the case.
Say "peace with the mountain"
After the death of the peasants, they "settled underground" and the villagers had no land, so they had to "go up the mountain" after their death. Caves and caves are the dwellings of mountain people and good places for burial after death.
(Hanging coffin-
Speaking of anti-robbery.
On the cliff, most people can't get up at all. It is modern when robbing a tomb, and the tools are very advanced, but it is not easy to steal a hanging coffin.
When it comes to avoiding animals.
Putting the body in a high place is conducive to protecting the body and avoiding being invaded by wild animals. This is what the ancients said-"the bones of our ancestors hang on the mountains, making * * * inviolable." There is also a legend in Gongxian County that Bo people were also buried in the soil, but later many people in the tribe got the plague and were buried on the cliff by the immortal's instructions to avoid the harm of animals to their ancestors. From then on, the tribe was safe.
Say "luck".
(hanging coffin)
Hanging high on the mountain, hanging coffins are all "high coffins"-homophonic "high officials"; "Coffin" is homophonic for "collecting money", and it can only be collected if it is placed in a high place. The Qing Dynasty's Gongxian Annals is about the burial custom of Bo people-"On the hanging coffin rock, the descendants are noble", so the coffin is buried very high. There is also a saying that the coffin hangs high and the sooner it falls, the better. Jing Li, a poet in the Yuan Dynasty, wrote in Yunnan Zhilue: "When a person dies, the coffin will be filled and placed on a cliff, and the first one to fall is lucky."
Say * * * "conspiracy".
The Qing Dynasty's Gongxian Annals recorded: "There are many scholars in the preface. Although Nanguang County was established in the Han Dynasty, people from Bohai still lived together. Since the Six Dynasties, Tang and Song Dynasties, disasters have occurred frequently in cities. According to legend, Luo Yin wanted to destroy his ancestors with the Bo people, but taught him to hang on a rock to show his descendants. So we try to hang high stones for good luck. His grandfather's bones were blown away by the wind, and all the heirs were missing. The place where the coffin rock hangs is also self-sufficient, but it is also clumsy. "
(Hanging Coffin Unearthed in Wuyishan)
It is said that Luo was killed by the Bohai people, and only Luo made this plan, and finally the Bohai people were eliminated.
Others say that this plot was planned by Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period. Zhuge Liang's southern expedition was resisted by the people of Bohai, so he cheated and destroyed them after consuming their wealth.
However, even if the above statement is correct, why is there a river and water under the cliff where the hanging coffin is located? One explanation is influenced by the totem worship of primitive seabirds, and some people say it is the choice of people on the water.
But I think the hanging coffins on the cliff are basically for protection, for the peace of the deceased!