As most (probably all ) of you know , China just enjoyed 3 day weekend thanks to Qingming (清明 Pure Brightness) Festival – one of the 24 seasonal division points in China and the time when Chinese pay respect to the dead. However, what most of you may not be aware of is how people in ancient China used to deal with their deceased relatives.
For almost as long as there have been dead people in Middle Kingdom, it’s been believed that that a person’s journey does not end in death. When a person dies they must return to the soil from where they came. It didn’t matter if a person died 10 miles or 10,000 miles from their birth dirt, their body had to get back there.
If a man were to die in another town, the dead person’s relatives would travel there and ask a Taoist monk to take the body back to their hometown, an extremely important tradition in Chinese culture as a person’s soul, body, home, and land are closely entwined. If the body cannot go home, the soul is lost forever in the world after death, suffering everlasting turmoil. This tradition was born out of filial piety, feng shui, and ancestor worship, and it contributes to the pervasiveness of such traditions.
Yet, getting a corpse back home wasn’t always easy. Transport by train or car could be very expensive. So obviously the only option was to have the corpse carry itself home. This could be accomplished in two general ways: either by herding a corpse or walking a corpse – in Chinese 赶尸 gǎnshī.
Here’s how it looked like :
HERDING A CORPSE
It involved assembling a number of corpses that needed to be delivered to a specific village or region. Taoist priests (or people calling themselves Taoist priests) would begin by praying and chanting over the dead so as to “possess” them into walking.
Much of this was for show, so that people would believe that the corpses were actually being reanimated, and that they should keep their distance. It was all part of setting the stage for a swift, uninterrupted transport of the dead. It also added to the priests’ status and aura of mystery if people believed they actually had powers over corpses.
In practice, corpses would be tied to bamboo poles, one on either side of their upright bodies. Then, the ends of each pole would be hoisted onto the shoulders of a man at the front of the line, and a man at the back of the line, and off they would go.
As the men walked with the poles on their shoulders, it appeared as if the dead were shimmying, shaking, and hopping along on their own. A priest would head up the front of the procession and ring a bell or beat a gong in order to warn people of the coming dead.
This gave folks a chance to hide themselves or look away, as encountering the dead in Chinese belief is bad luck. Plus there was also the whole “steal your Chi/be my Ghost Bride” thing to contend with.
WALKING A CORPSE
Corpse walkers were people whose job was to literally walk dead bodies home. While it is hard to find official records of “professional corpse walkers”, this business has been a part of Chinese culture for hundreds of years and survived till mid 20th Century. After the rise of Chairman Maoand the Communist Party of China,thecorpse walkers became seen as “counterrevolutionaries” or “engaging in superstitious activities” and could face severe punishment.
When a corpse had to return home, a corpse walker was charged with “magically” reanimating the corpse and guiding it to its grave.
The corpse walker carried a white paper lantern and a basket of fake money that he intermittently showered upon the ground ahead of the corpse. This was to bribe the deceased’s way into the next life, known as “buying your way into the other world”. As the corpse walker marched onward, he chanted something like, “Yo ho, yo ho” mixing in directions for the corpse following him.
Corpse walkers worked in pairs. One was the leader, the “walker”, one had the corpse hoisted upon his back, he was the “carrier”. The carrier’s job was also to masquerade as the corpse. Since the corpses were very heavy, and the walkers often had to travel for months at a time, the pair would regularly trade off who had to carry the corpse. The weight of a corpse on the corpse carrier also accounted for what appeared to be the corpse’s stiff gate.
Because the corpse carrier was hidden under the long, dark robe covering both him and the corpse, he used the corpse walker’s lantern – day or night – to guide him. To keep the corpse as fresh as possible, the corpse walkers only travelled during winter months, and put mercury into the corpse’s orifices to fend of decay.
Corpse walkers and corpse herding priests provided a service. They let the living put what felt like a safe distance between themselves and the dead. Concealed beneath a warm cloak of superstition, the corpse walkers and corpse herders allowed people to focus on the mourning or spiritual aspects of death, instead of the cold reality of corpse transportation.
The theater that the corpse transporters provided was just as valuable as the actual transportation. They made death and what happens to you after you die a thrilling, chilling part of the cultural conversation.