Add Bookmark | Recommend this book | Back to the book page | My bookshelf | Mobile Reading

Free Web Novel,Novel online - All in hlnovel.com -> Prose -> Dust Heart Video

Stories from the underworld: "Liao Zhai" in rural memory

Previous page        Return to Catalog        Next page

    ?

    Author: Shi Yuchun

    I have read a lot of storybooks about myths and legends, but now I remember very few of them.  On the contrary, many stories told by my great-grandmother are still in my memory.  Today, let¡¯s talk about the story of the underworld that my grandmother told.

    When people die, they all go to the underworld. This is what I believed in when I was a child, and it is also what my grandmother believed in all her life.

    The concept of the underworld probably originated from "burning paper".  In my village, burning paper is done several times a year, year after year, in almost every household.

    On New Year's Eve, that is, in the afternoon of New Year's Eve, every family will go to the cemetery where the deceased ancestors are buried to burn paper, which is called "inviting ancestors to the grave".  "Ancestors" are dead ancestors and relatives. They are buried in the ground and their souls are in the underworld.

    On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, when the year is over, lanterns must be lit to send the "ancestors" back to the cemetery.  After delivery, it is natural to burn incense and paper.

    On Tomb-sweeping Day, there is no special grave-sweeping ceremony in the village.  Simply burning paper is a kind of nostalgia for "ancestors".

    On the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, Buddha's birthday, there is a grand temple fair in the town, also called "burning paper fair".  Many people will go to Famen Temple to burn paper for the "ancestors", which is to help the "ancestors" resolve their injustices and pray for happiness for the living.  At this time, there are relatively few people burning paper compared with festival sweeps.

    Every year on the first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, it seems to be the day when the "ghost celebrates the New Year" is said to be a day, and paper is burned.  At this time, the weather has turned cold. When burning paper, they no longer "print money", but just put some cotton in the yellow paper, which can be regarded as adding cotton coats to the "ancestors".  The warmth and coldness of the world are mapped to the underworld.

    In addition, a large amount of paper will be burned during funerals. In addition to simple yellow paper, various paper-based gold mountains, silver mountains, and pavilions will be burned; tubes with a diameter of one meter and a length of four to five meters will be burned;  clothes and so on.

    What's more, whenever there is a big event in the family, paper is also burned, such as son's marriage, daughter's marriage, grandson's full moon, building a new house, moving to a new house, etc., they have to go to the grave to burn paper for the "ancestors" and tell them about the family history.  event.

    "ancestor" not only refers to the dead, but also means "ancestor".  So people in my hometown swear, there is such a saying: "Don't shame your ancestors", if you are more ruthless, it means "shame your dead ancestors", if you are more ruthless, it is too uncivilized, so I don't say it.

    Young people are busy with burning paper, so they often forget it.  The important thing in the life of the old people is to remind the young people.  Grandmothers often remind their parents that it is time to burn paper for their ancestors.  Every time my father and I went to burn paper, my great-grandmother would tell me, you have to call your grandpa, your great-grandfather, and your great-grandmother, so that they will come to pick it up and come back with you.

    Because of these, I firmly believed at that time that the underworld is also the same as the yang world.  The "ancestors" in the underworld also lived the same life as us. The eerie ghosts and ghosts have nothing to do with me. Even if there are scary ghosts in the underworld, they must be other people's "ancestors".  The "ancestors" will only protect us.

    My grandma had little feet. Every time before burning paper, the old man would walk tremblingly from the old house to our house and ask my father to "send a message".  "Send a message" is to write something like "the ten directions win the Buddha, the eight directions, the ancestors of the Shi family, please come and receive the feast, bless my family, the old and the young" and so on.  Perhaps, in a sense, this is a side-to-side homage to words.

    Men will go to the "grave" to burn paper, and women can only burn paper in front of their own homes.  Because after getting married, women all left their natal homes and came to their husbands' homes, and they were far away from the ancestral graves that symbolized blood inheritance.  To burn paper at the door, draw a circle and draw a cross inside the circle.  In this way, "circling" and "marking" can let the deceased relatives claim it, and won't let "wandering ghosts" take it by mistake.

    When the grandmother was alive, she would also burn paper at the door during the New Year's Eve.  I also asked the elders:

    "Grandmother, who are you burning paper for?"

    Grandmother replied:

    "Burn it for my father and my mother."

    I will ask very strangely:

    "Mother, you also have a father and a mother?"

    Because I was naive at that time, I couldn't figure it out: such an old grandmother would also have parents.

    Grandmother would say:

    "Who doesn't have a father and a mother?"

    ?After my great-aunt, that is, my great-grandmother¡¯s younger sister, died, my great-grandmother would say:

    "Also burn some for your aunt. Our family has eaten so much food from your aunt's house, and I haven't paid it back in my whole life."

    It is said that in the 18th year of the Republic of China, there was a famine, and many people starved to death.  "A dog fights a flail" is what I heard the old people say when I was a child.  There were too many dead people, so they were left in the wilderness without burial.  If the dog has nothing to eat, it will eat the dead.  When the dog bites a tendon in the dead man's chest and tries to break itFor dead bodies.  Put it for three days, and then "encoffin".  Encoffining means putting the "dead" into a coffin, but the coffin lid will not be closed immediately.  After entering the coffin, put it for another two or three days, then cover the coffin and seal it with raw lacquer.  One day after the coffin was sealed, he was buried again.  Generally, they are buried for seven days, which is called "one seven".  Of course, in the past, during the dog days, there was no refrigeration equipment, so it had to be dealt with urgently. It was carried to the cemetery in about three days, and the coffin was sealed in the tomb, but it was not filled with loess.  Grave mound.  Now that there is an ice hall, it is still according to the procedure to put enough "17" at home before it is buried in the ground.

    I heard from my grandmother and parents that in the past, because of the instructions of Mr. Feng Shui, it was not suitable for immediate burial after someone "was born".  Therefore, after a person dies, he or she will rise up.  The so-called "compartment" means that after a person dies, he is buried and sealed, and then he finds a dry and free room at home, builds an earthen platform on the ground, puts the coffin on it, and then uses adobe (used to build walls when there were no bricks in the early days)  Raw materials) simply wrap the coffin, and then use mud to smooth out the gaps in the adobe.  When the proper burial day arrives, the adobe is dismantled and the coffin is sent to the cemetery for burial.

    Anyone who has watched costume dramas knows that the Chinese once wore things in their sleeves.  When I was a child, I had a sense of mystery about death, and would run to see where people died.

    My great-grandmother once told me that when encoffining, the deceased must have something hidden in their sleeves.  What exactly is hiding?  I haven't seen it in person.  I heard from my grandma that there is a fan in the sleeve and a bag of flour  I asked, what are these hidden for.

    The grandmother said that ghosts have to go through many passes in the underworld before they can see the King of Hades.  Hades will interrogate ghosts and deal with them according to their confessions and attitudes.  Or be tortured in the underworld, or reincarnated after being tortured.  Reincarnation can be from a man to a woman, or from a woman to a man, or from a human to an animal, or from an animal to a human, or not to be reincarnated forever It's very complicated.

    It is said that there is a pass in the underworld called "Yansi Cave". When ghosts pass by, they will be blinded.  Therefore, it is necessary to prepare a fan. After entering the "Yansi Cave", fanning it may reduce the pungent nose and throat of the smoke and make the journey more smooth.

    There is also a "vicious dog mountain" in the underworld.  There was a big hungry dog ??there, and to pass, he had to be given something to eat, so as to avoid the danger of being bitten.

    There are many other stories about the underworld. If you remember, I will write these first.

    When I was young, I always felt that Yin and Yang were separated by a thin sheet of paper, so respecting the sky and fearing God became a part of life.  People should live with respect and fear.

    Some people often say that this is a feudal superstition that poisons the mind and spirit.  However, I often think that those political, evil, and wrong things imposed on us may be more terrible than this.

    Because of these, I dreamed a lot when I was a child, most of them were dreams of flying immortals, so my life became more colorful.

    My great-grandmother passed away, and I still have these things left to me, which may be regarded as dross by others; but to me, it is more or less a fortune!

    (End of the full text) (Remember the website URL: www.hlnovel.com
Didn't finish reading? Add this book to your favoritesI'm a member and bookmarked this chapterCopy the address of this book and recommend it to your friends for pointsChapter error? Click here to report