Bo's hanging coffin
Gongxian county is located in the adjacent areas of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, and it is the most typical place for hanging coffins in ancient times. At present, 4 1 hanging coffins have been found, including 288 hanging coffins. It is the place with the largest number of hanging coffins in China and even the world. Hanging coffins are commonly known as "hanging stones" That is, putting the coffin on a cliff tens of meters high is the burial system of the Gelao people in ancient southern Sichuan. As early as the Warring States period, Bo people lived in Yibin area, and successively established the country and Bo people's Dao county. Because of its bravery, the rulers of past dynasties did not allow it. They live in wild thorns and have the reputation of "cutting through thorns". In the Ming Dynasty, Bo people were called "Zhangdu clan". In the first year of Zongshen (1573), the governor of Sichuan once led140,000 troops to annihilate. At that time, "the former army set fire to more than a thousand villages in the city, and the flames were all over the sky ... thousands of people went to the cliff valley ... and the monopoly was completely destroyed (Xingwen County Records).
However, according to folklore, the Bo people were not killed, and the local He family was a descendant of the Bo people. It is also said that the ancestor's original name was "A", but it was renamed "He" because he escaped the suppression of the current dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, Wang A, the leader of Bohai, was killed in Jiu Si, the capital of Bohai. Someone once visited an old man named He in the local area, saying that his ancestor He Daning was originally a family with chiefs Ada and A Er, and later joined the army under a general named He and changed his name to He. In Gongxian, there was once a famous saying that "there is cocoa (Yi people) in the back mountain, and there is a model, so there is no melon". As for why the Gelao people have the custom of hanging coffins for burial, Gong County Records records: "According to legend, there was Luo Yin, and because the Gelao people tasted their ancestors, their teachings hung on the rocks and their descendants were tall. So get lucky for high rocks. " It is also said that Zhuge Liang used this method to consume the power of bloggers. During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang conquered the south, but was blocked when passing by land. When he saw the dry land in the sky, he was reported. The drought is due to the bad feng shui in Bozu's tomb. If the coffin is moved to the cliff, there will be a good harvest next year. Bo people believed it, abandoned the war and left, busy moving the grave. Zhuge Liang took the opportunity to leave. Unexpectedly, the next year, the crops were bumper and people and animals flourished. Thus, hanging coffins were handed down from generation to generation. But in the era of slash-and-burn cultivation, there are different opinions on how to put the hanging coffin on the cliff. It is said that digging a well is the road, and after putting the coffin, the road is destroyed; It is said that the cliff should be buried first, and then the soil should be removed; It is said that a rope was put on the top of the cliff; Some people say that they want to build a carriage frame. What is it? I still can't understand it.
The hanging coffins of the Gelao nationality are mainly concentrated in Matangba and Sumawan in Gongxian County, with about 200 hanging coffins. Placement methods, such as horizontal drilling; There are holes embedded with wooden stakes, and the coffin is placed horizontally on the wooden stakes; There are also several kinds of parallel or stacked. Coffins are like boats, with a big head and a small tail, mostly whole nanmu. There are many rock paintings of the Gelao people around the burial place. The pictures and colors are clearly distinguishable, mostly painted in sand. They all adopt primitive graphic painting techniques, with rough lines, vivid images and diverse themes. Its function, either as a tribal symbol or as a consolation to the dead, reflects the religious belief and spiritual world of the coffin bearer.
What are the eternal mysteries of "Bo Man Hanging Coffin"? To sum up, there are six mysteries, namely, the family, the age, why this burial custom was carried out, whether there are descendants of people who carried out this burial custom, how to put the coffin weighing 1,000 kilograms on a dry cliff, the purpose of painting rock paintings around the hanging coffin and the significance of rock paintings, etc. There are different opinions and disputes about the clan of hanging coffin burial. From an academic point of view, there are four main types:
(1) Both Bo people and local residents in the annals of southern Sichuan think that hanging coffins in Gongxian County is the burial custom of Bo people and have always called it "hanging coffins for Bo people". Because Gongxian was once a place where "Bo people" lived, it was called "Bo Dao". According to the records of Gongxian County in Qianlong, the coffin rock ruled 90 miles southwest. In the past, the chief of Bo carved stone oak nails on the cliff end and put them on the coffin. The cliff height was 100 meters.
(2) 1974 Servants in Sichuan Museum took down ten hanging coffins in Dengjiayan and Baimadong of Matangba for cleaning and excavation, and found that seven bodies had their maxillary lateral teeth knocked out. According to historical records, servants had the custom of beating teeth, so some people thought they were servants. However, because the other three bodies that were cleared and excavated at that time had no teeth, this statement was also questioned and it was difficult to reach a conclusion.
(3) According to some people of the same clan, Sichuan has always been an important settlement of Pu people, and Bo people are Pu people, that is, Wei and Jin dynasties and their successors. Because some people here live in, and later they are called Americans, they think that Bob and his family have different names.
(4) There is also a view that hanging coffin burial cannot be a specific nation or its descendants, because hanging coffin burial, as a similar cultural phenomenon, can be independently developed by several different nationalities in similar social development stages and natural geographical environments, or spread among different nationalities due to cultural exchanges.
When all kinds of disputes are inconclusive, people respect local customs and call Gongxian hanging coffins "Bo people hanging coffins" according to established principles.
Why do Gelao people hang coffins on high rocks?
Why do Gelao people put coffins on the precipice? There are five theories in academic circles:
(1) Your ancestors said that the sun emblem rock painting is a symbol of the totem worship and hanging coffins of your ancestors.
(2) The highest filial piety means that people put their ancestors' coffins on the cliff, and the highest one thinks it is the highest filial piety.
(3) The history of conservation says that the bones of ancestors are hung on high mountains, and people and animals cannot infringe upon them.
(4) Safari said that people in Safari live in peace with mountains, live along rivers, live in rocks and die in rocks.
(5) The dignitaries made it clear that the Records of Gongxian recorded that the Gelao people were buried by hanging rocks, and this life was noble. How did the Gelao people put coffins weighing hundreds or even thousands of kilograms on the cliffs tens to more than 100 meters above the ground? Many experts, scholars and tourists have made bold speculations, which can be summarized as: hanging rope theory, rising position theory, box binding theory, plank road theory, ladder theory, foundation soil theory, water level theory and so on. And there are three kinds of people who agree.
(1) The hanging rope means that after the burial site is selected, the coffin setter wraps a rattan rope around his waist, lifts it from the top of the cliff, sticks it on the cliff, makes holes from bottom to top, then lifts the empty coffin to the selected position and puts it on the nailed wooden stake, then lifts the body, funerary objects and sand to protect the body from erosion in the same way, puts it into the coffin, and finally covers the coffin to complete the burial.
(2) Climbing refers to someone holding one end of the rattan rope at the top of the mountain and throwing the other end from the cliff. First, they pull it to a pre-selected place by hand to drill a hole, then pull the buried coffin above the hole, then nail the coffin pile on the coffin hole by hand, and then slowly put the coffin on the coffin pile.
(3) Box binding means that bamboo and wood are tied up from the bottom of the cliff layer by layer and erected, and the coffin is lifted up along the box frame by hand and placed at the destination. This seems simple, but if the coffin is put on the scaffold, the amount of work is too large, and the safety cannot be guaranteed if it is put on the scaffold for a long time. So this guess is also reluctant. After the first year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, the number of Bo people in South Syria decreased on a large scale, which appeared in the literature records from time to time during Chongzhen and Shunzhi years, and then disappeared mysteriously, leaving people with doubts. It is generally believed that a war should not make a nation completely extinct, and Bo people should have descendants. As for the whereabouts of their descendants, there are several local sayings: First, they changed their names and surnames, and were afraid to admit that they were Gelao people, and they were afraid to take the original "A", so they changed the surname of "A" to "He" next to "ィ", and the local "He" surname was the descendants of Gelao people. In the second way, Bo people are scattered in large areas adjacent to Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, and Bo people in southern Syria are only a part of them. At present, there are still Gelao people living in Hengjiang River Basin in Yunnan and Nanpanjiang River Basin in Guizhou. Even after the fall of Jiu Si City, there were still many survivors, but they dared not use the surname "Bo" because of the suppression of the imperial court. Over time, they were gradually assimilated by other nationalities. (Supplement: The common surname of the Gelao nationality is "Zhang Du", which is recorded in the literature. This surname remained in use until the early Qing Dynasty. )
At present, the descendants of Bo people have been found in Qiubei County, Yunnan Province. They call themselves "Guo Po" and "Bo People", while other nationalities call them "Bahai People" and "Bo People". 1956, they were classified as Bai Yi branch of Yi nationality. There are 6,894 people in 1557 households in Qiubei, which are distributed in 20 villagers' committees and 44 natural villages in 6 townships (towns) of Shuanglongying, Shede, Guanzhai, Yuezhe, Nijiao and Bark, including Chunbo Village 19. The local bloggers said: "Our ancestors crossed the river from' outside the river' to avoid the war. Up to now, they still retain ancient languages and costumes and follow ancient and magical customs. The Gelao rock paintings distributed on the rock wall around the hanging coffins are extremely magical, and there are only 400 existing ones in Matangba, Gongxian County. These rock paintings have weathered the wind and rain without fading, with rich themes and contents, vivid shapes and rich changes and dynamics. There are sports, hunting, fighting, animals, weapons, wheels, big Yang emblem and other patterns, as well as unknown monsters and some irregular geometric patterns, which are highly valued by all walks of life. There are also various speculations about the purpose of painting rock paintings around hanging coffins. Most people think that the Gelao people, like the ruling classes such as the Han nationality, attach importance to murals and carvings in tombs, with the purpose of comforting the dead, or raising the prestige of the dead to scare the living, or as a symbol of the clan and tribe to which the dead belong. What is the significance of rock paintings? Some people think that it reflects the production and life scenes of Gelao people and some funerals, such as bronze drum patterns in rock paintings and many figure paintings of dances and games, and it is a true and vivid reflection of the scene of "beating drums and drinking and dancing" in the process of hanging coffins. Others think that it reflects the religious belief and spiritual world of Bo people, with traces of ancestor worship and totem worship. But for those grotesque and mysterious patterns, it is difficult to study what they mean.