What kind of experience is it to drive a corpse in Xiangxi?

Xiangxi has both the world-famous Zhangjiajie and the mysterious corpse driver. In the early days, if you stayed in the mysterious mountain village inn in western Hunan, you would probably see dead bodies walking. Before dawn, a row of bodies staggered in front of the inn, all covered with a wide black shroud. In front of these bodies covered with black shroud, there is a living person holding a gong. This living person is called "corpse driver" by local people. In fact, he is not so much a "corpse-driver" as a "corpse-driver", because he is beating the small yin gong in his hand and leading the group of corpses forward. He didn't play lanterns, but shook a bell that could evoke memories, told Nightcrawler to avoid it, and informed the dog owners to lock them up. If there are more than two bodies, the corpse driver will string them one by one with a straw rope, one every seven or eight feet. When walking in the dark, the body will wear a tall blanket hat on its head and some yellow paper with calligraphy will hang down from its forehead. There is a "dead body inn" on the road. This mysterious "dead inn" only lives in dead bodies and corpse drivers, which ordinary people can't live in. Its gate is open all year round. Because behind the two door panels, it is where the body stops. The corpse driver rushed to the "corpse shop" before dawn and quietly left at night. The body leans neatly against the wall behind the door panel. When it is difficult to walk on rainy days, I will stop in the store for a few days and nights. Speaking of the origin of corpse driving, a folk book records that thousands of years ago, the ancestor of Miao nationality, Apu (Miao language: father-in-law), led an army to kill the enemy array along the Yellow River until the corpses were everywhere and blood flowed into the river. After the battle, we had to retreat to the rear. After the soldiers carried all the wounded soldiers away, Apci especially said to the Apu military adviser around him, "We can't leave our brothers who died here. How about using some magic to get these good brothers back to their hometown? " Apu said, "All right. You and I will change our clothes. You take' Jeff' to lead the way, and I will supervise later. " So Apushi dressed up as Apchiyou, stood among the bodies of the brothers who died in battle, recited a spell, prayed to the gods, and shouted at the bodies: "Brothers who died in battle, this is not the place where I died. I am really sad to die in vain. My parents in my hometown are looking forward to it, and my wife and younger son are looking forward to going home. Do not hesitate your soul. Urgent as a law, get up! " All the bodies lying on the ground immediately stood up and followed the "Jeff" held aloft by Apchiyou, and walked towards the south in a polite way. When the enemy's pursuers came, Apci and Apu's strategist joined hands to attract "Lian Fog" and trapped the enemy in the maze. Because it was the spell "Si" (implementation and operation) of Apu Military Academy that saved everyone, everyone called him "Lao Si" from now on; Moreover, because the essence of Mr. Apu's last defense against the enemy is "fog", there are too many strokes of "fog" to finish, so he rewrote it into a word "witch" instead. In fact, this witch character is also a hieroglyph: the upper horizontal represents the sky or fog, the lower horizontal represents the ground, and the middle vertical represents "Jeff"; There is a figure on each side of the vertical, the one on the right represents Apchiyu, and the one on the left represents Apchiyu, which means that two people must unite to do witchcraft. According to relevant documents, there is a saying of "three drives and three no drives" in western Hunan. Those who are beheaded (their heads must be sewn together), hanged and put to death in cages can be driven away. The reason is that they are all forced to die, and they are not convinced. They miss their hometown and their loved ones. They can hook their souls with spells, put them in their bodies with spells, and then use spells to drive them to climb mountains and mountains, or even board a boat and return to their hometown. Those who died of illness, those who voluntarily hanged themselves in the river, and those who were mutilated by thunder and fire could not be driven away. Among them, the dead soul has been hooked by Yan, and the spell can't call back the soul from the gate of hell; However, the souls of those who threw themselves into the river and hung their necks have been "replaced", and they may be handing over. If a new soul is introduced, the old dead soul will be irreplaceable, and will it affect the old reincarnation? In addition, those who died of thunder were sinful people, and those who died of fire were often mutilated, and these two kinds of bodies could not be driven away. Before the Qing Dynasty, after the autumnal equinox every year, all state and county government offices would execute prisoners on death row with the approval of the Ministry of Punishment. After the execution, local death row inmates have their own families to collect and bury their bodies. However, if they want to carry the executed prisoner back to their hometown, they usually need four people to carry a corpse, which is very expensive. It is relatively cheap to ask the old company to drive the corpse home, and it can guarantee that it will not rot or stink in the middle. The carried corpse may rot in a day. Generally, the day before the execution, relatives and fellow villagers of guests on death row, even good people who are good at doing good deeds, will gather some money for the old companies they invited (traditionally two in Tsing Yi and two in red) and buy all the goods. On the day of execution, two senior officials, their assistants and assistants must wait outside the court. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the knife and axe fell and the death row head fell to the ground. As soon as the beheading officer left the charity ceremony, the red veteran immediately recited the mantra, and the assistant helped sew up the beheaded dead guest's head. Now Tsing Yi veteran cinnabar (the best cinnabar) is placed on the forehead, chest, left and right palms, and foot of the deceased, and each place is held down by spells, and then tied tightly with five-color cloth strips. According to legend, these seven places are places where the seven orifices enter and exit, and they are sealed with cinnabar spells to keep the seven souls of the dead. After that, some cinnabar will be stuffed into the victim's ears, nose and mouth, and then blocked with magic symbols. According to legend, the ear, nose and mouth are the places where three souls go in and out, so as to stay in the body of the dead. Finally, cover the neck of the deceased with cinnabar, stick spells on it and tie it tightly with five-color cloth strips; Then put a bamboo hat on the deceased (as a cover). When everything was finished, the old man in red read a spell and shouted "get up!" " Hakka dead bodies will answer and stand up ... Some people say that since the Miao people moved from the Great Lakes of the Yangtze River to Dipu Mountain, they lost the spell of "Wuliwu Fog" but created the technology of alchemy. Generally speaking, in addition to the ancestral "curse", the old company must also use cinnabar. This kind of cinnabar is the best produced in Chenzhou, so it is also called cinnabar. Moreover, the corpse-driving technique was originally called "the charm of Chenzhou cinnabar". Because the name is too long to read, it is simply called "the charm of Chenzhou". The scope of the corpse drive was originally only to drive away the dead bodies on the battlefield. Later, the old company also helped those who were killed by the government to drive the bodies back to their hometown. The geographical scope of "Chenzhou House" is only as far north as Langzhou (Changde), not Dongting Lake, east to Jingzhou, west to Fuzhou and Wuzhou, and southwest to Yunnan and Guizhou. Legend has it that these places are under the jurisdiction of the ghost country of Miao ancestors. If they are far away, even the old company can't catch up with those zombies. The phenomenon of "corpse driving in Xiangxi" in literary works and film and television works is often described as follows: "In the middle of the night ... in a remote place ... the path ... the moon shines white light on the ground through the edge of the dark clouds, and a white shadow moves slowly on the ground. A closer look looks like a group of people. Headed by an old man wearing a muddy black cloth and a robe that took off his coat, I saw this man holding a pair of red ropes and two bells in his left hand, and waving a triangular apricot yellow flag in his right hand, ringing with the bells-slogans ... Shouting slogans and flying flags. Behind the old man, he silently followed a group of people who acted strangely, saying that it was weird because the actions of these people were unusually consistent. The consistency seemed to be the same person, and they all walked with the same hands and feet! Look at the strength of their walking, which is also different from ordinary people. Every step is quite stiff. It seems that there is no brisk and elastic pace when we walk. Seeing the faces of these people is even more amazing! Pale ... pale face is a mixture of gray, black and metal gray, with a little dark red spots, and eyes are deeply trapped in their eyes, so deep that they can't find them, leaving only two dark holes. My cheek has sunk in, too, and there is yellow paper on it, which seems to be marked. Dressed in white robes, their hands held horizontally forward, dripping muddy things seeped from the white robes from time to time, emitting a stench in the surrounding air. These people are definitely not' people', they are zombies! And that old man in black is-'corpse driver'. " It should be true to drive away the body. In the middle of Qing Dynasty, this technology appeared, which was used to transport the bodies of Hunan immigrants who died in Sichuan back to their hometown. In the initial transportation process, the body took the waterway and did not need to "catch up". However, in this section of the Three Gorges, the current is fast, the reefs are densely covered, and ships often sink. In the Qing Dynasty, there was an official in Beijing. When he buys books in his spare time, he must have three. When there were many books for the elderly, when I retired to my hometown, I went to Sichuan by sea with books and documents, and three bags were brought back. Finally, I was lucky enough to sink two ships, leaving a copy of them. He swam from downstream to upstream, and it was not fast to swim against the current, but he still had to sink to the bottom. The difficulty of Shu Dao can be seen. Therefore, the Yangtze River is the most risky to set sail. People who want to take their lives are superstitious and never want to carry corpses on the dangerous river, so the profession of "driving corpses" came into being. Driving a corpse is a transaction on a mountain road hundreds of kilometers from eastern Sichuan to western Hunan. Before and after the journey, there are boats or roads. Only in this section, the mountains are high and the forests are dense, wolves and tigers haunt, the ox cart carrying the coffin can't walk, and the boatman doesn't help, so we can't just entrust it to the "corpse driver". Undertaker must first find the local "corpse hotel", which is usually a place to pick a small apricot flag and write the words "Zhu Youke". The corpse driver himself won't admit this ugly name. You have to call him "sir". He thought he was a doctor of "Zhuyouke" (ancient witch doctor). Undertaker negotiated the price with "Mr.", delivered the silver and the body, and gave an account of the place to pick up the body, so he could go aboard and walk first. There is no title of "dead body" or "dead body" in the technical terms of corpse drivers. The dead man is called "Western God" (the homonym of the dead). For every corpse driven, there must be more than two, otherwise it is not called driving, it is called "carrying". Just find a brave man to carry the dead back. When there were more than two bodies, in the evening, "Mr." began to practice. Set up an altar, light incense, burn paper, treat the body like this, and then set off. Every time he rings the bell, the rope in his hand tightens a little, and the corpse team takes a step forward-slowly. They all walked through the lonely wilderness path, and Mr. worked out the distance. At dawn, he can always find a small hotel for corpse drivers to have a rest. As for the dead, there are also places to park-these small hotels are all inward-facing, with thick black painted wooden doors. Behind the door is where the body stands. There is a local custom that prohibits children from playing behind the door, which should be derived from it.

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