Xiangxi has always seemed to be a very mysterious place in the eyes of outsiders, especially their witch and Nuo culture.
Whether it is Chenzhou talisman, Gu, or the girl in the fallen flower cave, too many legends and stories make this already mysterious place even more confusing.
No one knows whether these stories are true or false, and few people dare to verify them. So they have been passed down from generation to generation and have become a unique feature in Xiangxi now.
However, among the several mysterious legends in western Hunan, there is a legend that seems particularly terrifying, that is, driving corpses.
Compared with other witchcraft, driving the corpse is more like letting the dead "live" and that is also the last obsession for people who leave in a foreign land to return to their hometown.
In some film and television works, we see that corpse-driver is mostly dressed up by Taoist priest .
There was a man walking in front, holding a bell in his hand. In the dark night, behind him was a group of corpses wearing Qing Dynasty costumes and sticking to talismans.
These corpses followed behind the corpse-driver and jumped forward.
This is the appearance of corpses driving in film and television works. In fact, it is still different from the local people's corpse driving.
The legendary corpse-driver is wearing a Taoist robe. There is no falsehood. The process of corpse-driver requires four people to participate and they cooperate with each other.
Four people are the lamplighter, the corpse guide, the corpse helper and the corpse driveer.
Take the death row prisoners of the Hakka who were executed in the autumn as an example. On the day of the execution, there were already corpse-drivers waiting outside the court.
at noon, when Knife and Axeman takes the knife and falls, and the head of the death row prisoner falls, the corpse-driver outside the field will come forward and recite a spell.
Someone is responsible for sewing the heads of the dead prisoners together;
Someone has applied the best cinnabar chensha on the forehead, back chamber, chest, left and right palm plates, soles of feet, etc. of the deceased.
Another magic talisman is posted and tied tightly with five-color cloth strips. You must also stuff cinnabar into the ears, noses and mouths of the deceased, and use the divine talisman to block it, which means to seal the soul of the deceased.
Then you have to apply Chensha on the neck of the deceased, paste the divine talisman, put a brown leaf hat on the deceased, and cover the entire head.
The deceased was wearing a green-faced gown with paper money on his arms.
After making a series of preparations, one of the people began to recite the spell, and the corpse stood up anywhere and followed the corpse-driver on the long way home.
In fact, the corpse can stand up because the corpse drives line up the corpses in sequence, pass them through their armpits with bamboo poles, fix them with straw ropes, and cover them with robes.
When the corpse driver was in action, he carried the bamboo pole one after another. This is why zombies in zombie films always raise their hands.
Because bamboo is tough, it will bump up and down when walking, so it will give people the feeling of corpses jumping around.
This method of corpse driving is considered an industry standard and can be written into textbooks, but the wild path is different.
Sometimes people die shortly, and it may only take a day or half a day for the corpse-driver to pass by. At this time, they will choose to carry the corpse back directly.
Another type is to remove all the head, hands and feet of the corpse, lay a delicate scarecrow with straw, or wrap it with local palm bark, and deal with the remaining trunk on the spot.
In this way, the corpse will be much lighter. The corpse-driver will carry the corpse made of straw on his body, put on a wide robe and a hat on his outside, and look like the corpse is walking by himself.
Then why do people still have to ring the gong and ring the bell in front?
mainly let the corpse-driver with the body on his back to make the direction clear. After all, when he wears a hat and wears a long robe, it is difficult to see the road ahead clearly.
CCTV's " Travels all over China " and other column teams have investigated the corpse driving in western Hunan and found several people who claimed to have seen corpse driving.
The old man Lu Wanjin said that he first saw a corpse driving when he was eight or nine years old (1939), and he thought it was strange at the time.
The old man Lei Wanxi said that most people who have experienced the Republic of China have seen corpses driving.
Wu Xianyou, a native of Xiangxi, said that in 1963, he was 15 years old, and he followed his father to lay wooden rafts in Youshui River. One day, he was resting on the river beach and ran into a corpse.
The corpse-driver said to the corpse: "Arest, get up!"
Then, the corpse slowly got up.
The corpse-driver shouted again: "Go!" and the corpse walked forward.
In addition to driving corpses in western Hunan, my country, there are actually such witchcraft in some areas of India.
For example, in the southern part of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, there is a tribal alliance called Sulaya. Here is a chilling black magic ritual. The professional corpse-driver - let the corpse hike to the tomb by himself. After the dead walk into the coffin by driving the corpse, they will be reincarnated and reborn.
In order to save enough money, members of the Suyala Tribe Alliance allow the deceased to hike to the cemetery, and let the high elves in the body accompany their family to the last part.
Sometimes the body must be stored at home for many years, because after the deceased dies, others cannot touch the body.
If touched, the deceased can no longer use the spell to walk by himself.
At this time, other members of the family will regard the deceased as a "patient", and the deceased will lie in the bed like he was alive and stay with his family...
