China has long been an agricultural society. Thousands of years of cultural development in history have also left us with many customs and habits. Friends who are still in the countryside must have seen the eldest son fall into the basin after the old man died. Of course, not every old man's eldest son has time to be present. When the eldest son is absent, the eldest grandson falls, and there is no eldest son, and the eldest grandson extends to the second son. And if there are no children and daughters under the knee, then the closest cousin among the brothers and relatives will throw away the basin. Of course, this nephew must be unmarried. If you get married, you will be dumped by other unmarried relatives.
With the rapid development of urbanization, many people born in big cities don't know much about this custom. After all, in civilized society, this tedious custom is no longer popular. However, if we study the meaning behind this behavior, we may be able to understand the good intentions of our ancestors.
Let's first introduce the protagonist of our thrown basin. This basin is called "Yin-Yang basin" or "Auspicious basin", and people prefer to call it "Funeral basin". In ancient China, the death of a loved one was very painful for the family, and it was also highly valued by the family. The state of family mobilization is far beyond now. Even in the Book of Rites, it is recorded that when a relative dies, the family will be "destroyed" in the funeral. "Destruction", as the name implies, is destruction, but it is not destruction of things, but self-destruction, self-injury, self-abuse, and even people lose their lives because of self-destruction.
Of course, when the elders die, the relatives will die, and the property at home can be destroyed. In those poor days, the pottery basin was the most valuable thing in the family. Therefore, relatives smashed pottery pots and expressed their willingness to give up all their property to mourn the deceased. Throwing the basin not only expresses respect for the deceased, but also represents the passing of the deceased's life, which has nothing to do with the secular.
Throwing the basin is not only a ritual, but also determines the issue of the heirs of the deceased. There is also a lot of attention in the process of throwing pots. The person who throws the pot needs to break it at one time, and the more broken it is, the better, so that it is more convenient for the deceased to carry it. And if you don't break it the first time, it is very taboo and unlucky to pick it up and fall it the second time! Can be crushed by people behind. After the basin was smashed, the porter picked up the coffin and blew and blew all the way, and the yellow paper cleared the way for relatives to wear hemp and filial piety and be buried with them.
Of course, there is a more mysterious saying among the people, that is, why the basin is broken. Legend has it that there will be a "queen mother" in the underworld. When the deceased comes to her, she will be given a bowl of "ecstasy soup", which will make the deceased upside down and unable to be reborn. The younger generation will prepare this kind of clay pot with a hole in the bottom, so that all the "ecstasy soup" will leak out, and the clay pot will be broken to prevent the dead from drinking, so as not to be unable to live beyond life.
The origin of the custom of throwing pots is too long to be verified. It is not easy for this funeral habit to continue to this day. Although we young people don't have to master it, we'd better know it. How's it going? Is there such a strange custom in your hometown? Do you understand the meaning behind it now?