Summer is here, and when it comes to domestic summer resorts, Anshun, Guizhou must be indispensable. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a city where you have to cover yourself with a quilt when you sleep at night in summer, otherwise you will definitely catch a cold. Because it is located in the center of the karst landform in South China, the rivers and valleys here are criss-crossed, which not only creates a cool climate, but also breeds gorgeous natural scenery such as the Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou, the Dragon Palace Water Cave, and the Ziyun Getu River, which attracts countless tourists. flock to.
I have visited the Getu River many times. Apart from the quiet scenery, what impresses me the most are the coffins placed in the cliff caves. Take a boat along the Getu River sandwiched between the karst landforms, and you can see the sky when you arrive at Tianxing Cave. At this time, you can clearly see the hanging coffin in the dry cave on one side, which is about 20 meters above the river. It is densely distributed, giving people a sense of mystery.
According to friends in Anshun, Guizhou, besides this place, more than 200 coffins were found in a cave in the middle reaches of the Getu River in the 1980s. The Miao people in Taohua Village, Pingba, Anshun, still retain the custom of hanging coffins in caves. It is not uncommon for locals to have hundreds of coffins in a cave.
After listening to his introduction, I couldn't help but look up at the hanging coffin again. The cliff is uneven and slippery. Let alone placing a heavy coffin, it is difficult to climb with bare hands. In the undeveloped ancient times, how were these coffins placed? Who is their master? So it aroused my great curiosity.
Through consulting the data, it is found that this peculiar funeral custom exists in many places in our country, and it can be roughly divided into three forms: wooden pile style, cliff cave style and horizontal cave style. The wooden pile type will place the coffin on the wooden piles driven on the cliff, which is more common in Fujian, Sichuan, and Hunan; the cliff-cave type is placed in a natural crack or cave on the cliff near the river; the horizontal cave type is to dig a hole into the wall , or use narrow natural cliff edges to place coffins, which have been found in Taiwan and coastal areas. The Getu River area in Anshun, Guizhou adopts the latter two methods.
In Anshun, when the custom of hanging coffins started, there is no exact statement. It’s just a legend that a long time ago, the war forced the ancestors of the Miao people to the Getu River. In order for the descendants to remember the way home, the ancestors embroidered the migration route on the aprons of the Miao women. After the death of the ancestors, the form of burial is not adopted, but the descendants hang the corpses in hidden caves to prevent the destruction of the pursuers and the invasion of wild animals, and it is convenient for long-term preservation, looking forward to returning to their homeland one day.
Although the legend cannot be verified, the wishes of the ancestors of the Miao people were good, which may explain why later generations spent so much effort to hang the coffin high. The mysterious hanging coffin has left two "unbelievable" to the world today: the spider-man with unique skills and the shocking ceremony of chopping a horse and offering sacrifices to ancestors, which represent the most devout respect for the dead ancestors by the descendants of the Miao people.
Spidermen are called "Ge Ruo" in Miao language. They have practiced the stunt of rock climbing with bare hands. They can climb the cliffs on both sides of the Getu River without any protective measures. It is no problem to find caves and hang coffins. Macaques in general. This thousand-year stunt has continued to this day and has become the only spectacle on the cliff in the world, and it is also a must-see scenery when visiting the Getu River.
The ceremony of cutting horses and offering sacrifices to ancestors was much bloodier. At the funeral of the Miao people in Anshun, Dong Lang from various villages escorted the horses to the scene, first sang the ancient epic "Yalu King", and then cut the horses to worship the ancestors according to the "Horse Cutting Sutra" in it. It means that the ancestors came on horses, and the horses will follow the ancestors back to their hometown after death. The horses were finally completed by three horse cutters in turn, and the scene was extremely cruel.
The unique culture adds a mysterious atmosphere to the Getu River, and the beautiful natural scenery brings infinite vitality here. Cruising on the Getu River, the morning sun shines through the hole, forming a rare "divine light of heaven and earth" in the world; at night, the bright moon is full, changing and changing, as if traveling through time and space, you can see the heroic spirit of King Yalu in opening up thousands of miles of territory. If you have a chance, you might as well come to Anshun, Guizhou to experience it yourself.
