by Chienn Tai1. 送終/Paying Last Respects
A large group of people flooded in my grandfather’s house, strangers and relatives alike. They chanted scriptures for eight hours without stopping, taking turns to help to pay their last respects to the deceased. I joined them for the last hour after my classes were over. I was asked to kneel down and press my forehead to the floor with my hands on the ground. I hesitated a little—for in my church we either fall on one knee or, during mass, kneel with our body remaining upright. Am I allowed to do this, bowing down even further than I do before the God I believe in? But then I remembered that Catholic teaching is tolerant, and that even our priest holds incense on Chinese New Year to honor our ancestors. So I knelt down, pressed my head against the floor. 2. 頭七/Rites for the First Seven Days After Death The ritual takes place every 7 days in the 49 days (7 times 7) after death. It is said that the dead enter into a state of “Bardo”(中陰身), which indicates an intermediate period of experience between death and rebirth. Every 7 days is a struggle of change, much like undergoing suicide over and over again. The descendants of the deceased are expected to recite scriptures repeatedly so as to help the dead spirit go through its suffering. It was a long process that lasted about 2 hours each time. Lights were turned off, leaving only one lamp that illuminated the memorial tablet that represented my grandfather. It reminded me of a gloomy, spooky summoning ritual in a movie, but it also had to be done. 3. 哭喪/Wailing- the Keener Wailing not only has to be done, but it has to be loud enough and gut-wrenching enough to inform the neighbors. Keeners are hired if there is not enough wailing. It doesn’t have to be genuine, but it has to be audible. This part was not included at my grandfather’s funeral, but on the day of the farewell ceremony I did witness it. 4. 入殮/Encoffining Ceremony There are two different kinds of this particular ritual, a minor one (小殮) and a complete one (大殮). The former includes bathing, dressing the body as well as applying makeup, while the latter is the act of encoffining. When the two rituals are performed separately, it means that in between there is a chance to view the body one last time before the coffin is sealed. I remember that almost all the funerals I had attended as a child required me to stare at the dead body, which I always found shocking. For my grandfather’s funeral, on the other hand, the encoffining section was completed all at once, since Taoism prefers not to have the body frozen for preservation. 5. 封釘/Sealing the Coffin This involves a symbolic action in which the master leads all participants to circle around the coffin several times, then pause at the four corners, allowing the firstborn son to press a nail into the top of the coffin lid. Finally, when every corner is nailed down, a closing nail is stuck in the head of the coffin. The firstborn kneels down, showing respect and filiality, and then picks up this last nail with his mouth. This completes the sealing of the coffin, and, finally, the body is cremated. As I left my grandfather’s house, my job was to walk down from the fourth floor to the first, tearing down pieces of small red paper we had pasted on his neighbors’ doors. This paper was supposed to ward off bad luck from the funeral. Inwardly I supposed that there was no such thing as bad luck just because your neighbor had passed away, but then again, how different is it from a Catholic painting the door with agnus dei’s blood on Passover? a
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May 2024
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