Hundred-year Coffins

According to a villager in Jiading Village, the custom of cave burial has a long history in Gaopo County.

Once a girl from Mengxiang County was married to a man in Gaopo County. However, she refused to live with her husband's family. When asked why by her parents, she said her brothers would have the mountains and forests as well as the house they were living in after their death, while she would get nothing.

Upon hearing that, her mother said she would get the fields and forests located between Longda Rock and Limu Mountain as dowry, but that she had to return them to her brothers when she died. The girl then agreed to move into her husband's family, and gave birth to nine boys and nine girls. Before her death, she told her children to bury her in a cave, which was free from rain and wind, so she would feel at ease. From then on, people began to view cave burial as a traditional practice.

Some villagers hold different opinions as to the origin of cave burials.

Some think it was a result of a fight between the Han people and the Miao people, according to the following theory: The Miao people failed in a fight for land with the Han people, and so retreated to remote mountains. Not satisfied with the outcome and dreaming of moving back to the place they originally lived, some of them kept the dead bodies in caves. But their dream of returning home never came true. Instead, cave burial became a routine practice over time.

Another opinion holds that the Han government prohibited the Miao people from either burying dead people beneath the ground or discarding the dead bodies in the wild, claiming such act would destroy "fengshui" (traditional Chinese practice of determining the location of things such as houses and tombs). Without any choice, the Miao people chose to bury the dead in caves, which could easily be found.

Still there are people who think that cave burial was chosen for the security they afforded dead bodies, as no jackals and wolves are found in caves.

Author: Jessie

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