Wu Cai-li (吳財立) is all business as he leans over a pile a human bones that he's just taken from an urn, unwrapped and then dumped into a pile on the surface of a shrine. He pauses momentarily to check they are all there and begins to arrange the bones back into a vaguely skeletal form, as though putting together a puzzle.
Wu is in the process of performing a rite of ancestor worship called “picking up the bones” (揀骨). A part of a ritual generally known as double or second burial (二次葬), the bones are placed in an earthenware urn – usually about 20cm high – in their correct anatomical order with the skull at the top. The urn is then re-interred in the ancestral tome, an omega-shaped plot.
Urns awaiting second burial are usually stored outside in a place that has good fengshui, usually near fields or on a hillside. In the past, these urns would often be forgotten and as a result traditional graves in Taiwan are littered with pots containing bones until the ravages of time crack the pots and spill the unwanted bones on to the ground.
Common in Taiwan for at least 200 years, the custom has its origins in Fukien province, China. When farmers and merchants began immigrating to Taiwan in the 18th century, they brought with them their custom of second burial. Over time, the tradition began to spread in Taiwan as it was an inexpensive way of sending the bones back to Fukien for burial in the ancestral tomb.
However, as their roots sank deeper into the islands' soil and people from Fukien began to regard Taiwan as their home, the process of returning the urns to China ceased as family plots were established in Taiwan.
The process, which has changed very little over the centuries, begins with first burial taking place almost immediately after death. Regarded as a temporary grave, the body remains underground for at least seven years.
The length of time allows the flesh to decompose, making it easier for Wu to clean the remaining flesh so that all that is left are the bones. After the flesh is removed, the bones are set out under the sun for three days to dry. They are then “picked up” and placed into a tall urn. The urn is then returned to the family gravesite.
If it happens that the flesh hasn't achieved a level of decomposition suitable for cleaning, Wu sprinkles rice wine over the corpse and dresses it with the leaves of six heads of cabbage. The body is then re-interred. The concoction is enough to ensure sufficient decomposition after an additional three months.
The reason for such an elaborate procedure, according to Wu, is that the soul adheres to the bones and not the flesh. This is why the flesh is dispensed with and the bones are re-buried after cleaning.
A slightly different explanation is given by Lin Ching-chuan (林清泉), an expert on traditional funeral rites. He says that second burial arises due to traditional beliefs in fengshui (geomancy).
According to Lin, the burial chamber – a shallow hole about 30cm deep – is placed behind the tombstone and is laid out according to the principles of fengshui, not unlike the principles used when constructing traditional Chinese homes. But the fengshui of burial is of paramount importance because it is what links the ancestors to descendants.
“Not only the bones, but also the respect shown to the tomb decides the whole family's future,” says Charles Sung (宋世祥), a research assistant at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica.
RSS