Digging up an old grave while building a house: how people used to deal with it

Building a house in the countryside, laying the foundation, sometimes you dig up an old grave.

People in the past wouldn't just fill it back in when they ran into something like this. If a coffin or bones were dug up, they'd stop work first, and invite an elder from the village, or a yin-yang master, to come take a look. The master would check the date, set an auspicious hour, and prepare wine, meat, joss paper, and incense, reciting a few words before the grave, roughly meaning: Sorry, you're here and we didn't know, now we're asking you to move house.

Then they'd gather the bones, wrap them in new cloth, find a place to rebury them, and set up a small gravestone. In some places in the south, there's a custom of "collecting bones": bury the person first, then dig them up a few years later, wash the bones clean, put them in a pottery jar, and reinter them. So over there, elders aren't so unfamiliar with digging up bones.

If the grave dug up had no descendants and no one claimed it, the villagers would generally chip in money to hire someone to move it to the mountain, and hold a small ritual, counting it as giving him a new home.

Some families didn't believe in this and just flattened it with a bulldozer. It's said that afterwards, someone in the family was always getting sick or having accidents. Such rumors exist in every village, and it's unclear whether they're true or just coincidence.

It's different now. The "Cultural Relics Protection Law" stipulates that if cultural relics are discovered during a construction project, work must stop immediately, the scene protected, and the cultural relics department reported. If an ancient tomb is dug up, the cultural relics department takes over, and there's no need for the master to come look anymore.

Still, at many construction sites, before starting work, workers will still burn a few sheets of joss paper and light three sticks of incense by the edge of the foundation, counting it as a habit.

#Folklore #网络转载