Xiangxi Corpse-Driving: What's Going On with a Line of Corpses Following Bells at Night

"Corpse-driving" is the most famous legend in Xiangxi: back in the day, if someone died far from home and the family was too poor to hire a carriage or boat, they would hire a "corpse driver." At night, using magic, they made the corpse walk back to its hometown on its own. The corpse driver walked in front, shaking a bell in hand, while the corpse, dressed in a long gown and a hat, hopped along behind.

In the legend, households along the route, upon hearing the bell, had to shut their doors in advance, must not look, and must not make a sound. Some inns kept a special "corpse room" by the door; when the corpse driver arrived at night, they would place the body inside and leave before dawn. According to the legend, what the corpse driver chanted was to send those who died outside back to their own hometowns.

This saying is very popular in movies, and ordinary people describe it vividly. But later, many researchers explained it from another angle: back when transportation was inconvenient, people who died away from home wanted "fallen leaves returning to their roots," so their families hired someone to carry the body back. For convenience, several corpses were connected with bamboo poles, one person at the front and one at the back, keeping them upright, then covered with black cloth. The bamboo poles had elasticity; as the carriers walked and jolted, the corpses hopped along. Traveling at night was both to avoid people and because it was too hot during the day, and bodies decayed easily.

As for the bell-shaking, it was to remind passersby to keep away, and also for companions walking behind to hear, since nothing could be seen at night.

Told this way, the most terrifying scene in the legend becomes a very hard profession.

Some also ask, then why in the stories do the corpses walk by themselves? Probably because people who saw this back then were too scared to look closely.

Later, this profession gradually disappeared. Highways were built, cars came, and transporting a person home no longer required crossing mountains and ridges for hundreds of miles. Now, when elderly people in Xiangxi talk about corpse-driving, very few can clearly explain the rules anymore.

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