In August 2014, 11 people were arrested in Tianqiao County, Shandong Province, China, who dug up corpses from graves and later sold them on the black market for use in the ancient yin hun ritual - the marriage of the dead.
In particular, according to the police, the grave diggers removed the body of a deceased woman buried three months ago from the grave, which was then sold to an intermediary for 18 thousand yuan (almost three thousand dollars).
He, in turn, resold the remains to the relatives of the "groom" - a deceased villager from the neighboring province of Hebei. His family has already paid 38 thousand yuan for the "bride"!
The leader of the grave-diggers said that the "fresh" dead, recently buried, are especially highly valued.
In principle, you shouldn't be surprised at what happened. The tradition of "marrying" the dead has deep historical roots. In Russia, for example, in ancient times there was a widespread custom to arrange a symbolic wedding during the funeral of young people who did not have time to get married.
Bones for Sale …
The fact is that unmarried and unmarried boys and girls in the past were included after death in the category of "unclean" dead, whose souls became harmful demons. And to prevent this, the relatives of the illegitimate deceased at their funeral dressed the deceased in a wedding dress, weaved a wreath, decorated the wedding tree and invited musicians to the funeral who sang wedding songs.
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In Ukraine and Belarus, in the past, they almost always looked at the girl's funeral as her "marriage" and, accordingly, dressed the deceased as a bride. Sometimes a “groom” was chosen for the deceased from among her acquaintances, who walked in a wedding dress behind the coffin.
Approximately the same traditions existed at the funeral of an unmarried man. In Serbia and Bulgaria, at the funeral of the groom, already “arranged” for the wedding, they arranged the so-called dead wedding: after the funeral, the young men “crowned” his surviving bride with the clothes of the deceased.
It happened that at the funeral of a still not betrothed guy, some country girl was invited to the role of a conditional "bride". In the funeral procession, the “bride” carried two wreaths, one of which she threw into the grave, and the other was obliged to wear for some time after the funeral. At such a funeral, cheerful music was usually played, and at the grave a ritual "round dance for the dead" was performed.
HARMONY DAO
In China, the custom of marrying the dead dates back two thousand years. As a funeral ritual, it dates back to the Han Dynasty. Its essence lies in the fact that when a man dies unmarried or his widow remarries, the family of the deceased does everything possible to find him a girlfriend for the afterlife. To put it simply, get the corpse of a "free" woman.
The origins of Yin Hun are two key elements of Chinese traditional thought - ancestor cult and Taoism. The souls of the dead go to the world of shadows, where the ancestors protect their descendants. But for this protection to be strong, the harmony of Tao - the unity of yin and yang, man and woman, must be observed.
In modern China, the practice of "yin hun", although considered a relic and condemned by the authorities, nevertheless continues to exist, especially in rural areas, where no one considers this tradition shameful or any particularly sinister. On the contrary, it is described as fulfilling a parental duty towards the deceased child.
It happens that in the absence of "fresh" corpses, female skeletons of a century ago are also combined by marriage.
When it comes to the body of a young, unmarried woman, who was beautiful in life, and there are several applicants for it, the family of the deceased organizes an auction at which the price can reach tens of thousands of yuan! This money is considered a ransom that the relatives received, if not for the death of a daughter or sister.
Naturally, such an insane demand for dead women leads to crime. Relatives who have never found a "bride" for their deceased son or brother simply dig up bodies of dead girls in cemeteries under cover of night. There is also a demand for female remains, which, for whatever reason, "lay" in the morgue.
There are also known more wild cases when "yin hun" became the reason for murder.
At the same time, not every Chinese has a "free" several thousand yuan. Therefore, many families in the country, who are too poor to pay even a dead bride, observe the ancient marriage union - yin hun”in their own way. They make a figure out of straw and bury it next to their deceased son as a bride he never had …