The funeral service is a natural elimination in human society, a civilized practice for handling the remains of the deceased, a product of social development, and a component of cultural tradition. The term originally referred specifically to earth burial in classical Chinese. “Bìn” can mean the temporary placement of a coffin, as in “The Xia dynasty buried their dead on the eastern steps,” “The Shang people placed coffins between the two pillars,” and “The Zhou people placed coffins on both sides of the steps,” according to The Book of Rites. It can also refer to burial itself, such as in “Three-month burial” in Xunzi. “Zàng” means to hide or conceal, as stated in The Book of Rites: “Guo Zi Gao said: Burial is to conceal. Concealment is so that no one can see it. That is why clothes are enough to adorn the body, the coffin surrounds the clothes, the outer coffin surrounds the coffin, and the earth surrounds the outer coffin.” Presently, funeral services refer to methods of dealing with the remains of the deceased and forms of mourning, including issuing an obituary notice, viewing the body, holding a memorial service, delivering eulogies, sending wreaths and mourning couplets, attending the funeral procession, interment, placing the urn, and a series of other funeral arrangements.
Over a million years ago, our ancestors worked, lived, and multiplied on the vast and fertile land of our motherland. After a long period, the expansion of living activities gradually replaced the primitive groups with fixed communal groups, giving rise to clan commune organizations. Within the commune, there was no exploitation or oppression among people, no disparity in wealth, and each member held equal status. Funerals were extremely simple in this context; when a member passed away, the survivors could not bear to see the body decompose, so they covered it with brushwood and buried it in the wild without digging a grave or performing any rituals. As society advanced, earth burial became adopted.
During the primitive society era in China, religious beliefs about the immortality of the soul gradually emerged. There was no custom of burying loved ones before the concept of the immortal soul arose. Once this idea took hold, the practice of burying relatives began. Tang Dynasty Du You's Tongdian describes that in ancient times, the mourning rites stipulated that “In ancient burials, the bodies were wrapped in thick layers of wood and buried in the wilderness, with neither mounds nor trees marking the graves, and no set mourning periods. Later sages replaced these practices with coffins and outer coffins.” In the tombstones at the Banpo site, the buried dead mostly faced west, symbolizing the entrusting of souls to the west. This religious belief and reverence for ancestors appeared during the matrilineal clan period in China. During the slave society period, extravagant burial customs and superstitious activities became even more prevalent. The slave-owning class promoted religious superstitions to maintain their rule, advocating the customs of mourning rites and even sacrificing slaves as offerings and burying them as sacrificial goods. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the funeral system of “dignity and distinctions” was established, where emperors, feudal lords, officials, scholars, and ordinary slave owners had differentiations in the time, rituals, coffins, and sacrificial items provided for the deceased from the time of shrouding through to burial. Slaves, however, were simply “picked up and discarded” or buried alive as sacrificial goods. For example, a large tomb found in the northwest of Houjiazhai Village in ancient times had a burial chamber area of over 300 square meters and was 12 meters deep. Inside the tomb, armed slaves and dogs were buried. The coffin room was adorned with carvings and patterns, filled with precious clothing and objects. On the outer coffin lid were placed the emperor's weapons, sacrificial attendants holding ceremonial instruments, male and female servant slaves, children, and animals like dogs and monkeys for entertainment. Such a large tomb typically involved the sacrifice of three to four hundred lives for burial sacrifices and sacrifices, a level of luxury, waste, and cruelty in killing for burial and burial accompaniments that is truly horrifying.