Life, old age, illness and death is the law of nature, no one can change, since ancient times countless emperors are seeking the art of prolonging life, but none of them have achieved their wishes, such as Qin Shi Huang, he sent Xu Fudongdu to find Penglai Immortal Mountain, the result xu Fu is gone, and then like the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, he is a workaholic, so that the body is constantly overdrawn, and then he asked the jianghu alchemist to refine Dan, although taking Dan medicine can be refreshed in a short period of time, but in the end he died violently because of poisoning.
Ancient emperors can not fight against life and death, as ordinary people, what we have to do is to look at life seriously, correctly, and scientifically, today we will talk about the topic related to death, not to talk deeply, only to talk about one of the rituals.
China is a country of etiquette, since the Zhou Dynasty has formed a complete set of etiquette system, "Zhou Li" can be summarized as five rites, namely auspicious ceremony (sacrifice matters), joy ceremony (crown marriage matter), guest ceremony (guest affairs), military ceremony (military affairs), fierce ceremony (funeral matters), to this day, most of the forms of etiquette have undergone tremendous changes, but one of the "fierce ceremonies" has not changed, that is, people must cover their faces after death.
After the death of the person covered his face, although this ceremony originated in the Zhou Dynasty, but there are clear historical events recorded in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, according to the record, when Wu Wang Fucha defeated the Yue Kingdom, he carried out a humiliation of Gou Jian, and then let him go, Wu Zixu persuaded Wu Wang to kill Gou Jian at that time, otherwise there would be endless troubles, King Wu not only did not listen to advice, but also gradually alienated Wu Zixu, and finally listened to rumors to give him death, Wu Zixu let people leave their eyes before death, hanging on the tower of Wu Guocheng, claiming to witness the demise of Wu Guo.
The matter was indeed fulfilled, the Yue king Gou practiced the salary for more than ten years, and finally destroyed the state of Wu, and before his death, The king of Wu ordered his subordinates to cover his face with a piece of cloth after his death, and said that he had no face to face the people of the state of Wu, nor to face the dead Wu Zixu.
The ancients did this, do not rule out the color of superstition, but we must respect the wisdom of the ancients, the ancients did not do this is not completely superstitious, the author from the following two aspects of scientific analysis, we know the other purposes and roles of this practice.
Ancient medical level is low, to determine whether a person is dead can only be through the heartbeat and breathing, if only a short loss of heartbeat or breathing, it will be buried as the deceased, of course, this is too reckless, so China has been handed down since ancient times the custom of "moratorium", the so-called "morgue", that is, the family of the deceased will park the deceased at home for a few days, and then bury, during the morgue will use a piece of paper or a cloth to cover the face of the deceased.
Cover the face, one of the purposes is to judge whether the "deceased" is really dead, if not dead, the "deceased" through a period of breathing, the nose or mouth part will exhale moisture, the paper or cloth covering the face will be wet, so that it is easy to judge, so as to avoid the mistake of burying the living as a dead person, because the "deceased" face is not covered with paper or cloth, and the burial of people alive has indeed happened in Chinese history.
Cover the face of the deceased, the second purpose is humanistic care, care for the relatives and families of the deceased, as we all know, after death, because the blood is no longer flowing, the muscles are gradually stiff, there is no longer blood on the body, especially the face, showing no bloodless whiteness, it looks not only terrible, but also aggravates the grief of the deceased's family, cover the face of the deceased, it is easy to solve this problem.