introduction
The human martyrdom system is a kind of burial system in ancient Chinese slave society and feudal society to accompany the tomb owner by killing and sacrificing living people. The owners of these tombs were usually emperors and nobles, and the martyrs were mostly close subjects, close attendants, slaves, and captives of the deceased. The ancient ruling class had supreme power, countless servants, and in order to continue to enjoy everything before death, human martyrdom became a widely popular ancient funerary ritual and was repeatedly forbidden. This cruel and barbaric act became one of the characteristic manifestations of that era.
The system of human martyrdom arose in primitive social times, but was in fact an accidental result of class differentiation within clans. The increase in productive forces led to the development of commodity exchange and the emergence of private property, the gap between the rich and the poor began to widen, and social customs gradually changed. According to archaeological findings, there have been human martyrdoms in the prehistoric civilization period such as the Dawenkou culture, the Longshan culture, and the Erlitou culture. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Period of The Shang Dynasty, the world popularized the system of martyrdom. Merchants advocate the theory of ghosts and gods, they believe that after death, the soul will live in another world, and the ceremonial system of "dying as if living, dying as if surviving" is buried deep in everyone's heart.
During the Zhou Dynasty, the practice of human martyrdom continued to prevail until the Warring States period. At the end of the Warring States period, iron tools began to appear, productive forces gradually developed, and the value of man as an important labor force in an agrarian society was valued. Humanistic ideas began to sprout, and the atmosphere of human martyrdom was gradually criticized. During the Han and Tang dynasties, the system of human martyrdom was abolished under the direct prohibition of the ruling class, but in the absolute monarchical society, the system of human martyrdom still occurred from time to time. During the Ming Dynasty, the system of human martyrdom was gradually revived, and a large number of concubines and palace women were forced to be buried after the death of the king. According to the Biography of concubines in the History of the Ming Dynasty, "Taizu collapsed. Most of the palace people from the dead", it can be seen that the wind of martyrdom of the tragic people at that time has recured.
In fact, the emergence and prevalence of the wind of human martyrdom is inseparable from the superstitious ideas and concepts of the ancients. In order to continue to enjoy a good life in Hades, the ruling class not only sealed a large number of jewels and costumes in the tomb, but also reduced the slaves of the lower classes to one of the funerary goods. In fact, most of the martyrs are not willing to end their lives at all, the ancients believe in karma, in order to deceive themselves, the ruling class is wearing a cloak of kindness and voluntariness on the barbaric and cruel body. In the "Thirty-fifth Volume of the History of the Yuan Dynasty", it is recorded that "Daning and the county He Qian's wife Bai Du Sai'er, the husband died and was martyred, and his door was destroyed", and human martyrdom became a benchmark of high morality in the feudal era, and the society became more and more deformed.
There are many ways of martyrdom, most of which are divided into the categories of hanging, poisoning, beheading, burial alive and crucifixion. These ways of ending the lives of the martyrs are brutal, ranging from poisoning, burial alive and crucifixion. Most of the time, the martyrs are poisoned, or poisoned, or poisoned, or other toxic substances. Among the palace concubines who were martyred for the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, in addition to those who were hanged by the eunuchs, many people believed that the eunuchs would also forcibly pour mercury into the palace concubines, and the means were unbearable.
Mercury is so toxic that once it invades the human body, people die quickly. In order to make the martyrs die quickly and without struggle, people will inject mercury into the heads, backs and feet of the living martyrs, so as to speed up the flow of mercury to erode the internal organs of the human body. In addition to the emperor's concubines, some of the martyrs were children who were only seven or eight years old, and the ancients thought that these children who had not yet grown up were innocent and innocent, calling them virgin boys and girls, but these children were not old enough to serve people, but why did the ancients kill children to bury themselves?
It turns out that the martyrs who were poisoned by mercury will not decay, and under the superstitious thinking of the ancients, they believe that this can seal the "immortal qi" in the body of the martyr and help the tomb owner to feather the immortal. And the virgin boys and girls are lovely and agile, the soul is very pure, and the role played is greater than that of ordinary martyrs. In this way, many poor and low-status children were ruthlessly killed because of the selfish desires of the owner of the tomb. In the 1970s, in a medium-sized aristocratic tomb excavated in the northwestern suburbs of Anyang City, Henan Province, it was found that the tomb was densely lined with human sacrifice pits, and most of the more than 1,400 martyrs were underage children.
epilogue
The ancient Chinese system of human martyrdom was a bad habit under the political system at that time, starting from primitive society until the end of the feudal dynasty, it spanned all stages of development of Chinese history and was a distortion and oppression of human nature. The perverted and deformed possessiveness of the ancient ruling class trampled on the dignity of life of generations. It is gratifying that selfishness and superstition eventually end in rebellion and light, and the system of human martyrdom eventually becomes a historical bubble, and there is no reincarnation.
Resources:
The Burial of the Living: A Change in the Ancient Chinese System of Human Martyrdom