20 A Dead Occupation: Transporting a Corpse over a Thousand Li

We often disregard the supernatural as a worthwhile way to examine history, however, the supernatural may be one of the most pertinent tools to capture the shaping of cultural beliefs and practices temporally throughout history. Through an examination of jiangshi 殭屍 stories, I will demonstrate the process of using supernatural literature as a way to trace cultural beliefs. In this case, I will be attempting to explain how a once flourishing practice known as corpse driving, intertwined itself with folklore and eventually led to a Chinese cultural horror phenomenon and literary archetype known as jiangshi, or stiff corpse. Using jiangshi stories as a starting point, borrowing from Pu Songling’s “A Living Dead” and Yuan Mei’s Zibuyu 子不語 (What the Master Would Not Discuss) stories, I will trace specific elements of these stories and retell an elaborate, but perhaps not complete, origin of the occupation known as corpse-driving.

In the story “Painter Drew a Stiff Corpse,” there is a quick mention of a coffin-carrier who ends up helping the protagonist get away from the jiangshi safely. This coffin-carrier is most likely assumed to be someone that the family hired to transport the body of their deceased family member. This was a common and lucrative practice due to the inability for families to afford easier transportation of bodies or transport bodies through the tough terrain themselves. There are many cultural reasons to why this practice came to be, however, in the province of Hunan, we can pinpoint an exact origin if we turn to Sima Qian’s “Records of the Grand Historian,” in which after the Battle of Zhuolu, a war between wind god Chi You and the Yellow Emperor, it was written that “dead bodies covered thousands of li.”^[1] It was recorded within the Xiangxi area that after the war all the corpses were reanimated in order to be walked back home. This telling of the aftermath of the Battle of Zhuolu became well known within the Hunan province and within Miao legend, and became thought as one of the origin points of corpse-driving practices. The idea of transporting bodies back home stems from an even deeper intertwining of body, soul, and land, as well as traditions of filial piety and ancestor worship, but this specific origin gave the foundation for how exactly bodies could be easily transported.

A common motif in jiangshi stories is the significance of Buddhist monks or Taoist priests as a helping force. Most forms of stopping and/or defeating jiangshi are possible only through sorcery, religious knowledge and practices, or supernatural forms of power. In “The Corpse Went to Voice His Grievance,” we see a glimpse of the role that monks were believed to have in regards to the passage of souls when the monk in the story mentioned, “As we were chanting the religious scriptures to release the soul of the deceased from the underworld, the corpse suddenly disappeared.”^[2] This small detail allows us to see the importance of religion in properly dealing with the dead, and how the presence of monks or priests was absolutely necessary in order to allow the souls of the deceased to pass on to the afterlife properly. This is an intriguing fact when once again looking back to the origin of the aftermath of the Battle of Zhuolu legend that is popular among the Miao. The Miao are known for their expertise in sorcery and black magic, which is termed gushu 蠱術. The Miao would hire Taoist priests due to the belief that the priest’s ability to use gushu sorcery enabled them to transport the dead home. This practice became known as ganshi 乾屍, or corpse-herding in which corpse-walkers would lead a line of dead bodies home through narrow roads and mountains, always taking place during the night. This was thought to be done by placing a talisman on the forehead of each of the corpses, which in turn would have a rigor mortis effect on the corpse and allow them to walk on their own while being led by the sound of gongs or bells.

The practice of ganshi was secretive and there was a lot of fear and uncertainty that surrounded it. Usually, monks and their apprentices would be the ones to transport bodies due to their vast knowledge of scriptures and religious sorcery that was needed in order to transport bodies in such a fashion. It was widely believed that it would bring bad fortune to anyone who looked at the walking corpses, so people tended to stay clear when they heard the bells that marked these corpse-herds. For monks, this turned out to be a rather profitable business due to the lack of competitors as well as the high need for transporting corpses. When we look at the inclusion of monks in jiangshi stories, we see that their accounts were trusted and it was believed that they had a lot of knowledge of the dead. This reliance on monks to transport the dead is perhaps why so many jiangshi stories end with monks giving accounts to magistrates and their stories being believed. For example, this is shown in “The Living Dead,” when the monks reported the incident of a jiangshi to a local magistrate who then gave a written certificate detailing the event to the main character.

However, due to the fear and the economical advantages of being a corpse-driver, many people were thought to take advantage of the position. There have been reported incidents or suspicions of corpse-drivers being smugglers who use the practice as a way to hide their illegal activities. We can see some of this skepticism play out in stories such as “Strange Retribution for Digging Up a Grave,” when the main character Mr. Zhu, a grave robber, seeks out a monk for assistance due to the monk’s knowledge of incantations that would allow them to remove a heavy lid of a coffin. The monk in this story obliged due to him also being a thief and wanting to have a share of the stolen loot. This story illustrates the distrust and suspicions that surrounded sorcery and the dead by showing an example of how a monk used his sorcery knowledge to hurt the dead rather than to help the dead. Rumors and suspicions such as this created even more fear around the practice of ganshi and was one of the reasons that the practice eventually died out.

As with all forms of literature, the supernatural is embedded with culture. Eventually the folktales surrounding the practice of ganshi solidified itself into the supernatural phenomenon known as jiangshi. Jiangshi, or stiff corpses, are characterized by their outstretched arms and traveling style of hopping. Looking within jiangshi stories or movie adaptations, one can easily see the shift of a once flourishing practice of corpse-driving to the fear of reanimating dead who can be stopped through supernatural forces. Although this paper focused itself on specifically the practice of corpse-driving in shaping the origin of jiangshi tales, there are also many other cultural aspects that attach themselves to this phenomenon, such as clothing, filial piety, importance of home and land, beliefs of the afterlife and more. Even the form in which tales are presented give us a lot of insight into culture, such as the move from oral tradition, to historical recordings, and eventually towards film. The supernatural remains a unique tool in examining cultural beliefs throughout time.

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