Twice Told

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Xu Ke, “The art of sending corpses home” (送尸術), Qingbai leichao

Language
Chinese
Read from
vol. 33, 方伎類 (techniques), pp. 52 to 54 (PDF pages 54 to 56), Commercial Press, 1918 printing
Reading
transcribed from the page image
Translation
ours
Retrieved
24 September 2026

Qingbai leichao (清稗類鈔), compiled by Xu Ke (徐珂) and published by the Commercial Press, gathers anecdotes of the Qing dynasty from notebooks and newspapers under topical headings. The entry “送尸術” sits under 方伎類, arts and techniques. We read it in the 1918 printing of vol. 33; the National Library of China holds a 1920 printing of the same volume. The entry has three parts: a comment, a description of the practice, and an eyewitness account. The next entry in the book, which begins with Huang Zesheng, is given here too because it describes the same thing.

西人之催眠術，能催生人，而不能催死人，能催數小時之久，而不能催至數月之久。而黔、湘間有送尸術，則以死尸而由人作法，進止聽命，可歷數月。似非常理所能測，與尋常尸變因有所感觸而然，或係一種電氣作用者，亦異也。

貴州商人採木爲生者，每春水生時，輒編木爲筏，乘之，直下湖南常德等處，將木筏析賣，乃遵陸還鄉。有病死者，道遠，尸不易回，同行者往往有送尸之術。然必兩人行之，乃有效。其術，一人導於前，一人以手持碗水隨於後（碗中清水必加持符咒）。水不傾潑，尸不倒也。尸與生人無異，但不能言，其行步與生人亦微異。蓋人行則行，人止則止，純隨二人步趨。至薄暮投宿旅店時，逆旅主人見之，即知爲送尸之客，必另備一房與居（此種送尸人時時不絕於道，彼處客店每專備一房招待之）。二人睡於牀，尸則立於門側，湘諺所謂「三人住店，兩人喫飯」者也。將至家前一日，尸必託夢於其家人，其家則將棺木衣衾預備齊整。尸抵家，則挺立於棺側，術人將碗水傾於地，尸立倒，須急爲收歛，否則其尸立變，現出腐壞之形矣（如已死一月者，尸即現一月之腐狀，餘倣此）。宣統己酉秋，六安楊寬夫客湘中，嘗於長沙城外親見之。

黔陽黃澤生軍門忠浩嘗駐軍川邊。一日，營外忽大譁，詢之，則云有人解死尸經過，尸能自行。乃出觀，則見一人持布旛前導，一尸直立，隨其人，惘惘而步。因呼止之，詢其所以，云：「此人旅死，不能具棺木，特用法驅之自行，歸就家以歛耳。」問何法，曰：「吾業此，安能以其祕告人。」問去此尚幾程，曰：「可四五日。」問夜宿時如何，曰：「置之門側可矣。」澤生使人驗之，果爲死尸。時空營出觀，數百人皆見之。復詢土人，云：「此事常有之，不足異也。」

Translation

Western hypnotism can put the living under but not the dead, and can hold them for a few hours but not for months. Yet between Guizhou and Hunan there is an art of sending corpses: someone works a rite on a dead body, and it goes and stops as ordered, for months on end. It seems beyond ordinary understanding. It is also unlike the common case of a corpse that rises because something has touched it off, which may be some kind of electrical effect.

Merchants of Guizhou who live by timber lash their logs into rafts every spring when the rivers rise, ride them down to Changde and other places in Hunan, sell the rafts off log by log, and go home overland. When one of them dies of illness, the road is long and the body is hard to bring back, so his companions often use the art of sending corpses. It only works if two men do it. One walks in front; the other follows holding a bowl of water (the clear water in the bowl must be charged with a charm and spell). As long as the water does not spill, the corpse does not fall. The corpse is like a living man except that it cannot speak, and its gait is a little different from a living man’s: it walks when they walk, stops when they stop, and simply follows the two men’s steps. When they put up at an inn at dusk, the innkeeper knows at a glance that these are corpse-senders and gives them a room of their own (such senders are always on the road, and inns there keep a room just for them). The two men sleep on the bed and the corpse stands by the door: this is what the Hunan saying means by “three stay at the inn, two eat”. The day before they reach home, the corpse always appears to its family in a dream, and the family gets the coffin and grave clothes ready. When the corpse arrives it stands upright beside the coffin. The man with the bowl pours the water on the ground, the corpse drops at once, and it must be put in the coffin quickly, or it changes in an instant and shows its decay (a man a month dead shows a month’s decay, and so on). In the autumn of the jiyou year of Xuantong, Yang Kuanfu of Lu’an, staying in Hunan, saw this with his own eyes outside the city of Changsha.

Huang Zesheng of Qianyang, the general Huang Zhonghao, was once camped with his troops on the Sichuan border. One day there was a great uproar outside the camp. He asked what it was and was told that a man was escorting a corpse past, and the corpse was walking by itself. He went out to look and saw a man holding a cloth banner walking in front, and a corpse, standing upright, following him, stepping along in a daze. He called them to stop and asked what this was. “This man died on the road and there was no money for a coffin, so I am using a rite to make him walk home to be laid out.” What rite? “It is my trade. How could I tell anyone its secret?” How far was it from here? “Four or five days.” What did he do at night? “I stand him by the door.” Zesheng had someone examine it; it was indeed a corpse. The whole camp had come out to watch, and several hundred men saw it. The local people, asked about it, said: “This happens all the time. It is nothing strange.”

Notes

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