Hanging Coffins Burials

Hanging coffins are a unique burial ritual where coffins that have been placed on cliffs for their final ‘burial’. This practice spans across many cultures including China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. I think it is important to explore the burials and funerary practices of different cultures so that you can better understand their thinking and ways of life.

China:

Hanging coffins in China are known in Mandarin as xuanguan which also means “hanging coffin”. They are an ancient funeral custom of some ethnic minorities. The oldest are said to be in the eastern province of Fujian, dating back 3,000 years. The most famous hanging coffins are those which were made by the Bo people (now extinct) of Sichuan and Yunnan. The coffins are found across a swathe of central China – mostly in remote valleys to the south of the mighty Yangtze River, which flows from the Himalayan foothills to China’s eastern coast.

Coffins of various shapes were mostly carved from one whole piece of wood. The coffins rest in a variety of formations, sometimes barely visible from the ground below. They’re lined up in the crevices in the cliff face, balanced on wooden cantilevered stakes, placed in rectangular spaces hewn in the rock face or stacked high up in caves.

The Bo people were one of the non-Han peoples native to southern China prior to Qin-Han conquests southward. The sparse descriptions of them in Chinese records describe them as being a prosperous farming culture who were also accomplished horsemen. They became victims of genocide by the Ming Dynasty in 1573 AD and are effectively extinct. Their language, rituals, and behaviors are unknown to archaeologists. There is a possibility, however, that the Ku people of Qiubei in southern Yunnan are surviving descendants of the Bo.

Hanging coffins in a cave in Guizhou, southwest China.

Some of the Ku people also practice hanging coffins. People with the surname “He” in Yunnan are also believed locally to be descendants of the Bo. The reasons for the hanging coffins of the Bo people are unknown, because no Bo people are left. It’s thought they disappeared in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), persecuted by military expeditions led by China’s Imperial Armies. Ancient literature from the Tang Dynasty suggests that the higher the coffins were placed, the greater the show of filial piety to the deceased. Others say the reasoning was more practical: It prevented animals from poaching the bodies and kept land free to farm.

Aside from the hanging coffins of the Bo, there are also several other hanging coffin sites found throughout China from differing time periods. They are also similarly mysterious, with the peoples responsible for them now either extinct or Sinicized.

The oldest coffins dated back to the Tang dynasty but many contained bones from multiple bodies. It is believed the bodies would have been buried first and the bones put in the hanging coffins once the bodies had decomposed. The coffins, which were dug out of a solid piece of wood, were then packed with sand – making them enormously heavy.

In a region where caves and cliffs are plentiful, burying the dead at a height might have seemed a better option than in land that erodes easily and is prone to sinkholes. There were up to 100 cave coffin sites in the province. The open-air burials do have something in common with other funerary practices in China’s borderlands. Tibetans and Mongolians practice sky burials – where bodies are chopped up and offered to vultures or other animals.

In 1999, at one of the most famous hanging coffin sites in Matangba, Sichuan it was discovered that many of the coffins had been looted – despite being some 90 meters above the ground and being protected as “national cultural relics.” The items allegedly included ancient swords and other valuables.

Banknotes have also been left by more recent visitors to the site, a superstitious offering for the dead, though not all visitors are respectful – one skull had a cigarette jutting out of its jaw. In a steep gorge down river, local tourist authorities have erected fake hanging coffins – perhaps an effort to satiate tourist curiosity and preserve the existing site.

Philippines:

Hanging coffins are one of the funerary practices among the Kankanaey people of Sagada, Mountain Province, in the island Luzon of the Philippines. They have not been studied by archaeologists, so the exact age of the coffins is unknown, though they are believed to be centuries old. The coffins are placed underneath natural overhangs, either on natural rock shelves/crevices or on projecting beams slotted into holes dug into the cliff-side.

The coffins are small because the bodies inside the coffins are in a fetal position. This is due to the belief that people should leave the world in the same position as they entered it, a tradition common throughout the various pre-colonial cultures of the Philippines. The coffins are usually carved by their eventual occupants during their lifetimes.

The elderly carve their own coffins out of hollowed logs. If they are too weak or ill, their families prepare their coffins instead. When someone dies, pigs and chickens are traditionally butchered for community celebrations. For elderly people, tradition dictates this should be three pigs and two chickens, but those who cannot afford to butcher so many animals may butcher two chickens and one pig. The number must always be three or five.

The deceased is then placed on a wooden sangadil, or death chair, and the corpse is tied with rattan and vines, and then covered with a blanket. It is thereafter positioned facing the main door of the house for relatives to pay their respects. The cadaver is smoked to prevent fast decomposition and as a means to conceal its rotting smell. The vigil for the dead is held for a number of days, after which the corpse is removed from the death chair to be carried to the coffin. Before being taken for burial, it is secured in the fetal position, with the legs pushed up towards the chin. It is then wrapped again in a blanket and tied with rattan leaves while a small group of men chip holes into the side of the cliff to hammer in the support for the coffin.

The corpse is wrapped like a basketball”, says Soledad, “on the way there, mourners do their best to grab it and carry it because they believe it is good luck to be smeared with the dead’s blood.” The fluids from the corpse are thought to bring success and to pass on the skills of the deceased to those who come into contact with them during the funeral procession.

When the procession reaches the burial site, young men climb up the side of the cliff and place the corpse inside the coffin (sometimes breaking their bones in the process of fitting them in), which is then sealed with vines.

The Sagada people have been practicing such burials for over 2,000 years. It was reserved only for distinguished or honorable leaders of the community. They must have performed acts of merit, made wise decisions, and led traditional rituals during their lifetimes. There is also one documented case of a woman being accorded the honor of a hanging coffin interment.

The newest coffins measure to about two metres. These days, coffins are long because the relatives of the deceased are afraid to break the bones of their loved ones. Very few choose to follow that tradition now. Eventually the coffins deteriorate and fall from their precarious positions.

Despite their popularity, hanging coffins are not the main funerary practice of the Kankanaey. Today, Sagada’s elders are among the last practitioners of these ancient rituals. Younger generations have adopted modern ways of life and are influenced by the country’s profound Christian beliefs. Children want to remember their grandparents but they prefer to bury them in the cemetery and visit their tombs on All Saints Day. You can’t climb and visit the hanging coffins. It’s a tradition that is slowly coming to an end.

The height at which their coffins are placed reflects their social status. The reason the coffins were hung was due to the belief that the higher the dead were placed, the greater chance of their spirits reaching a higher nature in the afterlife. Many of the locations of the coffins are difficult to reach (and obviously should be left alone out of respect), but can be appreciated from afar.

The more common burial custom of the Kankanaey is for coffins to be tucked into crevices or stacked on top of each other inside limestone caves. Like in hanging coffins, the location depends on the status of the deceased as well as the cause of death. All of these burial customs require specific pre-interment rituals known as the sangadil. The Kankanaey believe that interring the dead in caves or cliffs ensures that their spirits (anito) can roam around and continue to protect the living.

Indonesia:

Hanging coffins (liang tokek, literally “hanging burial”) is one of the funerary practices of the Toraja people of Sulawesi, either for primary or secondary burials. The distinctively boat-shaped coffins, known as erong, are always placed below overhanging parts of the cliff-face. These can be natural overhangs or cave openings, but some coffins are placed beneath man-made overhangs. They are guarded by carved wooden representations of the dead known as tau-tau. Older tau-tau are more abstract, but more modern tau-tau can be quite lifelike. The reasoning for their placement is to discourage looters who might steal the items interred with the dead.

Like the hanging coffins of the Philippines, liang tokek accounts for only a minority of the region’s funerary practices. Liang tokek were reserved for the “founders” of the village and thus are among the oldest dated coffins, dating to around 780 AD. They were part of burial complexes which include other kinds of interment practices, usually differing based on the social class and age of the dead. These complexes are believed by the Torajans to be abodes of spirits of the dead in the afterlife.

The more common types of ancient burial were the liang sillik and liang erong which were cave burials; with the latter utilizing coffins (erong), while the former does not. Other more recent burial customs include liang pak (tombs carved into walls), tangdan (house-shaped tombs for noblemen, usually placed on hilltops), and liang patane (house-shaped tombs for commoners).