Hanging Coffins of Chongqing

　　Hanging Coffins

　　On a yellowish-brown cliff face on the eastern bank of the Bawu Gorge, about four to five hundred meters above the ground, there is a rectangular cave containing a pitch-black coffin—this is the “hanging coffin.” The hanging coffin burial was a customary funerary practice of the Pu people who lived in the Daning River area more than 2,000 years ago. According to research, during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, when their parents passed away, the Pu people would “spend all their possessions on a coffin, chisel a niche halfway up a high mountain near the river to bury it, and lower the coffin down from the mountain using ropes. The higher the coffin was hung, the more filial the act was considered.”

　　The hanging coffin burial was a customary funerary practice of the Pu people who lived in the Daning River area more than 2,000 years ago