ABSTRACT
It was a sunny spring day in Anzhou village. Like other funerals that I witnessed in different villages in Chaling (茶陵) County, Hunan Province, China, the entombment for this old lady was in the afternoon. In this morning’s funeral procession, ritual specialists, family members, relatives, and friends escorted her coffin to the graveyard, where a hillside pit facing a pond and overlooking village buildings had already been dug. After the death, the bereaved family hired several types of local ritual specialists to conduct the funeral service. Among others, an old geomancer from a neighboring village selected the site, and eight pallbearers from Anzhou village dug a pit.
