Flesh Bodies, Stiff Corpses, and Gathered Gold: Mummy Worship, Corpse Processing, and Mortuary Ritual in Contemporary Taiwan

Abstract

It is well known that Han fear the metaphysical pollution they associate with death and especially corpses. Traditionally they believe family members of the recently deceased are temporarily polluted and those who work handling corpses are permanently polluted; people try to avoid such polluted others for fear that sickness or other unfortunate events may follow contact. 1 Yet strewn across the countryside of both China and Taiwan, and scattered throughout accounts in Buddhist historical texts, are mummified corpses venerated as deities: granting requests, sending dreams, enshrined, worshipped, often gilded, sometimes installed inside or below a religious statue or decorated to look indistinguishable or nearly so from a statue. What happens to most bodily remains? How is it that most corpses are feared, whereas certain others are worshipped? Are these divergent evaluations of corpses due to conflicting religious systems, or does it depend mainly on the identity of the corpse? The following article focuses on these questions as they apply to contemporary Taiwan. First, I describe in detail corpses that are worshipped, since their existence is less recognized or is mistakenly assumed to be nothing but a Buddhist aberration within an otherwise universal pattern of corpse avoidance. Next, I describe corpses that are feared and show changing attitudes toward bodily remains. Finally, I suggest how divergent attitudes toward bodily remains can be placed into the broader context of Han religious beliefs.