The ancestor worship custom of the Xu family in Zhongfen Village, Fanchang County
The Xu family first settled in Zhongfen after the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty (after 1424), and it has been more than 600 years since then. Today, the village still has the tomb of Xu Jian, the ancestor of the Xu family in Zhongfen in the Ming Dynasty (a coffin in a stone cave), the tomb of his wife Wu Laoru, the tombs of his two sons Xu Huan and Xu Guan and their children, the tombs of clan members, the burial of husband and wife, and the same place of direct relatives, with about eight or nine different types of tombs. In one village and one surname, the types of tombs are so complete and concentrated that it can be said to be the culmination of the coffin and tomb forms in modern China. The rituals and etiquette of the Xu family in Zhongfen to worship their ancestors and commemorate the revolutionary martyrs have significant historical characteristics: 1. Worship the ancestors on New Year's Eve to wish them a happy new year and pray for their blessings. At midnight on New Year's Eve, the villagers gathered in the worship shed at the site of the original Xu Temple. There are nine kinds of rituals: offering animals (pig heads, cellar buns, roosters, etc.); girls offering flower baskets; offering candles; clan leaders lighting candles and burning incense; room heads burning incense; clan members burning incense according to their generation and performing kowtows; friends and neighbors of other surnames congratulate and burn incense; reading sacrificial texts; distributing sugar cakes, etc. Second, going to the graves to worship ancestors on Qingming Festival is the biggest sacrifice of the Xu family every year, called "doing Qingming Festival". At that time, people from the four neighboring cities and counties and the Xu clan members in the Central Division who are far away on the other side of the strait will come to participate, and the number of participants is as high as 2,000. This ceremony is held in front of the tombs of martyrs and the tombs of various ancestral tombs. The ritual is that in the morning, the whole village first worships the tombs of the New Fourth Army martyrs, and then worships the ancestors. Third, the Xu family in the Central Division "exorcises the souls of the ancestors and prays for blessings", and there is a gathering drama every 60 years. Since ancient times, the common people in China have worshipped their ancestors on a large scale in tombs, but there are few records in the literature. The Zhongfen Xu family has a strong traditional ritual for worshipping their ancestors' tombs, with complete and appropriate procedures. It is a elusive "living" specimen in the sacrificial culture of the common people of the Han nationality left over from feudal society. The Zhongfen Xu family also treats worshipping revolutionary martyrs and worshipping ancestors equally, which is an extension and expansion of the connotation of folk beliefs and has new characteristics of today's era.