Name of Ritual

开路

Description of Ritual/Practice

• 开路 is a ritual to call upon the soul and open the road to the netherworld 开通十方的路. The nam mo lo or monk calls on the spirit to attend the wake; and this ritual enables the deceased to come home easily, and to go back to their ancestors after the funeral. 开路票 and sang pang 丧耪 are used in this ritual.
• A spell or amulet 符咒 is printed on the 开路票 to protect the deceased from being harassed by deities associated with the underworld 阴神 (such as 后土、山神、判官). Information such as the state of the deceased’s soul and their predicted return 回魂日 are also indicated on this document.
• A notice is filled in and put up at the wake so that mourners can learn about the merits of the deceased, along with other important information about the death. This is not the same as the obituary 讣告 that indicates information about the wake and funeral. The funeral starts officially when the notice is put up.

Who practices it? Who conducts the ritual?

Ritual specialists

Is it still practiced now?

• Currently, Cantonese is the only dialect group to use the sang pang 丧耪 even though the notice were used by other dialect groups in the past.
• Ritual specialists generate a set of important information by calculations advised by Taoists and Buddhist theories about death – The Six Paths 六道轮回： 天、佛、人、地、鬼、畜 (Taoist) or 天、啊修罗、饿鬼、地狱、畜生、人(Buddhist).
• sang pang 丧耪 used to be written and given out by town or village officials. 丧耪 also used to include information about contraindications 冲犯 for mourners to note so that they can take necessary precautions to avoid bad luck during the wake and funeral, with 7 ages were listed in the contraindications. Present day 丧耪 may only lists 3 ages in the contraindications.
• 讣告 only list minimal information such as age of the deceased, time of death, date and time of the funeral 出殡, much like an obituary.

Other Interesting Information

• The poor and destitute used to visit funeral parlours in Sago Lane (also known as 四人街) to ask for a piece of sang pang 丧耪 that used to be writte on bamboo paer. They would burn the paper and consume the ashes mixed in water. It was believed that this ash water had healing properties.
• Previously, this paper issued by village officials served as the official death certificate. The document now serves as a funeral notice.