Name of Ritual

Blood pond ritual 拜血湖、血池

Description of Ritual/Practice

• A ritual added to 破地狱 (Hell-Breaking) if the deceased is female. The blood pond ritual is conducted to salvage the soul that has been condemned to the Blood Pond Hell.
• A paper boat with the deceased clothes and name is guided by the children across a Blood Pond Hell replicate. Similar to the hell-breaking ritual, a ritual specialist assists to break down the 4 walls. The children drink a sweet red water (to mimic the blood water) whenever a gate is broken. The ritual specialist breaks the blood bowl eventually and the deceased’s soul is delivered from her sufferings.
• Blood Pond Sutra 血盆经 and Scripture for Pregnancy 十月怀胎经 (only if the female deceased has had children) are chanted

Who practices it? Who conducts the ritual?

Children of deceased, ritual specialists such as the nam mo lo 喃呒佬

Is it still practiced now?

• For Cantonese from Sze Ap 四邑, this ritual is performed when the female deceased died during labour or while pregnant. While in parts of China, the ritual for childless women (and even single women) is still conducted, we don’t see this occurring in Singapore. Other dialect groups in Singapore perform the ritual for those who died at childbirth.
• This ritual is very rarely performed now die to lack of experienced ritual specialists and very possibly due to changing attitudes about the motivations for this ritual