Name of Ritual

Burning Clothes 烧过河衣

Description of Ritual/Practice

• This ritual requires descendants to burn clothes previously worn by the deceased, along with paper money and offerings the night before the cremation or burial. This ritual helps the deceased to cross 奈何桥 Neihe bridge in the underworld.

Who practices it? Who conducts the ritual?

Family members and ritual specialists such as the nam mo lo

Is it still practiced now?

Current practices of 烧过河衣 are cleaner and more organised, with a cage set up for family members to safely burn clothes and other paper offerings.

Other Interesting Notes

• In Peck San Theng in Bishan, this ritual appeared to have taken on a different form. The temporary tablet, with incense and some of the deceased’s belongings are put onto a tray, and the tray is tied to a carp. The nam mo lo will perform a ritual to appease the 桥头公、桥头婆 (guardians of the bridge) and the fish would swim across the canal in front of Peck San Theng’s entrance. This is a practice unique to only Cantonese who were buried at Peck San Theng. A Taoist priest and one of our informants shared that this could be a case of a ritual that came into practice because of the informal economies in Kampung San Theng. The fish-seller would catch the fish after it has completed the ritual to sell it to the next family performing burial . Meanwhile the guardians of the bridge were possibly business partners with the fish-seller. The numerous triads active in the area also could have influenced the way rituals were conducted. With the development of Bishan and the redevelopment of Peck San Theng into a columbarium, this unique practice of getting a fish to carry the items across the river has been retired.
• For Buddhists, especially for those who went through the ritual to 归依 before death, there is no need for material (paper) belongings in the after-life because one would have transcend to the Western Realm 西方极乐世界 after death.