Jiang Shi - Origin Stories

Origin Stories

A supposed source of the jiang shi stories came from the folk practice of "transporting a corpse over a thousand li" (Chinese: 千里行屍), where traveling companions or family members who could not afford wagons or had very little money would hire Taoist priests to transport corpses who died far away from home by teaching them to hop on their own feet back to their hometown for proper burial. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and ring bells to notify other pedestrians of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a jiang shi. This practice Xiangxi ganshi (Chinese: 湘西趕屍; literally "driving corpses in Xiangxi") was popular in Xiangxi, where many people left their hometown to work elsewhere. After they died, their corpses were transported back to their rural hometown using long bamboo rods, believing they would be homesick if buried somewhere unfamiliar. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be hopping in unison from a distance.

Two oral accounts of transporting corpses are included in Liao Yiwu's The Corpse Walker. One account describes how corpses would be transported by a two-man team. One would carry the corpse on his back with a large robe covering both of them and a mourning mask on top. The other man would walk ahead with a lantern and warn his companion about obstacles ahead of him. The lantern was used as a visual guide for the corpse carrier to follow since they could not see with the robe covering them. It is speculated in the accounts in the book that corpses would be carried at night to avoid contact with people and the cooler air would be more suitable to transporting bodies.

Some people speculate that the stories about jiang shi were originally made up by smugglers who disguised their illegal activities as corpse transportation and wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.