Many folklorists believe that the original meaning of mourning is to express some taboo. Because of fear of ghosts, the ancestors of primitive society worried that the dead would bring disaster. In order not to be recognized by ghosts and avoid disasters, they often have long hair, muddy faces and different clothes when dealing with funerals. Later, with the progress of ethical concepts, the meaning of mourning gradually evolved into a form that mainly expressed the mourning for the deceased and the grief of bereavement, that is, the so-called "badge".
Extended data
There are five levels of mourning stipulated in the Book of Rites, from heavy to light, namely, broken decline (Cu and), Cui Zi (Qi and), great contributions, small contributions, and messy (Shu and), which are called five clothes. Five clothes are suitable for all kinds of relatives who are closely related to the deceased. Each kind of clothing has specific mourning clothes, mourning period and behavior restrictions.
Men who wear cut-off clothes have a full set of mourning clothes: cut-off, wearing Jediere, staff, twisted belt, crown rope tassel and bow. Decline is also a slap, linen mourning, petticoat. Chop means no sewing.
Cui Zi's full mourning clothes for three years are as follows: sparse and worn clothes, neat clothes, strong clothes, crown tassels, cutting sticks, cloth belts and sparse clothes. Shushuaishang is made of four to six liters of burlap, which means that the hem of the clothes is made neat by sewing. Hemp is a kind of coarse hemp belt woven from the fibers of seedless male hemp, including head hemp and waist hemp.
The mourning period is nine months, and the mourning clothes are cloth, linen, crown tassels, cloth belts and ropes. The cloth here refers to the cooked linen with slight forging, which is finer than the original linen used in Cui Zi. Women don't comb their hair, but they always use cooked linen.
The mourning period of Xiaoyu is five months, and the clothes are cloth, bathing linen belt, clothes tassels and auspicious clothes (qú). The linen used by Xiao Hong is thinner than that used by Da Gong.
The mourning period is only three months. At that time, the best linen used to make royal clothes was 15 liter per piece. If half of the hemp is removed, it will become a slap. Because it is as thin as silk, it is just suitable for making the lightest mourning clothes.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Mourning System