Using the head to make wine vessels or chamber pots is a sign of gratification or a bad custom?

Imagine this scene:

Your friend or colleague invites you to his house for a drink. The food and wine are served, but the only thing missing is the wine glass. At this time, the host brings up a strange wine glass with a smile. You take a closer look: this wine glass is actually made of human heads!

At this moment, in addition to shouting "fuck" in your heart or mouth, your whole body is shaking like it was struck by lightning, and your eyes are dull like a rooster that has frightened its nest----you also What can you do?

Don’t be afraid, because from the structural point of view, the human head cannot hold wine. This requires a series of technical processing. On the basis of the human head, it is painted like paint to be able to hold wine. A drinking vessel for drinking wine, or a chamber pot painted to hold urine and urine.

However, no matter how sophisticated the processing technology is and how advanced the anti-corrosion and decontamination technology is, when you actually use this thing to drink or urinate, you will definitely not take away the breakfast from the year before last, or even the baby you had back then. Are you spitting out the milk you eat? !

It is true that such weird things are unlikely to happen in modern society, but in human history, even after entering civilized society, it is still common to use human heads as wine vessels and chamber pots.

Don’t believe it? Let’s look at the story below.

1

Let’s talk about the most famous thing first. It happened at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

We might as well tell the bottom of the matter first. It is known in history as "the three families of the Zhi family were destroyed and divided into Jin".

The Jin State was a big country in the Spring and Autumn Period. After the Jin Dynasty's royal family weakened, the Six Qing Dynasty first came to power, that is, the six major families of Fan, Zhongxing, Zhao, Han, Wei, and Zhi. Governing. Later, the other four families joined forces to destroy the Fan family and the Zhonghang family. The real power was controlled by the four Qings: Zhi Yao (also called Zhi Bo and Xun Yao) of the Zhi family, Zhao Xiangzi of the Zhao family, Han Kangzi of the Han family, and Wei Huanzi of the Wei family. The Zhi family is the most powerful. Zhiyao wanted to invade the land of the other three families and asked for land from the Han family and the Wei family by name. Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi did not dare to offend Zhiyao and handed over the land. Zhiyao asked Zhao Xiangzi for land again, but Zhao Xiangzi refused to agree.

So Zhiyao was furious. In 455 BC, Zhiyao led the Han family and the Wei family to attack the Zhao family, and Zhao Xiangzi retreated to Jinyang (now Taiyuan, Shanxi).

The siege of the city lasted for more than two years, and Jinyang could not be captured for a long time. In 453 BC, Zhiyao dug up the Jinshui River and diverted the water into Jinyang City. Seeing that the city was about to be destroyed, Zhiyao proudly said to Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi: "I thought that the river water could only block the enemy, but it turns out that the river water can also destroy a country." After hearing this, Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi were secretly surprised, because There are also rivers next to the Han family's feudal city Pingyang (southwest of Linfen, Shanxi today) and the Wei family's feudal city Anyi (now northwest of Xia County, Shanxi). Who knows that today you can dig water for Jinyang, but tomorrow you won't be able to dig water? What about Guan Pingyang and Guan Anyi?

At this time, Zhao Xiangzi, who was about to be destroyed, sent his counselor Zhang Mengtan to secretly find Han Kangzi and Wei Huanzi. After Zhang Mengtan explained the truth about the death of lips and teeth, he asked them to jointly attack Zhiyao.

That night, the three families of Zhao, Wei and Han joined forces and defeated Zhiyao's army in one fell swoop, killing Zhiyao. The three families later divided up the Zhi family and the remaining land of Jin one after another, and became the three kingdoms of Zhao, Han and Wei among the "Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period".

Let’s talk about Zhiyao’s funeral. After killing Zhiyao, Zhao Xiangzi, who had narrowly escaped death, still couldn't understand his hatred, so he "cut off his head and used it as a wine cup" ("Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals"), "lacquered his head and used it as a drinking vessel" ("Historical Records: Biographies of Assassins") , "and used his head as a drinking vessel" ("Warring States Policy? Zhao Ce"), cut off Zhiyao's head to make a drinking vessel; some also said that "painted his head and used it as a drinking vessel" ("Han Feizi"), "Zi Yao" "Zhi Tongjian" quoted Jin Zhuo as saying: "Drinking vessel belongs to Huzi". "溲器" and "Huzi" both mean chamber pot. Paint Zhiyao's head with paint. Made a chamber pot! ?

Poor Zhiyao, a generation of tycoons, in the end his head became a place for others to urinate.

2

In addition to Zhiyao’s most famous human-head wine vessel or human-head chamber pot, other human-head wine vessels still appear in Chinese historical records from time to time. "Historical Records? Biography of Dayuan" records that in the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu leader Shanyu once defeated the Yuezhi and used the head of the Yuezhi king to make drinking utensils. What is even more surprising is that more than a hundred years later, when Han Chang and Zhang Meng, ministers of the Han Dynasty, made an alliance with Hu Hanxie Chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, "the one who used the head of the Yuezhi prince that the old Shanyu destroyed was used as a drinking vessel. ***Blood-Drinking Alliance." ("Book of Han·Biography of Xiongnu") The drinking vessel made of the head of the Yuezhi King has been preserved, and it is not an ordinary daily utensil, but used in the ceremony of making a blood alliance. Show the sacredness and solemnity of the oath.

"History of the Ming Dynasty Wei Su Zhuan" records, "First... Yang Nian Zhenjia from Xia was the chief photographer of Jiangnan. He excavated all the tombs below Huizong... and cut the skull of Lizong (Lizong of Song Dynasty) into a drinking vessel. .…The emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang) sighed for a long time, and… ordered that he should be buried in the mausoleum in the next year. The tomb of Emperor Lizong of the Song Dynasty was robbed by Yang Nian Zhenjia of the Yuan Dynasty, and his skull was cut off and made into a drinking vessel. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that Zhu Yuanzhang learned about it and ordered the skull drinking vessel to be reburied.

3

Not only China, but also Europe and Japan have records of using human heads as wine vessels. And of course there is the legend of the ancient Mayans’ mysterious “crystal skulls.”

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus recorded the war customs of the nomadic Scythians in his famous work "History":

Cut off the part of the head below the eyebrows, and clean the inside of the head. If the person is poor, then he just wraps the outside of the head with rawhide for use; if he is a rich person, after wrapping the outside with cowhide, the inside is still there. It needs to be plated with gold and used as a wine glass. When guests he respected came to visit, he would use this kind of human-head wine glass to entertain the guests." Chen Jie recorded in "History of the Warring States Period of Japan": "Xin. The leader (Oda Nobunaga) brought out all kinds of exquisite food and gorgeous utensils at the banquet. There were two utensils at the banquet that made everyone surprised and a little nauseated: Nobunaga Shogun Asakura Yoshikage, Asai Hisashi The skulls of Masato and Asai Nagamasa were painted with gold and used as drinking utensils, and they were filled with wine to serve the generals. These fierce generals who were killing each other on the battlefield couldn't help but feel horrified."

The tradition of heavy flavors goes back a long way.

(UK) Chris Morton's "The Mystery of the Crystal Skull" records:

"There is an ancient legend circulating among American Indians: there were 13 crystals in ancient times. Skulls can talk and sing. These crystal skulls contain information about the origin and death of human beings and can help mankind solve the mystery of life in the universe. According to legend, people must find all the skulls before December 21, 2012. One day is the end of the Mayan calendar, which has been running for 5126 years. Unless the 13 skulls are brought together and placed in the correct position, the earth will fly off its axis. Only then can the supernatural power of the skulls save the earth. /p>

This kind of legend shows that the Mayans at that time attached great importance to "skulls", and making human-like crystal skulls was really full of mystery and ritual.

Four

Okay, let’s go back and reflect on the above.

If you hate someone, killing him is enough to relieve your hatred. Then why should you endure the filth and filth and make the enemy's head into a wine glass or a chamber pot to further vent your anger, and actually use it? Woolen cloth? Especially in China, it has always been the belief that "the dead are the most important". Touching other people's corpses and digging the graves of the dead are despised behaviors.

So why does this happen again and again?

I think that in the ancient barbaric era, killing the enemy and destroying the opponent's body may only be a material victory over others, and making the enemy's head into a tool for one's own use seems to be the only way to achieve victory. It creates a strong mental deterrent, causing other people to feel a sense of terror and fear. In this way, the human head wine vessel has become a symbol of glory for the winner and an eternal shame for the loser. And it has a terrible deterrent effect on potential enemies who are watching eagerly. This kind of behavior of the ancestors that is difficult for later generations to understand has been throughout the history of mankind in the East and the West, and has almost become an unwritten and peculiar custom.

There is no need to be taboo for the venerables or the ancestors. These absurd and horrifying stories are real, and these bloody histories are also an integral part of the entire human development process. We just hope that after mankind finally emerges from the age of ignorance and barbarism, it can truly move towards civilization and truly put an end to inhumane things from happening. What's more, how much of this hope is extravagant?

How many unfathomable and chilling black holes are there in the realm of human spirituality?