阿婆 1st death anniversary - 功德和合炉

It is our Hainanese custom that we perform rites for the 1st death anniversary. 阿婆 has left us 1 year and we completed the rites 2 days ago, ie 2 August or 六月二十八. That day, we invited a Hainanese Taoist priest to perform 2 types of rites, 功德和合炉.

What do we mean by these rites? Let me explain....
功德 is performed to cleanse 阿婆 soul of illness and uncomfort faced by her during her last days. This is done by chanting and giving her underworld medicine. This rites allows the soul to become healthy and 返老还童. In addition, it is to chant away 小人 and inform 阎王 the good deeds done during her lifetime. After the rites, she will be able to enjoy her after-life and seek reincarnation (往生）.

合炉 is performed after the 1st year to combine her soul with our ancestors. In a way, it is a promotion for her to 公婆 and she won't be alone as she will be joining my grandfather, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. We had an altar table (We just bought a new one and I select it myself, very nice one) where our ancestors tablet are placed and 阿婆's name was included in it that day. Our ancestors (公婆) will look after us (their descendants 子孙) and protect us from harm.

After the rites are performed, we burned her a big house, cars, gold and silver mountains (金山银山), gold and silver bridges (金桥银桥), money, maids, television, vcd player, fan, sewing machine, comfort chair, 衣箱，etc, etc. So that my grandmother (or shall I say all our 公婆) will have a nice house to live in with all the comforts and travel around in the cars.

The rites took 1 whole day. The Taoist priest told us to continue to offer joss sticks, apples and oranges for 12 days. On the 12th day, we will need to offer a feast to our 公婆. The feast will include 三生, 二什菜, 12 eggs, 12 katuput and 水果.
三生 includes 1 whole chicken, 2 fish, 1 pork.

Next year, we also need to offer the feast on 阿婆's death date (六月二十九). Thereafter, there is no need to offer feast on her death date. Instead, we will do the offering as what we are doing currently, ie on important dates such as new year eve，清明， 端午节，冬至 and so on.

I hope this gives a good intro on Hainanese customary rites for our loved ones who left us ...