The Father and his Daughter

I was walking out of the Hong Yuan monastery to go find the bathroom when I saw this guy walking up to the entrance carrying a small white bundle in his hands, I decided to wait a moment and observe what would happen next. The man laid the bundle down in the entrance and removed the top part to reveal a 3 week old girl, dead, her face a pale white and lifeless as stone. A monk comes over and looks at the girl and mumbles a few prayers then walks into the temple. The father covers her daughters face and sits next to her waiting. Later all the monks would come out and sit on the ground in front of the girl chanting and throwing rice. The monk who was accompanying me said that no one besides the family may speak to the father or look upon the girl again for fear of disturbing her spirit, only by offering prayer is the only way they can communicate with each other. After the procession the father simply picked the girl up and carried her away. The monks told me that he will take her body back to their house and cut her up and feed her remains to birds to carry her spirit away and that it was a most private ritual that no one outside the family may attend.

Canon 20D, Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L lens, 1/60 sec, f8, ISO 400