Editing Jiangshi (section)

=== Myth and legend ===
Actual corpse-driving using manual labor gave rise to legends and rumors of the use of Taoist sorcery to transport dead bodies. According to these tales, the relatives of a person who died far away from home could not afford vehicles to have the deceased person's body transported home for burial, so they would hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual to reanimate the dead person and teach him/her to "hop" their way home. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify others in the vicinity of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a ''jiang shi''.

Some<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=zh:湘西趕屍 |url=https://liubowen.tripod.com/history/t-cadaver.htm |access-date=2024-03-30 |website=liubowen.tripod.com}}</ref> speculate that the stories about ''jiang shi'' were originally made up by smugglers who disguised their illegal activities as corpse transportation and wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.