What are the customs of Qingming Festival
4hw.com.cn: the Qingming Festival is coming soon. Qingming Festival is one of China's traditional festivals. It has a history of thousands of years. Every Qingming Festival requires sacrifice, spring outing and ancestry. Do you know how the Qingming Festival comes from? Let's take a look at the origin of Qingming Festival.
What are the customs of Qingming Festival?
Tomb sweeping and ancestor worship
In Chinese history, it has long been a custom to eat cold food, ban fire and pay homage to our ancestors. After the Tang Dynasty, the cold food festival gradually declined, and the tomb sweeping and ancestor worship on the Qingming Festival has become a continuous festival custom tradition since then.
Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in the poem "cold food and wild hope chant": the black crowing magpie makes noise and faints the trees. Who cries at the cold food during the Qingming Festival? The wind blows in the wilderness, paper money flies, ancient tombs are full of spring grass and green.
Tangli flowers reflect white poplars, full of parting places of life and death. The heavy spring in the dark desert can't hear the cry, and the people return in the rustling rain. Gao juqing, a poet of the Song Dynasty, once described in a poem that there are many tomb fields on the mountains in the north and south, and there are various tomb sweeping ceremonies during the Qingming Festival.
Paper ashes fly as white butterflies, and tears and blood stain as red cuckoos. At sunset, the fox sleeps on the grave. How could a drop ever reach Jiuquan!
Even in today's society, people still have the custom of going to the grave to sweep the grave and worship their ancestors before and after the Qingming Festival: eradicating weeds, placing offerings, offering incense and prayers in front of the grave, burning paper money and gold ingots, or simply offering a bunch of flowers to express their memory of their ancestors.
to swing
Swing, this is the custom of Qingming Festival in ancient China. Swing, which means pulling the leather rope and moving. Its history is very old. It was first called Qianqiu. Later, in order to avoid taboos, it was changed to swing.
In ancient times, the swing was made of tree branches and colored ribbons. Later, it gradually developed into a swing with two ropes and pedals. The play of swing became popular in the northern and Southern Dynasties.
"Jing Chu Sui Shi Ji" records: "in spring, a long rope is hung on a tall wood, and scholars and women's colorful clothes sit on it and push it. It is called playing a swing." Swing in the Tang Dynasty has been a very common game, and has become an important part of the custom of Qingming Festival.
As swings can be seen everywhere during the Qingming Festival, the three dynasties of the yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties designated the Qingming Festival as the swing Festival, and swings were also installed in the imperial palace for queens, concubines and palace maids to play.
Playing swing can not only improve health, but also cultivate courage. It is loved by people, especially children.
ancient game of kicking a ball
Ju is a kind of leather ball. The skin of the ball is made of leather and the inside of the ball is stuffed with wool. Cuju is playing football with your feet. This is a favorite game during the ancient Qingming Festival. It is said that it was invented by the Yellow Emperor. Its original purpose was to train samurai.
Shoot willow
Shooting willows is a game to practice archery skills. According to the records of the Ming Dynasty, the pigeon was placed in the gourd, then the gourd was hung high on the willow, the bow hit the gourd, the pigeon flew out, and the victory or defeat was determined by the height of the flying pigeon.
Cockfighting
In ancient times, the game of cockfighting prevailed in Qingming. Cockfighting began from Qingming and lasted until the summer solstice. The earliest record of cockfighting in China can be found in Zuo Zhuan. In the Tang Dynasty, cockfighting became popular, not only among the people, but also the emperor. Such as Tang Xuanzong's favorite cockfighting.
Silkworm Flower Festival
Wutong Flower Club is a unique folk culture of silkworm villages. During the Tomb Sweeping Day, there were such folk activities in the areas of Indus, Wuzhen, Chong Fu and Zhou Quan.
Among them, the silkworm Flower Fair of maming temple in zhouquan and Shuangmiao temple in Qingshi is the most wonderful and grand.
Maming temple is located in the west of zhouquan town. It is known locally as the "king of the temple". Every year, there are a large number of people at the silkworm flower fair, with frequent activities. There are more than ten activities, such as welcoming the silkworm God, shaking the clipper, Naotai Pavilion, worshiping incense stool, boxing, dragon lantern, raising high pole, singing and so on.
Some of these activities are carried out on shore and most of them are carried out on board, which has the characteristics of water town. In recent years, there are only several projects in the silkworm flower fair in wuzhenxiang City, such as welcoming the silkworm God, stepping on a white boat, raising a high pole and so on.
tug-of-war
In the early days, it was called "leading hook" and "strong hook", and in the Tang Dynasty, it was called "tug of war". It was invented in the late spring and Autumn period, began to prevail in the army, and later spread among the people. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, a large-scale tug of war was held during the Qingming Festival. Since then, tug of war has become part of the Qingming custom.
Outing
During the Qingming Festival, spring returns to the earth, and there is a vibrant scene everywhere in nature. It is a good time for outing. Chinese people have long maintained the habit of going on an outing during the Qingming Festival.
Zhao Zhiheng, director of Tianjin astronomical society, said that Qingming is usually around March of the lunar calendar, which is the time of spring return.
After a long cold winter, people have gone out of their rooms and came outdoors to explore the breath of spring - or outing in the fields or in the suburbs. These outings are called 'outing'. Outing is also called spring outing. In ancient times, it was called exploring spring, searching for spring, etc.
It is said that there was a Qingming outing long ago. According to the records of the old book of Tang Dynasty: 'at the noon of February in the second year of Dali, I was lucky to have an outing in Kunming Lake.' It can be seen that the custom of taking a youth tour has long been popular. Du Fu has a poem "go outing by the river, look back and see the banners". In the Song Dynasty, the wind of outing prevailed.
Inserted willow
It is said that the custom of inserting willows is also to commemorate the agricultural ancestor Shennong, who taught the people to harvest and harvest. In some places, people insert willow branches under the eaves to predict the weather. The old saying is' willow is green and rainy; Wicker dry, sunny day 'argument.
Willows have strong vitality. As the saying goes, 'if you plant flowers intentionally, you will not grow flowers. If you don't plant willows unintentionally, you will grow shade.' Willows live when they are inserted into the soil. Wherever they are inserted, they live. They are inserted into willows every year and become Yin everywhere.
There is another saying about inserting willows and wearing willows during the Qingming Festival: it turns out that the Chinese people regard the Qingming Festival, July and a half and October new moon as the three Ghost Festivals, which are the time when all ghosts come and go to ask for help. People wear willows to prevent the invasion and persecution of ghosts. Willow has the function of dispelling evil spirits in people's mind.
tree planting
Around the Qingming Festival, the spring sun shines, the spring sun shines, and the spring rain flies. The survival rate of planted seedlings is high and grows fast. Therefore, since ancient times, China has the habit of planting trees during the Qingming Festival. Some people also call Tomb Sweeping Day 'tree planting day'.
The custom of planting trees has been handed down to this day. In 1979, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress stipulated that March 12 is China's tree planting day every year. This is of great significance to mobilize the people of all ethnic groups to actively carry out the activities of greening the motherland.
fly a kite
fly a kite. Flying kites during the Qingming Festival is a popular custom. Ji Sheng at the age of emperor Jing, written by Pan rongbi of the Qing Dynasty, records: "during the Tomb Sweeping Day, men and women in the city came out of the suburbs, picked up boxes and looked at each other. It's better to carry a paper kite spool and release it in front of the grave after the sacrifice and sweeping. "
The ancients also thought that the Qingming wind was very suitable for flying kites. "Qing Jia Lu" said: 'the wind of spring rises from bottom to top, and the paper kite rises from it, so it has & lsquo; Break the kite during the Qingming Festival & rsquo; It's a proverb. "
In the ancients, flying kites was not only a recreational activity, but also a kind of Witchcraft: they thought flying kites could let go of their filth.
Therefore, when flying kites on the Qingming Festival, many people write all the disasters they know on the kite. When the kite flies high, they cut the kite line and let the kite fly with the wind, symbolizing that their diseases and filth have been taken away by the kite.