Sihaiwang: Dragon Boat Festival, in addition to those we are familiar with, dragon boat racing, eating zongzi and other customs, there is actually a colorful rope hanging. Colorful rope is also called "life extending thread". It is a folk custom to wear colorful rope on the Dragon Boat Festival on that day. Its implication is to avoid disasters, eliminate diseases, protect health and prolong life.
Multicolored rope drives away demons to ensure safety
In ancient China, five colors were worshipped as auspicious colors, implying to pray for blessings and to get rid of evils. It is an important custom of Dragon Boat Festival for children to wear colorful ropes. Every Dragon Boat Festival, every family hangs five colored silk ropes on the lintel to avoid misfortune. Dragon Boat Festival is also known as "children's Day". Wearing colorful ropes in the "poison day" can protect and expel evil spirits and diseases. It is because of this important significance that the custom of wearing colorful thread on Dragon Boat Festival continues to this day.
Colorful rope is also called long life
In fact, multicolored rope also has a very pleasant name. In ancient times, multicolored rope was also called long life thread. It was made of red, green, yellow, white, black thick silk thread and tied to the arms and necks of girls. It was called long life thread and long life thread. In the song of five days in the imperial capital by Yu Youding, a man of Ming Dynasty, it is said that "five silk lives can be continued", which refers to this custom. According to the book of Customs by Ying Shao of Han Dynasty: 'on May 5, it was named long life thread with five colored silk as its arm. Later generations also known as "continuous life ray" and "colorful ray".
The evolution of multicolored rope
Sachets, commonly known as sachets, are also necessary items for people to wear on the Dragon Boat Festival. They are the custom of wearing sachets evolved from wearing colorful threads on the Dragon Boat Festival. The sachet is made of various kinds of cloth. The sachet is filled with perfume powder made of clove, vanilla, Angelica dahurica, pine, Atractylodes macrocephala and realgar. The sachet is worn on children with multicolored threads. Its function is also to eliminate diseases and evil. Nowadays, there are various shapes of fragrant cloth bags, reflecting the characteristics of the times.
How to wear and pay attention to colorful rope in Dragon Boat Festival
1、 Multicolored thread is made of five colors of thread. It must be green, white, red, black and yellow.
2、 Wear multicolored rope before the sun comes out. Therefore, in the early morning of Dragon Boat Festival, the first important thing for adults to get up is to tie multicolored rope on their children's wrists, ankles and necks.
3、 The multicolored thread is made for men's left and women's right when wearing, which can be tied on the hand neck or the foot neck.
4、 When wearing multicolored rope, it is forbidden for children to speak, or tear or discard it at will. They can only throw it into the river when taking a bath for the first time after the festival.
5、 It is said that children wearing five colored thread can avoid the harm of poisonous insects like snakes and scorpions and throw them into the river, which means that the river will wash away the plague and disease, so that the children can be safe and healthy.
6、 Another way of saying is: after the first thunder after the Dragon Boat Festival, cut the colorful rope, throw it in the rain, let it wash away with the rain.