Pictures of Qingming festival handwritten newspaper

Pictures of Qingming Festival handwritten newspaper

Why sacrifices are needed during Qingming Festival

Tomb-Sweeping Festival is one of the three major ghost festivals in China (the other two ghost festivals are July 15th and October 1st). "Ghost Festival" is a festival to mourn the dead, which is relative to the festivals to worship gods of heaven and earth.

Participants in the Qingming Festival are all citizens, from kings and ministers to ordinary people, who must worship the souls of their ancestors on this festival. Since the Tang Dynasty, the court has given officials holidays so that they can return home to visit their graves. According to the Song Dynasty's "Mengliang Lu", every Tomb-Sweeping Day, "officials and common people go out to the suburbs to scan tombs to pay tribute to the time." There is no limit to men, women and number of people who participate in tomb sweeping, and they often spend their whole family. In this way, the tomb-sweeping activities before and after the Qingming Festival often become a matter for the whole society to participate in person. Within a few days, there is a constant flow of people in the countryside and the scale is very large.

Object of sacrifice

As a ghost festival, the Qingming Festival mainly worships ancestors and deceased relatives, expressing the filial piety of the sacrificer and the longing for the deceased. Tomb-Sweeping Festival is a ghost festival and is not usually called a ghost festival because it mainly worships good ghosts, domestic ghosts, or the deceased souls of close ones, and focuses on expressing filial piety and family affection. The other two ghost festivals also offer sacrifices to evil spirits and wild ghosts, with the emphasis on appeasing the ghosts and preventing them from causing trouble. But it cannot be generalized. In some places, there is also the practice of worshiping other ghosts and gods during the Qingming Festival. According to old customs in Shanghai, there is an altar ceremony held during the Tomb Sweeping Day specifically to honor ghosts, to worship hungry ghosts, ghosts and lonely souls to prevent them from becoming evil ghosts and causing trouble. This kind of altar is called Jili platform. In old Shanghai, there was also the practice of welcoming the City God on the day before Qingming Festival. On the Qingming Festival, the City God will ride in a sedan chair to patrol the Litai to provide relief and appease the ghosts. The scene is very grand and lively.

Time for sacrifices

Qingming sacrifices are held before and after Qingming, and vary from place to place. In the old days, people in Beijing performed sacrifices and swept graves not on the Qingming day, but on a "single day" close to the Qingming day. Only monks visit tombs on Qingming Day. People in Lishui, Zhejiang Province sweep tombs within the three days before and four days after Qingming Festival, which is called "the first three and the last four". In Shandong, in the old days, most areas would sweep tombs on the Qingming day. A few areas, such as Zhucheng, would sweep the tombs on the cold food day. In some places, the tombs would be swept within four days before the Qingming day. Now, they generally sweep the tombs on the Qingming day. People in southern Shanxi divide the time of sweeping tombs into two times. Once, a few days before the Qingming Festival, each family would go to visit the graves separately. The second time was on Tomb Sweeping Day, when families with the same surname in a village sent representatives to go to the cemetery to worship their ancestors. Shanghainese have different grave-sweeping times for new and old graves. Anyone who has recently passed away and has not performed any salvation rituals for seven or forty-nine days should ask monks and Taoists to chant sutras and do rituals or do rituals on the Tomb-Sweeping Day. If it is an old tomb and has been used for rituals or Taoist temples, the tomb sweeping does not necessarily occur on the Qingming day. It can be relaxed before and after, but it cannot exceed the scope of the first seven days and the last eight days. As the saying goes: "The first seven days and the last eight days, the underworld has a holiday." It means. Either too early or too late and it will fail.

Places of worship

Qingming sacrifices can be divided into tomb sacrifices and ancestral hall sacrifices according to different places of worship. Tomb sacrifices are the most common. The characteristic of the Qingming Festival is the tomb sacrifice. When offering sacrifices at the cemetery, the worshiper is closest to the object of sacrifice, which can easily arouse a feeling of closeness and allow the living to better express and place their filial piety and affection for the deceased. Qingming sacrifices are called tomb sweeping, mainly due to the method of tomb sacrifice. Another form is the ancestral hall sacrifice, also known as the temple sacrifice. People of a clan gather in the ancestral hall to worship their ancestors. After the sacrifice, they have a meeting and dinner. This kind of sacrifice is a way to reunite the clan members. There is also a situation where people who work in other places cannot rush back to their hometown to visit their graves, so they offer sacrifices on a mountain or high place facing the direction of their hometown.

Methods or items of sacrifice

The methods or items of Qingming sacrifices vary from place to place. The common method consists of two parts: one is to renovate the tomb, and the other is to hang and burn paper money, Offer sacrifices.

When sweeping a tomb, the first thing to do is to decorate the tomb. The main method is to remove weeds and cultivate new soil.

On the one hand, this behavior can express the worshiper's filial piety and care for the deceased. On the other hand, according to the beliefs of the ancients, the tombs of ancestors have a great relationship with the prosperity and decline of future generations, so tomb construction cannot be ignored. Contents of memorial items. "Tongli of the Qing Dynasty" explains the origin of the name "tomb sweeping" from the name of "tomb sweeping": "On the New Year's Day, Cold Food and Frost's Descent Festival, worship the tomb sweeper, and during the period, the tomb will be in plain clothes, equipped with wine and food, and tools for cutting grass and trees. Zhou Feng Feng In the past, due to the cold food and fire ban, paper money was not burned, but hung on small trees or bamboo poles in the cemetery, or pressed with stones or rubbish. At the graveside. Songzhuang Jiyu's "Chicken Ribs Chapter" Volume: "Cold food is brought to the tomb, and no incense is set up. Paper money is hung on the tomb tree. Those who go to the countryside climb mountains to watch the sacrifice. Split the silk in the air, which is called breaking the money." In this way, all sacrifices are swept There are paper flags fluttering at the tombs you pass, forming a unique landscape before and after the Qingming Festival. Those without paper money are usually left alone without heirs. Later, people no longer strictly prohibited fire, and just burned the paper money. In the old days, the main form of ancestor worship during Qingming Festival in Beijing was "burning baggage". The so-called "baggage" is regarded by the sacrificer as a parcel sent from the Yang world to the "underworld". In the past, Nanzhi Store sold the so-called "furoshiki", which was a large bag made of white paper. There are two styles of this bag: one is patterned, with the Sanskrit transliteration of "The Mantra of Rebirth" printed on a woodblock board, with a lotus tablet printed in the middle, and the name of the deceased written on it, such as "The late Zhangfujuntayunshan boss" The word "person". The other type is plain furoshiki, which does not have any pattern printed on it. There is only a blue sticker in the middle with the name of the deceased written on it. The baggage contains all kinds of money. The sacrifices offered are mainly food, and the varieties vary from place to place. They are all delicacies considered by local people and available according to the financial ability of the sacrificers, or special foods that are suitable for the season.

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