Hainan March 3 customs

What festival is celebrated on March 3rd in Hainan? Customs of March 3rd in Hainan

The third day of the third lunar month in Hainan is a traditional festival for the Li people. The Li people call the third day of March "Fu Nian Fu". It is a festival to wish for "shanlan" (mountain and dry valley) and hunting harvest. It is also a day for young men and women to interact freely. People call it "Love Day". Legend has it that during the ancient flood, a brother and a sister survived by hiding in pumpkins. To this day, in Zhongfang, Dongfang Town, Dongfang City, every year on March 3rd of the lunar calendar, young men and women of the Li ethnic group from all over the country gather together to participate in the "March 3rd" grand party, singing, dancing, and talking about love.

Since ancient times, every year on the third day of the third lunar month, the Li people will dress up in festive costumes, carry mountain baskets of rice wine and bamboo tubes of fragrant rice, and gather from all directions to worship their ancestors or to worship their ancestors. Group gatherings, antiphonal singing, dancing, and percussion instruments are held to celebrate the festival. Young men and women even take advantage of the festival to have a carnival, make friends with songs, express their feelings with dance, and indulge in a happy river of love. They will not say goodbye until dawn, and promise to meet again on March 3rd of the following year. The Li Nationality's March 3rd Festival has a very broad mass base. With the changes of the times, the content of celebrations has become increasingly diverse, but antiphonal songs, folk sports competitions, ethnic songs and dances, and wedding customs performances are still the most basic contents.

On May 20, 2006, the March 3rd Festival of the Li Nationality was approved by the State Council and included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, numbered X-12.

Main activities on March 3rd in Hainan

Every spring on March 3rd of the lunar calendar, men and women in Meifu dialect come from all directions, dressed in costumes, bringing Shanlan rice wine, bamboo slips fragrant rice and rice dumplings. A gathering point to worship the ancestors. When night falls, the elderly gather to drink and reminisce about the past, while the young men and women meet in groups. People stay up all night singing antiphonal songs to convey their affection.

The Li people who live in the southern part of Hainan Island sacrifice pig heads, rice wine and rice balls every March 3rd and go to Luobi Cave, Ganshiling Cave and other places in Sanya to pray for the peace of their ancestors. The Li people in the Wuzhishan Hemu system area, on the Ox Day in the third month of the lunar calendar, kill pigs and prepare a banquet at the mutou's house. They gather people to beat gongs and drums and perform dances to worship their ancestors, to celebrate the blessings brought by spring and to summon good spirits for unpregnant women. I wish you good luck in having a boy and a girl in the future.

During the festival, young men and women usually perform "bamboo pole dancing". Today, it has become an event that involves 12 or 16 people, 8 people swinging the pole, and 4 or 8 people jumping the pole. The activity started with the sound of gongs, drums and music. The eight people holding the poles opened and closed the bamboo poles in their hands rhythmically, and the pole jumpers jumped and turned around in the bamboo poles according to the opening and closing of the bamboo poles.

This activity is also a means for Li youth to spread love. The winning girl is often the goal pursued by the young man, and the winning young man is often the girl's sweetheart.

The venue is usually located in an open rubber forest, which is deep, cool and quiet: sometimes a couple of lovers quietly leave the campfire, and the young man hangs earrings on the girl's ears and inserts a hairpin made of deer bone into the girl's ear. On the girl's bun, the girl tied the colorful belt carefully woven by her own hands around her lover's waist. The two parties vowed to meet each other on March 3rd of the following year.

March 3rd is the festival of love

The terrain of Haizhou Bay in Jiangsu is mountainous, with the sea at the foot of the mountain, mountains on the seashore, and mountain streams connected with the sea. Some older men and women who want to find a mate use the method of releasing boats and guarding them on the Queen Mother's birthday, which is the third day of March every year.

According to legend, anyone who relies on this kind of divine luck to get married will be a happy couple. Young women who want to court a mate will use marine swimming crab shells or squid spines to make a hull, and then install some components such as rudders, masts, sails, and downwind flags to make it look like a real ship. Then, fish bones, snail shells, fish eyes, fish scales and other objects were carefully assembled into small animals such as cranes, chickens, lambs, and dragons according to their natural shapes, and placed in the cabin as tokens.

On the third day of March, from early morning to before sunset, groups of young women, shy and chatting and laughing, carefully took their homemade boats to the dense forest on the mountain. To let others see it, put the boat into the mountain stream and follow the water with peach petals floating on it to the downstream beach. This is called releasing the boat. At the same time, some young men seeking mates went to the beaches at the exits of various mountain streams to wait. Whoever finds a boat drifting upriver gets it first, and there is little competition. While everyone was looking for it, some honest people picked up a boat from under their feet. This is called boat guarding. Generally, some people get married on March 3 every year if they can let it go and keep it.

There are also cases where people's ships are stranded and blocked in the middle of the journey and cannot be rescued. Years of efforts to release and guard the ships have yielded no results. Every year when the boats are released and guarded, there are always some jokes left, enough for the villagers to laugh for a year. During the process of releasing and guarding the boat, there is a strict traditional custom: men are not allowed to go up the mountain, and women are not allowed to go to the beach. If a man and a woman meet, they will be at odds with each other after they get married, and they will suffer from poverty. Once the young man is able to guard the ship, he will use the token on the ship to ask a matchmaker to find out about the marriage. As long as the woman and her parents verify that the token is genuine, the marriage will be finalized. In fact, except for a few who firmly believe in destiny and love, some young men and women who are in love have made an appointment in advance for the time, place and characteristics of the token. Many marriages are arranged by releasing and guarding the boat, and both parties are the ones they love.