Dong nationality's Spring Festival customs and habits

During the Spring Festival, the Dong people have the custom of eating rice and tea, grabbing the first water, offering sacrifices to their ancestors and celebrating the New Year.

Dong people live at the junction of Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou. They celebrate the Spring Festival, which can be divided into new year and off-year.

Dong people call December 29th of the lunar calendar "the Year of Aunt", which is a festival to commemorate aunt. It means that all the sisters of generations will go home to visit relatives and reunite at the end of the year.

On New Year's Eve, we bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, light all night, and happily eat "Niangeng Rice". That night, young men and women in the village visited each other and ate "Nian Tea" in the village.

Eating "Nian Tea" is very interesting. It is girls (or women) from all families who go to the well with buckets. After the old man pays homage (meaning that he won't forget to dig a well), the girls will scoop water together with spoons, and it is most auspicious to scoop white foam into the well. Girls use this bucket of water to cook fragrant camellia for guests and family members, which is called "Nian Tea".

In the early morning of New Year's Day, when firecrackers sounded in the whole village to welcome spring and accept blessings, the younger generation quickly picked up buckets, raised torches, rushed to the well platform and picked up handfuls of water to go home. Because this is the first time to carry water in the new year, it is called "head water". Dong people regard the grabbed "head water" as an auspicious and sacred thing, and every household abides by the ancient custom of grabbing only one bucket of water.

The "head water" picked up should be specially stored and cannot be used for washing things. They can only cook and stir-fry Girls and daughters-in-law boil the "head water", add poached eggs to the rotten wine brewed with glutinous rice, and soak the fragrant camellia camellia oil tea to entertain guests. It is said that eating boiled rice, fried vegetables and soaked camellia oil can eliminate diseases and eliminate disasters.

On the first day of New Year's Day, Dong Jiaxian offered sacrifices to his ancestors. The first thing the girls do when they open the door is to invite their female companions to pick azaleas from cliffs and waterside, take them home, put a beautiful azaleas in a chicken coop and give them to the rooster as a token of thanks for the cock crowing Chen Si.

During the Spring Festival, Dong people will visit villages and villages to celebrate the New Year, which is also known as the "year of travel" and "country guests", which is a unique custom that other ethnic groups do not have.