Local customs in the inner countryside ~

The custom of posting Spring Festival couplets and door gods.

As a folklore festival in China, the Spring Festival has rich cultural connotations. In this issue, we should clean up the filth, prevent diseases, stick to the door, put couplets, set off firecrackers, eat jiaozi on New Year's Eve, greet each other on New Year's Day and give children lucky money.

As a unique literary form of China ancient culture, couplets have a history of more than two years. China wrote the first couplet in ancient times, "New Year Qing Yu, Jiajieno. Changchun was written by Meng Chang (934 ~ 965), the emperor of Shu after the Five Dynasties of the Bai Dynasty, and it has been recognized by people. But the origin of couplets can be traced back to the Warring States period.

During the Warring States period, people in the Central Plains hung "peach stalks" by the door, which is the origin of couplets. The so-called "peach stalk" is a puppet carved with peach wood, which is said to ward off evil spirits and keep peace. Later, it gradually became a "peach symbol", also known as the door god. It is said that there is a big peach tree in the East China Sea, under which there are two immortals, Tea God and Lei Yu, who can eat all kinds of ghosts. Therefore, Er Shen was carved in peach wood on the first day of the Lunar New Year and hung on the portal to ward off evil spirits. It was not until Yu Shuling's coffin ascended the throne in the Five Dynasties that couplets were invented, carved on peach symbols, and extended to the pillars of official temples in the Song Dynasty.

The name of Spring Festival couplets was born in the Ming Dynasty. It is reported that Zhu Yuanzhang issued an imperial edict after the capital Nanjing was established. Every household inside and outside Miyagi should put up Spring Festival couplets written in red paper on the first day of New Year's Day to celebrate, and make private visits for fun. Since then, Spring Festival couplets have become popular among the people.

Whenever the Spring Festival comes, thousands of families will stick red couplets with auspicious couplets on their doors to set off the atmosphere of the New Year and drive away the beast "Nian" who is afraid of red, hoping that the next year will be full of good harvests and good luck.

It is worth pointing out that Spring Festival couplets are not only written and posted during the Spring Festival, but also many famous couplets are written on famous mountains and rivers, palaces and pavilions, yamen, gardens and pavilions, temples and small bridges on the stage, which are accompanied by mountains and rivers and meet scenic spots.

There is a legend that Emperor Taizong (Li Shimin) was ill one day. He heard the voice of "ghost" in his dream and was restless. When Qin and Weichi Gong, the general, knew about it, they stood at the door with umbrellas and weapons. That night, Taizong never had nightmares again. Later, he ordered the painter to paint portraits of Qin and Weichi Gong, and hung them on the door of the palace. This is the so-called door god. Later, it gradually spread to the people, and people rushed to follow suit and posted this portrait to ward off evil spirits.

The custom of eating jiaozi and giving lucky money.

Eating jiaozi and Bao jiaozi on New Year's Day has a history of 1400 years in China, which is a folk custom in northern China. Yamen is no exception. Jiaozi is like a crescent moon, made of dough wrapped in leaves.

In ancient times, midnight was called midnight. During the Spring Festival, people eat wrapped jiaozi on New Year's Eve, which means "making friends at the age of four", that is, the old and the new alternate from childhood, hence the name "jiaozi".

Lucky money first appeared in the court of the Tang Dynasty. According to Zi Jian, Yang Guifei gave birth to a child, and Xuanzong went to see him personally. He happily gave her gold and silver money to wash her child. In addition to being happy, the money for washing children is mainly an amulet for the elderly to exorcise evil spirits for newborns. The custom of giving money to newborns gradually spread from the court to the people and became one of the important folk customs in the Song Dynasty. After gradual evolution, it has become a custom for adults to give lucky money to their children on New Year's Day to prevent disasters and exorcise evil spirits, and even to this day.

Lantern Festival lighting custom

The fifteenth day of the first month is the traditional festival of the Chinese people. People usually call it Lantern Festival. On this day, from Beijing to the local government, every household will hang lanterns and set off fireworks, and thousands of lanterns will be hung on the streets for people to watch.

Lantern Festival originated in the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Before the Western Han Dynasty, there were colorful palace lanterns everywhere in the emperor's palace. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty revised the calendar, the fifteenth day of the first month was regarded as a major festival. On this day, all the lights in Miyagi will be on. However, at that time, the Lantern Festival was limited to the deep palace forbidden garden, and there was no folk custom. The Lantern Festival became the Lantern Festival celebrated by the whole people, but it was after entering the Tang Dynasty.

Because of the political stability and economic prosperity in the Tang Dynasty, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, which was called "Zhenguan rule". The emperor of the Tang dynasty moved the lanterns in the palace to the street for exhibition, watched them in person and enjoyed themselves with the people. Li Longji, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, ordered the construction of a lantern with a height of 150 feet, which was called the Lantern Building. As soon as the emperor took the lead, the emperor and relatives of the country rushed to follow suit and show off. The lamp tree made by Yang Guifei's sister, Mrs. Han, is "80 feet high, and the mountain stands tall and can be seen for a hundred miles." In addition, on the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, the emperor also gave a big banquet, sang and danced, and reveled all night. It was originally stipulated that all pedestrians must return to the designated venue after the drums sounded, but on the 14th, 15th and 16th nights of the first month of each year, people in Chang 'an City are allowed to watch the lights all night and enjoy themselves until dawn. Since then, Lantern Festival has gradually formed a folk custom of making, lighting and watching lanterns, which has lasted for hundreds of generations. After the Song Dynasty, the Lantern Festival was extended from 3rd to 5th. In the Ming Dynasty, lanterns were set off from the eighth day to the seventeenth day, and the lantern cycle reached 10 days. Lantern Festival is coming, and the lanterns, lanterns, riddles and lanterns in the streets and alleys will shine brilliantly. By the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, there were more and more lantern styles. In modern times, with the development of science and technology, especially the application of electricity, the technology of making lamps is more advanced, and people like to watch lamps more. Therefore, the Lantern Festival has become the most poetic and lively traditional festival of the Chinese nation.

The custom of "playing spring"

In neixiang county Ya Museum, there is a scene where a county magistrate plows the fields and shoots spring cattle. There are rich cultural connotations here.

"beginning of spring" is the first festival in the twenty-four solar terms of the lunar calendar, which is called "Da Chun" in folk customs. The reason why it is called this way is directly related to the official "whipping spring cattle" activity in feudal society.

Cows are friends of human beings, ranking second among the animals of the zodiac, and also the most industrious animals among the animals of the zodiac. Niu Gengdi has a history of thousands of years. It occupies a very important position in a self-sufficient natural economic society. .

According to historical records, the activity of "whipping spring cattle" originated from the theory of "unearthed cattle to send cold" in the Book of Rites and the Moon Order of the Zhou Dynasty. Native cattle, that is, cattle made of mud, were set on the day of beginning of spring and began in the Han Dynasty. Since then, there have been records about making local cattle. Every year, when the emperor starts in spring, he will go to the Xiannongtan to offer sacrifices, and personally use it as a symbolic plow to cultivate the land, so as to persuade farmers to welcome the spring and usher in a prosperous year. The local government also held corresponding activities in the spring to replace the royal pro-agriculture. Its whole activity has gone through two procedures: welcoming spring and playing spring.

Spring cattle are produced in China and have five colors (East Blue, South Red, West White, North Black and Middle Yellow). The different colors of each part depend on the branches of that year and beginning of spring Day. Five elements of Yin Ji, Gou Mang God, or Four Spring God were used as sacrifices to plow Mu Zhi God. The color, age and posture of its clothing also depend on the branches of that year. In this way, Chunniu and Manshen will not be the same in 60 years, and they will not both be L companies.

In the Qing Dynasty, Qin, a court official in charge of astronomical phenomena and calendars, arranged the shape and color of spring cattle in Liuchuan every year and ordered all counties to make them according to the style. The size of each part has certain regularity and symbolic significance. Spring cattle are four feet high, symbolizing the four seasons; It is eight feet long, symbolizing the vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice, winter solstice and the eight solar terms of beginning of spring, Changchun, Tunqiu and beginning of winter. The tail is one foot and two inches long, symbolizing twelve months of the year. Shen Man is three feet, six inches and five minutes tall, symbolizing 360 t five days a year; The whip in his hand is two feet and four inches long, symbolizing the 24 solar terms in a year.

The day before in beginning of spring, the county magistrate in royal robes led officials and teams to welcome the Spring Festival. The entourage held high the word "Spring" and marched to the Spring Festival (Xiannongtan) to worship the Spring Bull and the Mang God. Before the deacon knelt down, he spread a red sticker with the words "Happy Spring" on his hands. After the ceremony, the magistrate of a county plowed the farmland once or twice in Springfield, saying that he would plow the farmland on behalf of the royal family and pray for a bumper harvest. Then, the team members carried Niu Mang to Yingchun Pool in front of the county hall and put it there to "whip the spring" in beginning of spring that day.

On the first day of spring, the door of the county government is open to people. In front of the lobby, there are incense tables and offerings such as incense sticks, pigs, sheep and liquor. People gathered with colorful flags, gongs and drums and suona. The county magistrate knelt down to the north and offered three drinks. The tribute officer read a blasphemous sentence: "Wei presided over the spring festival, and Germany responded to the Black Dragon. Business was born and goods were very popular. × Waiting for the soil, welcoming the new year with courtesy, wearing magic, helping me prosper! "

After the ceremony, the officials stood on both sides of the spring cow with colorful sticks in their hands, and the tribute officer sang "Sir, beat the drums!" " "Three drums in the magistrate of a county. Li Guan sang "Whip Spring (Pat Spring)! "Night history goes around the cow three times, and the magistrate of a county saves the cow. Cattle's bellies are full of thousands of fruits, dates and walnuts, and all officials and people are cheering for food, hoping that there will be plenty of grain and an auspicious year. Later, when I left the county government, I began to wander the streets in spring, with rows of colorful sheds, red and green. Drum music, lions, roller coasters, stilts and other folk acrobatics were performed to the fullest, and thousands of empty lanes were filled with auspicious and cheerful atmosphere, which pushed the spring outing to a climax.

According to the old man's memory, it is a great honor for the householder to choose the scalper that grows pears in the county, and he can also enjoy the tax-free preferential treatment of that year.

The activity of whipping spring cattle continued until the Republic of China. According to "Neixiang County Annals Festival", "On the first day of spring, the local city greeted the spring with drums and colorful flags in front of Gou Mang God and local cattle, indicating a bumper year." At this time, however, the local cattle are not made of soil, but of paper.

With the development of the times, Niu Geng has gradually weakened, and the folk custom of spring ploughing has lost its former aura, becoming a kind of cultural accumulation, dusty in the folds of feudal history, the memory of the elderly, and the clay sculpture of neixiang county Ya Museum.

Tomb-Sweeping Day's custom-sacrifice first, then go for an outing.

Qingming Festival is one of the twenty-four solar terms, and it is also a festival to worship ancestors, so it is commonly known as Ghost Festival. According to legend, the Emperor of the Han and Yuan Dynasties made a "sacrifice to the mausoleum" in memory of former general Xiao. It was not until the Sui and Tang Dynasties that Tomb-Sweeping Day became an official document with universal customs. According to the Book of the Old Tang Dynasty, there is a saying in the twentieth year of Kaiyuan (AD 732): "Cold food is the tomb, and there is no book for rituals. In modern times, sleeping is a custom. It is advisable for scholars to go to the grave and make up five gifts. " "Dream in Tokyo" said: "In Tomb-Sweeping Day, officials and literati went out to pay homage to the tombs in the suburbs." Tomb-Sweeping Day is the season when the earth is full of spring flowers. Therefore, although the festival started with offering sacrifices to ancestors, in the long-term development, towels also have recreational content. "Tokyo Dream" records that during the Qingming Festival, urbanites went out of the suburbs and the fields were like cities. People play in fields and gardens and return at dusk. This kind of outing, later called "outing", includes curling up in winter and going out for a walk in spring to stretch your skills and refresh yourself: rolling your thoughts. At the same time, the activities of planting trees by inserting willows also gathered in Tomb-Sweeping Day in ancient times. As for Tomb-Sweeping Day's statement that willow-piercing is nontoxic, it reflects that this festival also contains the imprint of anti-disaster content. As a comprehensive festival, the content of competitive entertainment has been added. Nowadays, people usually think that Tomb-Sweeping Day is the best season to travel.

The custom of the Dragon Boat Festival-eating zongzi and rowing dragon boats-is a festival to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan on the fifth day of May. The so-called "end" means "beginning". The noon is calculated according to the main branch, and May is "noon", so it is called "Dragon Boat Festival". "Noon" and "May" were commonly used in ancient times, and because noon is a sunny day, May 5th is also called "Duanyang Festival".

According to legend, in the Western Zhou Dynasty 2,500 years ago, people hung mugwort leaves and calamus at the door on the fifth day of May and drank realgar wine, which meant removing toxic gases and avoiding evil. As for eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, it was after the Warring States period, and it originated from commemorating Qu Yuan's suicide by throwing himself into the river.

Qu Yuan was a patriotic poet of Chu during the Warring States Period. He is a leftist and a doctor with three problems. He was framed and exiled. On May 5, he shed tears at Luojiang angrily. His loyalty and patriotism to the monarch won the admiration of future generations. During the Eastern Han Dynasty and Wei and Jin Dynasties, the regional custom of commemorating Qu Yuan's death gradually became a national festival, which combined the Dragon Boat Festival with commemorating Qu Yuan and passed it down from generation to generation. Wu Jun, a native of Nanliang, said in the book "Qi Xu Zhong Harmony": "On May 5th, Qu Yuan died in Miluo, and the Chu people mourned it. Every day, bamboo tubes store rice and splash water. " So that fish and shrimp don't eat Qu Yuan's body.

As for eating zongzi, it is a legend that the five-color thread sticks to the child's neck and feet. People often steal the rice sacrificed to Qu Yuan and tie the leaves of neem tree with colored thread. These two things are what Xiaolong fears most. Therefore, later people made zongzi with five-color lines and neem leaves, and naturally mixed eating zongzi with Quyuan throwing it into the river.

In the folk Dragon Boat Festival, there are many festivals, such as eating zongzi, picking mugwort leaves, inserting calamus, drinking realgar wine, tying five-color lines, carrying sachets, driving away five poisons and racing dragon boats. Children like this festival best, including eating, playing and watching. The festival also has many mysterious colors. Children should bring a "tiger belly pocket" made of red cloth or yellow cloth, embroidered with a tiger in the middle and scorpions, toads, centipedes, snakes and geckos below, which are called "five poisons", or cut out the "five poisons" and stick them on the door to prevent their harm.

Picking mugwort leaves and inserting calamus can dispel foul gas and ward off evil spirits.

In order to avoid evil spirits, the Dragon Boat Festival wears sachets filled with realgar, atractylodes rhizome and other spices on the chest. When getting up in the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, family members tie five-color lines to their children's feet, feet and necks, which represent the east, west, north and south, respectively, corresponding to the fire, water and earth in Jin Mu, in order to avoid ghosts and get rid of diseases.

As for the Dragon Boat Festival, the dragon boat race is rooted in people's injury to Qu Yuan's death and boating for the corpse. Later rice gradually evolved into a kind of competitive entertainment. At that time, officials and people will have fun, paddle and break the waves, gongs and drums will be loud, colorful flags will fly, and the audience will be crowded, which will become a grand festival for the people. Eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival-Family reunion

August 15th of the lunar calendar is the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Reunion Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the Mid-Autumn Festival in Han Dynasty, but it is not the fifth day of August, but the day of beginning of autumn. About the Song Dynasty, there were more records about the Mid-Autumn Festival, which became one of the main traditional festivals in China, second only to the Savings Festival. In the first year of the Republic of China (19 12), the Mid-Autumn Festival was legally designated as the "autumn season", mainly because the four festivals of the China lunar calendar are all for farming, New Year's Day is the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival is the summer festival, Mid-Autumn Festival is the autumn festival, and winter solstice is the winter festival. Until now, Mid-Autumn Festival is still one of the four traditional festivals (with the development of the times, people gradually forget the winter solstice festival, so it becomes the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival). The custom of eating moon cakes in Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Tang Dynasty, and the name of moon cakes began in the Qing Dynasty. It is said that it originated in Jiangsu Province. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, people here will treat their relatives back home with moon cakes shaped like a full moon. Later, this custom spread to the whole country. Mooncakes became "reunion cakes" and Mid-Autumn Festival became a reunion festival. That night, the whole family sat outside, enjoying the moon, eating moon cakes in Yue Bai. If any relatives don't come back from a different place, they look at the moon at the same time to express their thoughts. Su Shi, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote a famous sentence on the Mid-Autumn Festival in memory of his younger brother, "I wish people a long life and a beautiful scenery." The lyric song 1, which has been popular all over the country in recent years. The moon is a wonderful song, which expresses people's feelings of missing their loved ones in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The custom of Double Ninth Festival —— Climbing high to respect the elderly

The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is called the Double Ninth Festival. In ancient China, one, three, five, seven and nine were called Yang numbers, and September 9th was the extreme number of Yang, so it was called "Chongyang".

The origin of the Double Ninth Festival comes from Wu Yun's Continued Harmony in the Southern Dynasties. According to legend, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Taoist Fei Changfang predicted that his brother Heng Jing's family would be in great trouble on September 9, and if he wore dogwood and drank chrysanthemum wine, he could take refuge in the mountains. Heng Jing listened to his words, and the family went to the mountains for a day. When they got home, they saw that their chickens, dogs, cows and sheep all died suddenly, but their families were spared from great disasters because they took refuge in the mountains. Since then, people celebrate the Double Ninth Festival and climb mountains on the ninth day. In recent years, China has designated the ninth day of the ninth lunar month as the festival for the elderly and the festival for respecting the elderly, which has given the Double Ninth Festival a new connotation.

Why is the winter solstice one of the "three major festivals" in ancient times?

Winter solstice is one of the 24 solar terms of the lunar calendar. On this day, the days in the northern hemisphere are the shortest, and then the days gradually become longer. Therefore, the ancients said that the winter solstice was the starting point of solar terms, so the winter solstice was regarded as a major festival in all previous dynasties. The solstice of winter is also called "Asian Year", the day before the solstice of winter is called "Xiaozhi", and the night of Xiaozhi is called the beginning of winter. This is a festival that people celebrate like New Year's Eve and Xiaonian. According to the Song Dynasty's "Dream of Tokyo", Beijing attaches the most importance to this festival from the winter solstice in November. Although poor families have accumulated false excuses, they must also change new clothes, prepare meals, offer sacrifices to their ancestors and celebrate exchanges, just like Chinese New Year. On the solstice of winter, the emperor will be greeted by hundreds of officials, and the ceremony will be grand. Local officials will also hold a grand celebration ceremony with the people. With the changes of the times, the winter solstice is gradually forgotten by modern people.