The Dragon Boat Festival, which originated in the pre-Qin era, is an ancient festival that has been passed down for more than 2,000 years, but the colorful folk customs carried by this festival are still popular today. In 2008, the Dragon Boat Festival was included in China’s legal holidays and became an important part of modern people’s lives. So, how much do you know about the culture and customs of the Dragon Boat Festival?
Original connotation of Dragon Boat Festival: health care to ward off evil spirits
There have been many different names for the Dragon Boat Festival in history. The names of Duanwu, Duanyang, Chongwu and Chongwu tell the time scale of the festival. "Duan" means "beginning", which is similar to "beginning", so "Duanwu" is also "fifth day". The names of "heavy noon" and "heavy five" mean that the afternoon (May) and the afternoon (May) are heavy, and the ancient Chinese summer calendar "built Yin", which means that Yinyue is the first month of each year (equivalent to the first month of the current lunar calendar). According to this calculation, May is the afternoon month. So, what is the special significance of this special day of "Five-Five"?
According to China’s traditional belief in the number of yin and yang, odd numbers such as one, three, five, seven and nine belong to yang, and the sun and the moon coincide, which is the extreme of yang. But the so-called prosperity will decline, so it also marks that the yang representing life will begin to decline, and the yin representing death will reappear-in the era of the induction between man and nature, the day marked by this digital form naturally becomes a mysterious time node, and it will certainly contain a lot of awe and taboos.
"May" is special and mysterious, so the ancients regarded "May" as an "evil month" and had many taboos.It is not appropriate to build a house, expose a bed, recommend a seat, go to an official, or have children in a bad month. It is recorded in Historical Records of Sima Qian in the Western Han Dynasty that Tian Wensheng, a Meng Changjun in the Warring States Period, was born on May 5, and his father Tian Ying refused to let his wife raise him, because "it would be bad for parents to grow up in May." In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong’s Lun Heng and Ying Shao’s Customs Tong Yi also have similar accounts. In addition, from the natural conditions, in midsummer and May, snakes and insects are everywhere, and plagues and diseases abound, which does great harm to people’s health. Therefore, in people’s minds, "The days are long, Yin and Yang contend, life and death are divided, gentlemen fast, and they will hide their bodies" ("Book of Rites Month Order"). For such a May, we need to take it seriously with awe and pray for disaster through various ritual activities. So,The original core connotation of the Dragon Boat Festival in May is seasonality: to solve the problem of May and protect the health of the body.
Dragon Boat Festival Folklore: What should I play and eat?
The Dragon Boat Festival customs with "health care to ward off evil spirits" as the core connotation are mainly as follows:
Hang the wormwood.Artemisia argyi is a perennial herb of Compositae, which has certain medical value. The custom of "moxa poison gas" is based on its medical function. During the Dragon Boat Festival, wormwood leaves can be hung on the door with calamus leaves (the leaves are long and narrow like swords, which means "cutting thousands of evils"), mahogany branches and garlic to ward off evil spirits. You can also make a "Ai Hu", that is, weaving mugwort leaves into a tiger’s appearance, or sticking mugwort leaves on a tiger cut from cloth and silk, which is also used to hang and exorcise evil spirits.
Blue soup bath.It is an ancient custom recorded in "Da Dai Li" to bathe in orchid soup at noon. But this "orchid" is not the orchid now, but the Eupatorium odoratum of Compositae, which has fragrance and can be boiled and bathed. "Nine Songs in the Cloud" has a sentence of "Bathing orchid soup and soaking the fragrance". "The Chronicle of Jingchu’s Age" says: "May 5th is called the Lan Festival." In later generations, herbs such as Pu Yi were generally fried and bathed, and the whole family washed them, regardless of men, women and children, saying that they could cure skin diseases and eliminate evil spirits.
Wear accessories.During the Dragon Boat Festival, people will wear ornaments to ward off evil spirits, such as colorful threads and sachets.
Multicolored thread is also called "Long Life Thread" and "Continued Life Thread", with different names. Simple in shape, twisted into a rope with five-color silk threads, tied on the arm; Some luxurious ones are decorated with gold and silver ornaments on colorful ropes. In some places, the custom is that this colorful thread will not be cut until "June 6th", and it will be thrown into the river to be washed away by the water, along with the "disasters of all diseases".
The sachets worn on the Dragon Boat Festival are also called sachets and sachets. They are made of colored silk thread or rags. They are filled with Chinese herbal spices (such as Angelica dahurica, Ligusticum Chuanxiong, Atractylodes lancea, clove and mint) and worn on the body. They have both fragrant smell and certain health care effects. Of course, the value of the sachet is not limited to the spice itself. The sachet of the elderly is embroidered with a "both longevity and longevity" (bat and peach), the sachet of the lovestruck lover comes with a pair of "double lotus flowers", and the sachet of the child is made into animal shapes such as tigers and fish-all of which are clever thoughts behind the sachet and beautiful implications for life.
Draw the forehead.The typical way to draw the forehead is to draw the word "Wang" on children’s forehead with realgar. One is to borrow realgar to drive away poison, and the other is to borrow tiger’s forehead lines, and the tiger is the king of beasts, so as to suppress evil. At the same time, children will wear tiger-headed shoes and hats.
In addition, the folk customs of the Dragon Boat Festival in terms of diet are:
Eat zongzi.As mentioned above, Zongzi was originally a food that marked the change of seasons. However, after the legend of Qu Yuan was combined with the Dragon Boat Festival, Zongzi was considered as a food to commemorate Qu Yuan.
Nowadays, there are many varieties of zongzi in all parts of China. Generally speaking, zongzi in the north are mostly simple white rice, or mixed with red beans, dates and sugar. Zongzi in the south of the Yangtze River has the most famous reputation, complicated practices and varied fillings, but the most popular one is probably meat zongzi, whose glutinous rice raw materials are mostly soaked in soy sauce in advance and steamed with meat stuffing, which is fragrant.
The novelist Jin Yong, a native of Haining, Jiaxing, has a special liking for Zongzi in the south of the Yangtze River, and has let the protagonist in his works taste this kind of food from the graceful Jiangnan sister more than once. When Wei Xiaobao met Shuang’er for the first time, he ate Huzhou Zongzi, which has never been delicious since he went to the North. Cheng Ying wrapped the zongzi in his hometown at the request of Yang Guo. "The sweet is lard and bean paste, the salty is ham and fresh meat, and the end is delicious." After that, Yang Guo glued a piece of zongzi at one end of the wiring and threw it to stick the paper that Cheng Ying had written and shredded. It turned out that the paper was tossed and turned with the words "I don’t like it when I see a gentleman"-in the story of Zongzi, I had this little child’s heart.
Eat wuhuang.Jiangsu and Zhejiang have the custom of eating "wuhuang" on the Dragon Boat Festival. "wuhuang" generally refers to cucumber, Monopterus albus, yellow croaker, yellow salted egg and realgar wine.
The ancients believed that scorpions, snakes, centipedes, geckos and toads, commonly known as the "five poisons", multiplied in midsummer during the Dragon Boat Festival, and were easy to bite people, so realgar wine was related to "avoiding the five poisons". Realgar is a kind of medicinal material, which can be used as an antidote and insecticide. Therefore, ancient people thought that realgar could restrain snakes, scorpions and other insects, and it could be applied externally, taken orally, or sprayed in the corner under the bed. In the folklore Legend of the White Snake, during the Dragon Boat Festival, lady white snake showed his true colors after drinking realgar wine, which is a reflection of this custom.
However, it is worth reminding that the main component of realgar is arsenic sulfide, which is toxic after heating, so realgar wine should not be drunk.
The origin of the Dragon Boat Festival did not come from Qu Yuan, and the custom of eating zongzi predated Qu Yuan’s legend.
In the contemporary Dragon Boat Festival, commemorating Qu Yuan is the core content. The widely circulated story of Dragon Boat Festival tells people that eating zongzi originated from throwing zongzi into the river to prevent the dragon from eating Qu Yuan’s body, and the dragon boat race was also for the people to rescue Qu Yuan who threw himself into the river.
However, in fact, the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival did not come from Qu Yuan, and the custom of eating zongzi predated Qu Yuan’s legend.The legend of Qu Yuan was combined with the Dragon Boat Festival in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.For example, Wu Jun, a Liang person, said in "The Story of the Continuation of Qi Harmony": "Qu Yuan died in Miluo on May 5, and the Chu people mourned it. So far, he has stored rice in bamboo tubes and sacrificed it with water." As for eating zongzi on the Mid-summer Dragon Boat Festival, it has been recorded in the Records of Local Conditions in the Western Jin Dynasty that people wrapped millet with water bamboo leaves and made it into "Jiao Mi", that is, zongzi.The original intention of eating zongzi is the same as the essence of exorcising evil spirits and expelling poison during the Dragon Boat Festival, and it is a transitional ceremony when the seasons change.As the saying goes, "If you eat May Zongzi, your cold clothes will come into the cupboard" and "If you don’t eat May Zongzi, you dare not send your cold clothes". It can be seen that zongzi is a kind of festival object which is delicious in season and marks the change of seasons. The original data about the origin of the custom of dragon boat race is lost, but the folklorist Jiang Shaoyuan pointed out that the original form of dragon boat race was a disaster-eliminating ceremony of "using magic to deal with public health undertakings" through the analysis of the dragon boat race in Wuling area of Ming Dynasty. Besides dealing with the possible hazards in those seasons negatively, the dragon boat race is an active physical exercise. In the rivers, it is a kind of masculine beauty and a great exertion of physical energy to work together, and the dirty gas in the body disappears in the mighty water waves with strong shouts, reflecting the charming charm of Dragon Boat Festival sports activities. Therefore, the dragon boat race, which is still popular among the people today, was not only related to Qu Yuan at first.
Qu Yuan, from Chu, is not the only sacrificial object of the Dragon Boat Festival. For example, in Suzhou, Wudi, there is a tradition of offering sacrifices to Wu Zixu during the Dragon Boat Festival, and some places commemorate the filial daughter Cao E..In short, they are all in memory of famous local cultural heroes. However, the legend of Qu Yuan entered the Dragon Boat Festival, but it was a historical choice.
Qu Yuan is an ideal hero with noble moral integrity, which is a symbol of loyalty and patriotism. At the same time, he is also a great poet, which embodies the poetic life realm of "The road is long and Xiu Yuan is Xi, and I will go up and down to seek". Representing the Dragon Boat Festival with "Qu Yuan" has not only the symbolic significance of regional culture, but also the symbolic significance of nation and country. It gives the Dragon Boat Festival a new core connotation, that is, historical ethics connotation. People’s time life is no longer just passively adapting to nature, but bearing the excellent historical and cultural traditions of the Chinese nation. At the age of 20, festivals are combined with the commemoration of an ideal hero by the whole nation, and they promote each other in the course of history, so national culture and national spirit can be passed down endlessly.
So,The legend of Qu Yuan became the core narrative of the Dragon Boat Festival, which was completed in the historical choice.Other legends of historical figures about the Dragon Boat Festival that gradually faded in mainstream discourse include:
Legend of Wu Zixu.Wu Zixu, a famous official, was born in the State of Chu in the Spring and Autumn Period. His father and brother were all killed by the King of Chu, so he defected to the State of Wu and helped Wu to attack Chu. In the Five Wars, he entered the city of Ying, the capital of Chu. At that time, King Chu Ping was dead, and Zixu dug a grave and whipped 300 corpses to avenge the killing of his father and brother. After the death of King Helu of Wu, his son Fu Cha succeeded to the throne, wuyue fought against him, and the State of Yue was defeated. The King of Yue Gou Jian asked for peace, and Fu Cha promised it. Wu Zixu repeatedly exhorted Fu Cha, the prince of Wu, to kill Gou Jian, but Fu Cha did not listen. Fu Cha, eager to enter the Central Plains, led an army to attack Qi, and Wu Zixu once again admonished Fu Cha not to attack Qi for the time being but to destroy Yue first, which was rejected. Later, Fu Cha listened to the slanderous remarks of Taizai Bo, saying that Wu Zixu was plotting to rely on Qi to oppose Wu, and sent someone to send a sword to Wu Zixu to make him commit suicide. Before he died, Wu Zixu said to the public, "Please gouge out my eyes and put them on the east gate to watch the Vietnamese army enter the city and destroy Wu." When Fu Cha heard this, he was furious. He put Zixu’s body in a leather bag and threw it into the river. Wu Zixu’s misfortune was pitied by the people in Wu, who set up a shrine beside the river for him and gradually regarded him as the God of the River, the God of the Tide and the God of the Tao in folk beliefs. Today’s Suzhou Dragon Boat Festival, under the ancient Xumen city wall and above the Xujiang River, the lively dragon boat race is still going on in memory of Wu Zixu.
Legend of Cao E.Cao E, a native of Shangyu in the Eastern Han Dynasty (now Shangyu in Shaoxing), lived by the Gushun River, and his father took fishing as his profession. One day, the water was surging, and his father drowned in the river, but his body was not found. Cao E was only fourteen years old and cried along the river all night looking for his father. After crying for seven days, Cao E threw herself into the river. Three days later, the bodies of father and daughter both surfaced, but it was the appearance of the daughter carrying her father "out of the water". People remembered Cao E’s filial piety and built Cao E Temple where he threw himself into the river, and Shunjiang was also called Cao E River. According to legend, the day Cao E threw himself into the river is May 5th, so the Dragon Boat Festival is also a day to commemorate his filial daughter Cao E..
