Folk customs in guye district

Spring Festival: In folk customs, the Spring Festival is the oldest and most grand festival. In rural areas, the Lunar New Year usually begins on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. The 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, commonly known as "off-year".

Lantern Festival: The fifteenth day of the first lunar month, commonly known as "Lantern Festival", is the first full moon day after the Spring Festival. Lantern Festival is also called "Lantern Festival". Around the fifteenth day of the first month, many villages in our county will hold flower parties, including dry boats, banners, stilts, yangko and martial arts.

Eating Yuanxiao on Lantern Festival means "reunion" because of its round shape and sound, which symbolizes that eating Yuanxiao will lead to family reunion and harmony. Yuanxiao is boiled in water or fried in oil. It tastes sweet and waxy, soft and delicious.

Dragon Head-raising Festival: On the second day of the second lunar month, it is said that the dragon looks up and is called "Dragon Head-raising Festival". Legend has it that the Dragon King will go to the Heavenly Palace on this day and get an order to pray for rain for the people. People make "dragon skin" (pancakes), "dragon eggs" (sticky cakes) and "dragon whiskers" (noodles) to worship it, so as to have a good weather all year round. Up to now, every February 2, people are always used to eating pancakes, sticky cakes and noodles.

Tomb-Sweeping Day: Also called "Cold Food Festival". The main customs are: forbidding fire and cold food, and offering sacrifices to ancestors. According to legend, in the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhong Er, Jin Wengong, inherited a ceremony to mourn the death of Anta.

Dragon Boat Festival: The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is the Dragon Boat Festival. "End" means "start"; "noon" is arranged according to the main branch, and May is "noon month". Therefore, the fifth day of May is called "Dragon Boat Festival". People are used to sticking wormwood on the door, making zongzi, and children wearing colored lines. On the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, mugwort leaves were inserted in the door, which was said to have been passed down by people in the Tang Dynasty to avoid disaster during the Huang Chao uprising. In fact, it is a custom to put moxa sticks on the Dragon Boat Festival. Because Artemisia argyi has the function of avoiding plague and detoxifying. This is a good habit worth inheriting. According to legend, jiaozi did it in memory of Qu Yuan, a great patriotic poet more than two thousand years ago. Zongzi in this county is made of yellow glutinous rice, sticky sorghum rice, glutinous rice, jujube, cowpea and other raw materials, wrapped in reeds into diamonds. Dip it in sugar after cooking. Delicious and sweet. Around the Dragon Boat Festival, children tie five-color lines on their wrists and ankles to show that they can get rid of diseases and disasters and prolong life. It is said that all evil spirits and plague gods are afraid of the five-color line, so people regard it as an amulet. This custom is superstitious and gradually abolished after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Beggar's Day: On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, people call it "Beggar's Day". Legend has it that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet once a year on the evening of July 7, and all the magpies in the world fly to both sides of the Milky Way to build a magpie bridge for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to meet. Weaver Girl is a famous clever girl in the Heavenly Palace. Women all begged her for wisdom when she left the Heavenly Palace to see the Cowherd that night, so people called the seventh day of July "begging for wisdom". That night, the girl and her daughters-in-law put a pot of water under the cucumber rack. It is said that the cowherd and the weaver girl can meet in the water. At noon, they threw the needles into the basin. If the shadow of the needle is like a stick, their hands will be clumsy. If the shadow of the needle is like scissors, the hand is skilled. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), these customs ceased to exist.

Magu Festival: The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is Magu Festival, commonly known as Ghost Festival. According to legend, Ma Gu has no brothers or sisters and has never been married in order to serve her parents. She was an old man when her parents died. Feeling helpless and lonely, she threw herself into the river and died on the night of July 15. When villagers read that Magu was a martyr and a filial daughter, they put candles on the gourd ladle, lit it and put it into the river, which was called "river lantern" to illuminate Magu. At the same time, they also offered offerings to Magu and burned paper money to show people's memory of Magu, which is also an education for their children. This custom has disappeared since the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC).

Mid-Autumn Festival: The 15th day of the eighth lunar month is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also the "Reunion Festival". During the Mid-Autumn Festival, relatives and friends will give mooncakes to each other. At this time, the whole grains have matured. In order to celebrate the harvest, people should have a big lunch at noon. Enjoy the moon at night and eat some round food such as watermelon and moon cakes. Tell stories about the moon while eating, such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, WU GANG cutting laurel, fairy rabbit and so on. People who are away on business or far from home should also rush home for reunion. Newly-married daughters and unmarried daughters-in-law usually pick them up for "leftovers" on August 16.

Winter clothing festival

The first day of October in the lunar calendar is the "Cold Clothes Festival". It's winter now, and it's getting cold. People should put on cotton-padded clothes, so they think that their deceased relatives should also put on warm clothes. In the old days, people had the custom of burning colored paper (cut into clothes) in front of graves, which was called "sending cold clothes" to express their condolences to their loved ones. This custom is superstitious and is rare today.

Laba Festival: the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, commonly known as Laba. According to legend, "Laba is the day when Buddha Sakyamuni became a monk. Monks in the temple cooked porridge on this day to sacrifice to the Buddha, which later became a folk custom and was handed down. From ancient times to the present, every household has to cook a "Laba porridge" every Laba Festival. General raw materials such as japonica rice, millet, sorghum, yellow rice, cowpea (cowpea), jujube, chestnuts, peanuts, etc. It tastes sweet and delicious after cooking. In the old society, the newly-married daughter "hid in winter" at her parents' home. On this day, she has to go back to her husband's house to prepare for the New Year.