The custom of Lufeng Mid-Autumn Festival

In Hailufeng, Guangdong Province, there is a custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Yue Bai, which is mainly aimed at women and children. As the saying goes, "men are dissatisfied with the moon, and women don't sacrifice stoves." At night, when the bright moon rises, women set up a box in the yard and balcony to pray. Silver candles burned high, cigarettes filled the air, and the table was filled with good fruits and cakes as sacrifices. There is also the custom of eating taro in the Mid-Autumn Festival. There is a saying in Shanwei: "Rivers are connected and taro can be eaten." August is the harvest season of taro, and farmers are used to using taro to worship their ancestors. Of course, this has something to do with farming, but there is also a popular folk legend: 1279, Mongolian nobles destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, established the Yuan Dynasty, and brutally ruled the Han people. Mafa defended Chaozhou against the Yuan Dynasty. After the city was broken, the people were slaughtered. In order not to forget the suffering of Hu people's rule, later generations used taro as a homonym with "Hu tou", which looked like a human head, in order to pay homage to their ancestors and pass it on from generation to generation, and it still exists today.

Interviewer: Luo Xueguang, born in 1944, born in Taohe, Haifeng, a famous dancer, full-time vice chairman of the Provincial Folk Writers Association, now living in Guangzhou Interviewer: Zhu Gang, Sun Yat-sen University.

The lights of Mid-Autumn Festival in childhood are still fresh in my memory. At that time, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, adults or children chopped bamboo into bamboo sticks, tied them into a footbath-sized skeleton, pasted them into a full moon with wool paper, and skillfully woven them into the shapes of other animals. Before dark, many children lit candles in the stomachs of these "moons" or "animals", and danced in the hazy village with them on their backs, backs or dragging them.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, we often hum a nursery rhyme, "Aunt Yue, according to the depth of the South Lake, if a prodigal son (child) carries gold and millet (rice), he will be touched (pushed) and pecked (hit on the head). (According to "Moonlight" recorded by the voice of Haifeng, comments in brackets) The boys sang while running and lit firecrackers, which made them happy.

Moon viewing in Mid-Autumn Festival is usually on the threshing floor. After dinner, the adults went to the village and took out peanuts and taro. Everyone ate them. In some wealthy villages, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, they will also sing dramas, which is our local popular "Bai Zixi". During the performance, they often sing on and off the stage, and the whole threshing floor is very lively.

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