Calendars and folklore speak of "blind years"

Next year is the Lunar New Year. People call it the "blind year" because there is no "beginning of spring" and it is considered unlucky to get married. Loved ones rush to hold happy events before the end of this year and have a "Double Spring". The restaurant was very popular and made a lot of money. Where did this custom come from? Is it really reasonable? Some people write nonsense, but the words are very vague, so it is appropriate to elaborate.

The calendars used in history include the solar calendar, the lunar calendar and the lunisolar calendar. The "blind year" is the result of a certain "alignment" of the lunisolar calendar.

The Gregorian calendar, probably the earliest calendar used by our ancestors, is based on the laws of solar motion. The ancients believed that the sun revolves around the earth, and one revolution is one year - today we know that it is the period of the earth revolving around the sun, but the ancients' understanding was the opposite. According to research by scholars, there was a solar calendar during the Warring States Period, with ten months in a year named after the heavenly stems, and each month with 36 days divided into 30 days named after the earthly branches. Therefore, ten months and 360 days, plus five to six "death days", become 365 or 366 days in a year. In that case, the arrangement of solar terms includes "summer solstice" and "winter solstice" first, followed by "spring equinox" and "autumn equinox". The seasonal return year is first divided into spring and autumn, and then divided into four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter, and even twenty-four solar terms. There are traces of this calendar in the ancient documents of the "Guanzi" year, and the Torch Festival of the Yi people and southwest ethnic minorities is related to it. To this day, the folk saying of "Celebrating the New Year at the Winter Solstice" is still circulated in Lingnan, which is the remnant of folk memory of this calendar. It is true that the ancients once regarded the winter solstice as New Year's Day with "one yang revolution". There will be no "Double Spring" and "Blind Year" in this return year of the Gregorian calendar.

The lunar calendar is based on the waxing and waning of the moon. The cycle of a lunar month is twenty-nine or thirty days, and the length of a year is only an integral multiple of the month and has nothing to do with the tropical year. Months have nothing to do with seasons. The Greek calendar and the Hijri calendar belong to this type of calendar. There cannot be "double spring" and "blind year" in one year.

The lunisolar calendar is formulated in conjunction with the solar and lunar cycles. A year is divided into twenty-four solar terms according to the movement of the sun, and into months according to the movement of the moon. Twelve months only have 354 or 355 days. Comparing the two, there is a difference of about eleven days. In order to coordinate the two, the ancients used the method of "making leaps" to deal with it. One year in several years is 13 months. Now we can see the record of "Twelve Months" in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, which is the proof of leap. In the last century, scholars reported that the Yao people in the south still retained the name "Thirteenth Month". The current "seven leap years in 19 years" system originated quite early. The history of our country, starting from the Spring and Autumn Period, can be checked using calendar days, which is enough to prove it.

However, a leap month does not necessarily lead to two "beginnings of spring" or no "beginning of spring" in a year. Here again involves the issue of "alignment", that is, which month is the first month. According to historical records, this "alignment" is complicated:

In the Xia Dynasty, the silver month was the first month and was called Yin Jian;

In the Shang Dynasty, December was the first month of Jian Chou. ;

In the Zhou Dynasty, November was the first month, Jianzi;

October was the first month of Qin, and Hai was Jianzi.

The Han Dynasty was established, and the Qin Dynasty was first controlled, thinking that Shui De was established, and then Hai was established; later, when he came to Emperor Wu, it was changed to the calculation of the descending sun of the lunar calendar, with the silver moon as the first moon.

Different "alignments" will have different starting points for the new year. For example, in Yinjian, the starting point of the Silver Moon is New Year's Day. This method, which has been continuously improved since Hanwu, remains unchanged in 2000.

In various "corrections", October, November or even December cannot be the first year of the year, and the "Double Spring" or "Blind Year" mentioned above is only It only happens in the first month of the year, which is "Yin Jian". T

In ancient times, agriculture was the foundation, and the beginning of spring was the beginning of the year's farming and an important festival. The emperor and local officials held "persuading farmers" ceremonies, and the folk custom of "spring ox dancing" still exists. The weather on this day is related to the prosperity of the year. Henan folk songs say, "The beginning of spring is clear and warm, and farmers' bellies are bloated;" if the wind is dark, the grain will not make people uneasy. "He also said, "Everything is auspicious on a sunny day, and everything is urgent on a cloudy day." Many places still have taboos on the Beginning of Spring, which shows the importance they attach to them. Imagine that such an important day of the year is gone. Isn't this surprising? Uneasy?

The ancients more directly connected "the beginning of spring" with fertility. If spring does not exist, reproduction will not flourish, but this taboo is more likely to originate from Lingnan. : Qu Dajun's "Guangdong News" records: "In Guangzhou, eggs are called spring, fish spring, shrimp spring, goose spring, chicken spring, and duck spring. "The "egg" in Lingnan is called "spring". People in the north call it "chicken", and people in Lingnan call it "chicken spring". "Egg", "spring" and "child" are synonymous here, and "egg" has always been a symbol of reproduction. "Wuchun" means "without children", which is the biggest taboo on marriage. In traditional agricultural societies, the number of people often determines the survival of the clan, so population expansion is traditionally of the highest value. Symbols of fertility, such as peanuts, red dates, lotus seeds, ginger, taro, olive seeds, dumplings, etc., are all expressed in Huayuan News Network as a prayer for everyone to get lost. The most taboo is to get married without having children, and have no "blind year". "Spring" is naturally considered unlucky. On the other hand, it is logical to say that "double spring is a prosperous year for marriage." However, this is indeed a by-law.

The "Year of the Blind" is unlucky, but are the two springs auspicious? There is a saying in Shandong and Hebei that "two springs a year, beans are as valuable as gold", and there is a saying in Hubei, Henan and Lingnan that "two springs and one winter, nine out of ten cow sheds are empty". "Double Spring" is good for reproduction, but why is it not good for growing beans and raising cattle? The reason here doesn't make sense either.

As for the "blind year", ordinary people also have ways to deal with it: an old custom in Wengyuan, northern Guangdong, is that when a woman gets married in a "blind year", she should take a bag of boiled eggs and scatter them among the crowd when she gets off the sedan chair. Everyone cheered, "The bride was born with spring!" So, everything went well and everyone was happy!

From this perspective, "blind years" are just a common result of people's coordination of calendars. They are not determined by nature, but inevitable. There are still ways to deal with it. The core of the custom of "avoiding marriage in blind years" is people's pursuit of fertility. In fact, it's more of a "gloss" and meaningless. Science is as bright as it is today, but there are still many taboos. It's really not necessary!

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Author introduction:

Zeng graduated from the Chinese Department of South China Normal University in 1982 and studied folk culture research at Beijing Normal University in 1995 and 1996. Institute, studied under the professor. He taught at Guangdong Shaoguan University from 1985 to 2000. In 2000, he was transferred to the Party School of Baoan District Committee, Shenzhen, China as an associate professor. He has been engaged in research on Lingnan ethnic culture and folklore for a long time, and has published more than 80 papers and 1 monograph.