Tomb-Sweeping Day tradition

Tomb-Sweeping Day not only pays attention to the prohibition of fire to sweep graves, but also has a series of customs and sports activities, such as climbing, swinging, cuju, polo, swinging and inserting willows. According to legend, this is because it is forbidden to eat cold food during the Cold Food Festival. In order to prevent the harm of cold food and cold meal to people, everyone comes to participate in some sports activities to exercise. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, people avoid injections and washing clothes, and women in most areas avoid walking. Before evening, a gray line should be spread in front of the gate, which is said to prevent ghosts from entering the house. Therefore, this festival is a unique festival, which has both sad and sour tears for sweeping graves and laughter for an outing. The following is the tradition of Tomb-Sweeping Day that I brought to you. I hope it will help you.

play on the swing

This is the custom of ancient Tomb-Sweeping Day in China. Swing, that is, lift the rope, move. It has a very long history. It was originally called Qian Qiu, but later it was changed into a swing to avoid taboos. In ancient times, swings were made of branches and tied with ribbons. Later, it gradually developed into two ropes, a pedal swing. Swing can not only improve health, but also cultivate courage, which is deeply loved by people, especially children.

play football

Bow is a rubber ball, the skin of which is made of leather, and the ball is stuffed with wool. Cuju is kicking the ball with your feet. This is a popular game in ancient Tomb-Sweeping Day. According to legend, it was invented by the Yellow Emperor with the original purpose of training warriors. Playing polo is also one of the ways to play the Dragon Boat Festival. Polo is riding a horse and hitting with a stick. In ancient times, it was called bowing. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there is a saying in Cao Zhiming's name that "there is a sentence in a row". In Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty, Cuju had a vast court, and emperors such as Xuanzong and Jing Zong liked polo. Ma Qiutu, in the tomb of Prince Zhang Huai, depicts the prosperity of polo in the Tang Dynasty: more than 20 horses galloped at high speed and their ponytails were tied up. Players are wearing shawls, boots and sticks, hitting each other one by one. Analysis of Golden Branches records the traditional custom of polo as a festival in Liao country, and polo is played on Dragon Boat Festival and Double Ninth Festival. Li Shizhi also recorded that Jin people hit the ball during the Dragon Boat Festival. In the Song Dynasty, there was a "Ball Play Music" dance team. In the Ming Dynasty, polo was still popular.

According to the general examination of continued literature, Ming Chengzu hit the ball and shot the willow many times in Dongyuan. In the Ming Dynasty's "Music Map of Xuanzong", there are scenes of Xuanzong enjoying polo. At that time, Wang Zhi, an official, wrote a poem about watching the game in the afternoon: "Jade is like a golden horse, carved with seven treasures." When you fly, you will be shocked and feel the stars. The incitement page has become three wins, and joy is the first. Qingyun follows the footsteps and winds in the eastern end of the temple. "In front of the Baiyun Temple in Beijing, there are also rules for the masses to ride horses and hit the ball. There were polo in the Temple of Heaven in Qing Dynasty, and polo didn't disappear until the middle of Qing Dynasty. Since 1965, antique polo has appeared in Xi 'an, making this ancient sport reappear in China after many years of extinction.

spring outing

Also called spring outing. It was called Tanchun and Xunchun in ancient times. Qingming in April, spring returns to the earth, and nature presents a vibrant scene everywhere, which is a good time for an outing. China folks have always maintained the habit of going for an outing in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

plant trees

Before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, the spring was bright and the spring rain was falling, and the survival rate of planted seedlings was high and the growth was fast. Therefore, China has the habit of planting trees in Qingming since ancient times. Some people even call Tomb-Sweeping Day Arbor Day. The custom of planting trees has been passed down to this day.

The custom of planting trees in Tomb-Sweeping Day originated from Tomb-Sweeping Day. There are three legends about Tomb-Sweeping Day. The oldest legend is to commemorate Shennong, the ancestor of farming, and later developed the meaning of praying for longevity. Later legends are all related to meson push. It is said that when Jin Wengong led the minister to climb a mountain to pay homage to Jiexiu, he found that the old willow tree on which Jiexiu once lived came back from the dead and gave it the title of "Qingming Willow". Later, it was said that Emperor Taizong gave a wicker ring to the minister as a blessing to drive away the epidemic.

fly a kite

Flying kites is also the most popular activity in Tomb-Sweeping Day. During their stay in Tomb-Sweeping Day, people not only wore it during the day, but also at night. At night, a string of colored lanterns is hung under the kite or on the wind-stabilizing stay, like twinkling stars, which is called "magic lamp". Someone used to put kites in the blue sky, then cut the strings and let the breeze send them to the ends of the earth. It is said that this can eliminate diseases and disasters and bring good luck to yourself.

Pay tribute to the dead at their graves.

Sweeping graves on Qingming Festival is called "respecting thinking about time" for ancestors. Its customs have a long history. In the Ming Dynasty's "A Brief Introduction to the Scenery of the Imperial Capital", it was written: "On the Qingming Festival in March, men and women went to the grave to pay their respects, and the gold ingot was hung on the back of the sedan chair, and the road was full of embarrassment. Worshipers, mourners, weeping, weeding, adding soil to graves, burning ingots several times, and buying graves with paper money. If you can't see the paper money, it will be a lonely grave. After crying, don't go back, go to the fragrant tree, choose the garden, and sit down and get drunk. " In fact, grave-sweeping existed before the Qin Dynasty, but not necessarily during the Qingming period, but after the Qin Dynasty. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that it became popular. Qing thomas lee said, "On New Year's Eve, the Cold Food Festival and the First Frost Festival, you should offer sacrifices to sweep the graves. During the period, I will serve my bed with vegetarian food, use wine and tools for cutting vegetation, seal trees in the middle of the week, and break Cao Jing, so it is called sweeping the grave. " And spread to this day.

Chuanliuzhi

Tomb-Sweeping Day and China have the folk custom of inserting willows. According to experts, there are three theories about the origin of the custom of inserting willows in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Zhao Zhi Heng, director of Tianjin Astronomical Society, said that the custom of inserting willows is said to commemorate Shennong, the ancestor of farming, who taught people to cultivate crops. In some places, people put willow branches under the eaves to forecast the weather. There is an old saying that "the willow branches are green and the rain is raining;" The saying that there is another village. Willow has a strong vitality, as the saying goes: "If you plant flowers with your heart, you will plant willows without your heart. "Wicker lives when it is inserted in the soil, where it is inserted, where it is inserted every year, and the shade is everywhere.

There is another saying: China people regard Tomb-Sweeping Day, July 30th and the first day of October as the three major ghost festivals. Tomb-Sweeping Day is a season of frequent ghost haunts and great demand. Influenced by Buddhism, Guanyin Bodhisattva held willow branches in her hands and dipped them in water, so many people think that willow branches have the function of exorcising ghosts and evil spirits, calling them "ghost trees". Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty wrote in the Book of Qi Yao Min: "Take Yang Liuzhi to the mansion, and a hundred ghosts will not enter the mansion." Because Tomb-Sweeping Day is a Ghost Festival, people insert willows and wear willows to ward off evil spirits in the season when wicker sprouts.

Another way of saying it is that this custom is to commemorate meson push. Jietui set himself on fire under the willow tree to keep the festival, which made Jin Wengong, his ministers and people feel sad. The next year, when Jin Wengong personally led the ministers to climb the mountain to worship Jiexiu, he found that the old willow trees that had been burned in those years had actually come back from the dead. Jin Wengong named the old willow in front of him "Qingming Willow", and on the spot, he broke off a few branches and put them on his head to show his memory. Since then, officials and people have followed suit and followed suit. It has become a symbol to commemorate meson push.

Liu She

Shooting willow is a game to practice archery. According to the records of the Ming Dynasty, pigeons were placed in gourds, then the gourds were hung high on willow trees, and the gourds and pigeons flew out with bows, and the victory or defeat was judged by the height of the flying pigeons.

gamecock

In ancient times, cockfighting competitions prevailed in Qingming, which began in Qingming and lasted until the summer solstice. The earliest record of cockfighting in China can be found in Zuo Zhuan. In the Tang dynasty, cockfighting became a common practice, not only among the people, but also the emperor. For example, Tang Xuanzong likes cockfighting best.

Canhuahui

"Silkworm Flower Festival" is a unique folk culture in Silkworm Township. During the past period in Tomb-Sweeping Day, this folk activity was held in Wu Tong, Wuzhen, Chongfu and Zhouquan. Among them, A?vagho?a Temple in Zhouquan and Double Temple in Qingshi are the most spectacular. A?vagho?a Temple, located in the west of Zhouquan Town, is known locally as "the king of temples". Every year, there are many activities, such as welcoming the silkworm god, rocking the clippers, making trouble in Taiwan Pavilion, worshiping incense benches, boxing, playing dragon lanterns, lifting poles and singing operas. Some of these activities are carried out on shore, and most of them are carried out on ships, which is very characteristic of water towns.

What are the activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day?

Worship ancestors and sweep graves

In normal life, Tomb-Sweeping Day, a traditional festival, belongs to grave-sweeping activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day, which is an indispensable activity during Tomb-Sweeping Day. Because Tomb-Sweeping Day itself is a traditional festival to commemorate the deceased relatives, it is definitely indispensable to carry out ancestor worship and grave-sweeping activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day, so the traditional festival in Tomb-Sweeping Day in normal life belongs to grave-sweeping activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day, which can be tried in normal life.

There is no fire or cold food.

In daily life, related activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day are required by the Cold Food Festival, which is also one of the traditional activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Before some sacrificial activities appear in daily life, cold food will be changed into fire, which is one of the very traditional and rigorous sacrificial activities and can be tried in daily life.

Taqing amusement

In our daily life, we can also do some outings around Tomb-Sweeping Day, because the weather around Tomb-Sweeping Day belongs to spring, and bloom is warm in spring, so we can also choose about three or five friends to go out for an outing around Tomb-Sweeping Day, so that we can try to do some sightseeing activities in our daily life to help relieve the pressure of the day's work.

Folding willow

When you are in Tomb-Sweeping Day, you can also choose to fold willow, because when you are in Tomb-Sweeping Day, folding willow can play a very good role in ward off evil spirits. There is a saying that Tomb-Sweeping Day folded willows in front of your house, or made them into bracelets to wear on your head or hands, which has a very good effect of ward off evil spirits, so you can choose to fold willows in Tomb-Sweeping Day to celebrate Tomb-Sweeping Day.

The Origin of Tomb-Sweeping Day's Grave Sweeping

"There are many rains during the Qingming period, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls." Different from other solar terms, Qingming is also an important traditional folk festival in China, and it is a day to worship ancestors and sweep graves. It is said that the origin of Tomb-Sweeping Day began with the "grave-sweeping" ceremony of ancient emperors and generals. Later, people followed suit, and it became a fixed custom of the Chinese nation to worship ancestors and sweep graves on this day.

According to legend, there was a custom of setting up an altar to worship the tomb in the pre-Qin period, and later it gradually evolved into worship in front of the tomb. "Cold food tomb sacrifice" formed a custom in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. According to the record of Xuanzong Ji of the Old Tang Dynasty, "There is no written record of grave-sweeping ceremony in the Cold Food Festival, but it has been a custom for a long time since modern times. In the literati's home, there is no sacrifice at the Cold Food Festival. " In view of this long-standing custom, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty issued a decree in the twentieth year of Kaiyuan: "Ordinary people in one house should be allowed to go to the grave, and they should be made into five rituals and always be routines." Sacrifice to the cold food tomb has been determined as a national custom, which is also the reason why Tomb-Sweeping Day visited the grave.

In China, people pay attention to the pursuit of the future with caution, and numerous sacrificial activities have appeared to adapt to this concept. With the passage of history, most of these activities have declined. Only the grave-sweeping activity in Tomb-Sweeping Day has survived to this day, so it is regarded as one of the oldest folk customs by experts.

What are the forms of Tomb-Sweeping Day?

From the spatial form of sacrifice, sacrifice can be divided into temple fair sacrifice, altar sacrifice, shrine sacrifice, family sacrifice, hope sacrifice and grave sacrifice. The most important way of offering sacrifices in Tomb-Sweeping Day is to sweep graves, that is, to offer sacrifices to graves where the remains or ashes of relatives or ancestors are buried.

In traditional farming society, the Spring Festival, as the first day of the year, is of great significance. In many areas with strong clan concept, grave-sweeping is started from February vernal equinox to worship ancestors, and it ends at Qingming at the latest; Before sweeping the grave, adult men all over the country should hold ancestor worship ceremony in the ancestral temple; After the ancestor worship, they will also sweep graves according to family branches and houses. Sacrifice in ancestral temple is often a large-scale ritual of sweeping, and moving steel is dispatched by the whole family or even the whole lining. Traditionally, the main contents of ancestor worship include people burning incense, kowtowing and offering sacrifices, as well as the format and fixed content of the blessing words read by priests in public. Moreover, according to the ancient tradition recorded in Li Zhouguan Chunzongbo: "Brothers are related by food." Dongtang Festival usually ends with family dinner or sharing pork, or "eating Qingming".

Family ceremony (in memory of ancestors)

Family sacrifices, also called sleeping sacrifices, are sacrifices made by God at home. The main object of family sacrifice is ancestors who died within two generations, such as grandparents or parents. Family festivals are often held because the family structure is relatively simple or too far away from the ancestral graves. There is a cloud in the third volume of Ting Anne Lu: "People, rich or poor, are sacrificed first, and customs call festivals, which are natural. Covered with beautiful soil, family festivals take Qingming, July 30th and October 1st as ghost festivals.

Wangjiashan Festival

One climbed up the mountain, looked at the direction of the ancestral grave and withdrew the paper money into the air. Song Yu's "Chicken Ribs" volume: "Cold food is buried, and there is no fragrance. Paper money hangs on the tree. People who go to the countryside climb mountains to watch sacrifices. Breaking in the air is called breaking money. However, due to the four directions of Shi Jing, a wine bowl (turn, rice) was set up, and the family took a spring outing. "

Second, offering sacrifices by the water: worshippers set sacrifices in the direction where the ancestral graves are located, hoping to send their thoughts to the ancestral graves in their hometown along the waterway. In the Tang Dynasty, Wang Jian described the so-called "cold food trip" as "a far-away man who had no grave to worship the heavens and led his wife back to his hometown".

"Watching sacrifices", which is not limited by geographical space, has more special significance in modern society. With the spread of Chinese in the world, overseas Chinese worship at home has become a method of clan identification. For example, China people who live in Huonu Lu Lu badminton often burn paper sacrifices at the seaside of their ancestors' hometown.

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