Please elaborate on the steps of dragon boat activities in the Pearl River Delta.

As the folk proverb goes, "on April 8, the dragon boat dug through the bottom." He also said, "on April 8, dragon boats were dug everywhere." It means that on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, the dragon boat buried deep in the bottom of the pool should be dug up, washed and dried. After the dragon boat is dug, you should choose a good auspicious day to drive it, that is, hang red on the bow and stern, beat drums and set off firecrackers, please curse, sprinkle water and launch the dragon boat.

Guangzhou belongs to the rainy area in the south, and the weather is humid. Ordinary wood products are prone to mildew, not to mention the dragon boat that must be launched once a year. However, the ancestors of the southern water towns have long come up with countermeasures. On the one hand, they use dense Kundian wood as the material for making dragon boats. On the other hand, they also invented a hidden dragon stunt, which is to hide the dragon boat at the bottom of the river and wrap it in wet mud to isolate the air. The wooden dragon boat in Kundian has been preserved for decades, and because of this, a dragon-raising ceremony is held every year on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival.

For villages with dragon boats, dragon boats seem to be a living individual. Therefore, the ceremony of starting and inviting dragons near the Dragon Boat Festival must also be done seriously, and props such as incense and firecrackers are essential to pray for God.

When starting a dragon boat, first light incense at the edge of the river, burn gold and silver paper and set off firecrackers, then go into the water to clear the mud and invite the dragon out of the water. Because the hull of the dragon boat is made of high-density and high-quality Kundian wood, and the Kundian wooden dragon boat is most cracked by the sun, the villagers in the southern water town thought of the method of wrapping the dragon boat in wet river mud and hiding it at the bottom, so that the dragon boat will not rot or burst after decades.

Different villages choose different dates to start the dragon. In the old society, some villages had to dig the dragon boat out of the river more than 20 days before the Dragon Boat Festival in May. First, let the boat breathe and evaporate water. Because of the high density of wood in Kundian, the ship itself is heavy and the water evaporates slowly. Evaporating water in advance can make the boat lighter and make the dragon boat get good results in the race. The second is to have enough time to repair the dragon boat. There are also some villages that started to celebrate the dragon a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival, depending on the situation of each village. The specific starting time of the dragon depends on the tidal surge in various places. On this day and this moment of riding a dragon, the young and middle-aged laborers and even the elderly in the village, as long as they have leisure, will participate, contribute their own strength, shout and shout, and some worship God and set off firecrackers. The traditional dragon ceremony only needs male and female taboos. This is a legend that has been handed down for thousands of years. Who doesn't want to break the rules of their ancestors?

On the selected auspicious day, dozens of villagers in shorts will come to the river to hide the dragon boat in advance. As soon as the auspicious day arrives, they will burn incense and gold and silver paper to pray for the safety of the Dragon Boat Festival. Then set off a string of long and red firecrackers, beat drums and cheer, and the dragon officially surged under the sound of gongs and drums and firecrackers. The villagers in shorts came to the river where the dragon boat was hidden and went down to the muddy knee-deep river. First, they built a small scarf at both ends of the river where the dragon boat was hidden to keep the water out, and then scooped out the water in the cabin with buckets. Sometimes the mud at the bottom of the dragon boat sticks to the dragon boat and won't float. The villagers scraped along the bottom of the boat with a rope to separate the mud from the boat, and the boat gradually floated. Starting the dragon is manual, and the time required depends on the amount of silt and the depth of the hidden dragon, but an hour or two is indispensable.

Starting the dragon is only the first step. After a year of deep hiding, whether the dragon boat can be roasted or not needs to be checked and repaired.

Dragon boat arrangement is roughly divided into two processes, one is routine inspection. During the inspection, you should stick dragon ribs first, that is, put a thin wooden board about two centimeters thick between the bow and stern to make the dragon boat tougher. This process is a great test of the master's kung fu, because the tightness of the dragon tendons is difficult to grasp. After the dragon tendons are tightened, the craftsman will stand at the bow and jump a few times to try the hardness of the hull. The second process is to brush lard on the dragon boat. The reason is that lard can ski and boats can be faster. In the past, villagers used indigenous methods to fry lard, but now they buy barrels of lard brushes, and some brush tung oil.

After the dragon is started, the dragon boat will be decorated. The dragon head and dragon tail hidden in the Dragon Palace or ancestral temple need to be cleaned and recolored, supplemented by radial ribs, and sometimes umbrellas and flags need to be re-made.

Dragon boats are exquisitely decorated, which can be divided into long dragons and short dragons. Dragon boats under eight feet (26 meters) are called "short dragons". Equipped with a big drum, two gongs, two gongs, each with an embroidered umbrella. In the cabin equidistant from the bow and umbrella, there is also a Xiao Mu shrine called "Shendou", where three incense sticks are usually lit, some of which are gods dedicated to the village owner Bodhisattva. There is also a ceremony to invite God to board the ship. The annual Dragon Boat Festival in zhu cun, Guangzhou begins on the first day of May, and worships temple fairs on the second day. The radiant hand who is in charge of the god fight first gives incense to the bodhisattva in the village. After worshipping the gods, he always brought the lit incense and sesame oil to the boat, sincerely invited the gods worshipped in the village temple to the dragon boat, and put spells on the bow and stern to pray for smooth sailing and all the best.

The dragon boat is equipped with an embroidered umbrella, and the dragon tail hangs a long flag beside the drum. Dragon boats also have to play village flags, some of which are pennants and some are hundred-foot flags. The colors of flags are different, or umbrellas are red, yellow, black or colored. The flag representing the clan in this village makes people far from knowing which village and clan the dragon boat belongs to. The dragon head and the dragon tail are equipped with two helmsmen, named "Pointer" and "Helper", who are mainly responsible for steering and assisting steering.

The traditional 80-foot-tall dragon has also added two gong frames, namely, four gongs per boat. The decoration of the dragon boat is exquisite, and the staffing on the dragon boat is also very particular. Dragon boats are equipped with boatmen and radial hands. The boatman refers to the head and tail flag bearer who commands the advance and retreat of the dragon boat, as well as the big tip, helping the tip, supporting the spirit, beating gongs, drums and long banners. The clothes of boatmen are different from those of radial hands, but now most dragon boats will unify their clothes.

After the renovation of the dragon boat, some people have to ask the elders in the village to make the finishing touch, so that the dragon boat will be dazzling and full of vitality, and then "pick the green".

Choose green

The dragon boat, which has been sleeping for a year, can be ready to go after being repaired, and it can show its prestige during the Dragon Boat Festival. However, the "sleeping dragon" who has been sleeping for a year is inevitably a little dizzy. At this time, a ceremony will be held to make the dragon boat look brand new. This ceremony is to pick green.

Picking green is an important activity and custom of Dragon Boat Festival. "There are different winds in ten miles, and different customs in a hundred miles." The green picking in Shawan Division, Jiaotang Division and Lubu Temple Division is also different. For example, the green picking ceremony in Shawan area is to row the dragon boat in front of the mountain temple in the village. Young people go up the mountain to pick some mountain flowers, put them in flower baskets and hang them on the tap, and pick branches and put them on their hats. In some villages, the green picking ceremony is to take out the dragon bow, dragon tail, umbrella and gongs and drums placed in the ancestral hall, wipe them with oil, ask the village wizards to recite scriptures, paste spells and pray for peace, and bring back a bunch of green seedlings for worship, praying for a bumper harvest and peace. Some places should "feed the dragons" and put a bundle of straw on the bow for the dragons to eat. Some villages only allow unmarried men to pick green, while others are not so strict. As long as they are men, they can pick green. It's really a case of one village.

After the green picking ceremony is completed, the dragon boat can be barbecued, which also marks the official start of the one-year Dragon Boat Festival.

Of course, there are several steps to complete this process: installing a dragon bow; Decorate dragon boats, place umbrellas and fight with the gods; "pray to god"; Set off gongs, dragon boat drums, etc. Install the dragon stern; Bidding for dragon boat noodles, the five positions of dragon boat noodles (four gongs and one flag) are all obtained through bidding. The auction of dragon boat noodles is very specific. From the first day to the fifth day, the bidding price varies from place to place, and the position of the first frame (driver) is the most expensive. Some drummers on the dragon boat in the village want to bid, not only because the quality of the drummer is related to the success or failure of the competition, but also because they believe that those who have been drummers will have good luck all year round. The tender was open and lively, and was held in the ancestral hall of the clan to which the dragon boat belongs in the village. The money raised by the auction is generally used for the expenses of dragon boat activities.

After all this work was completed, we began to recruit scenery. The so-called attraction refers to the friendship between the host and the brother village.

The village sent out invitations to invite relatives and friends from all villages and dragon boats to enjoy the cool, race and eat dragon boat meals, and the grand folk Dragon Boat Festival began to be carried out in an orderly manner.

3. Hidden dragons disperse dragons

The Dragon Boat Festival generally lasts from the first day of the fifth lunar month to the tenth of May, and the longest is only the fifteenth day of the fifth lunar month. Generally speaking, from the tenth day to the fifteenth day, the dragon boats in each village gradually died out and were buried in the mud by the river, called hidden dragons. Hidden dragon is a maintenance of dragon boat hull. The bow, stern and hull of the dragon boat are kept separately. The hull is usually hidden in the water (under the mud of the river), and the dragon head and dragon tail are enshrined in ancestral temples or temples.

The hidden dragon should also choose a day to worship the bodhisattvas in the village, such as Hong Gong Sheng, and then hide the dragon boat. Hidden dragon boat is to enclose a dragon boat depression in the river with sandbags, push the dragon boat in, seal it with sandbags, insert some bamboo into the depression, and then push the movable plug away from the dragon boat and let it sink into the water. Someone sank the dragon boat with sandbags and hid it at the bottom of the water. In the past, dragon boat hulls were mostly hidden in the mud of river ponds to prevent cracking. It is also said that the best place to hide the dragon is under a pillar tree, and it must be a place with many trees on the shore, so there will be more leaves and more nutrients in the soil. The better the dragon boat, the darker and brighter it is. The dragon boat buried deep in the mud under the big tree will also fall because of more rotten leaves, and the darker and brighter it will be!

Hidden dragon is also responding to the legend that "the dragon gives birth to Ozawa" and will wait until next year's Dragon Boat Festival to "invite the dragon out of the water".

After the dragon boat race, you should thank God for the successful conclusion of the Dragon Boat Festival. This is called "bid rejection". Returning the bid is also called "returning to the gods", that is, returning the bid (flag) to God at the end of the Dragon Boat Festival, indicating that this year's Dragon Boat Festival has been dissolved and will be organized next year. In most places, there are also days of resurrection. On that day, Shen Huan will hold a grand banquet to celebrate the safe and successful conclusion of the Dragon Boat Festival.

In traditional folk customs, the dragon boat is a real dragon, so the ceremonies during the Dragon Boat Festival have special names: fishing out the dragon boat, saying "getting up the dragon boat", "getting up" and "happiness" are homophonic; "Dragon boat into the water" cannot be said to be "dragon boat into the water"; You can't "lift" the dragon boat, only 100 people can "pull" the dragon boat to the surface by hand; Putting the dragon boat back to its original place after the dragon boat activity is called "hidden dragon boat", rather than "burying dragon boat". Dragon worship runs through the whole sacrificial ceremony of Guangzhou Dragon Boat Festival, which is a major feature of the Dragon Boat Festival in the Pearl River Delta region.