Traditional festival customs of Double Ninth Festival

Customs include climbing mountains, enjoying chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine, enjoying dogwood, eating Chongyang cake, flying kites, worshipping ancestors and stepping on autumn.

September Double Ninth Festival, also known as Double Ninth Festival, is a festival to commemorate ancestors and sweep graves. Double Ninth Festival, also known as Mountaineering Festival, Double Ninth Festival, September 9th, Cornus officinalis Festival, Chrysanthemum Festival, etc. Today is the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. Customs include climbing mountains, enjoying chrysanthemums, drinking chrysanthemum wine, enjoying dogwood and eating Chongyang cake.

Climbing on the Double Ninth Festival is said to ward off evil spirits, and the custom of climbing has four origins: First, the ancients worshipped mountains; Second, it comes from the climate of "clearing the air, raising the turbidity and sinking the gas"; Thirdly, it stems from the "resignation" of climbing; An absurd legend in its society is "climbing mountains to avoid disasters". The ancients believed that after the ninth festival, the sky descended and the air rose, and the air of heaven and earth intersected, and the unhealthy air filled. In order to avoid contact with unhealthy evil spirits, we must climb mountains to avoid the evil spirits of Double Ninth Festival.

Chrysanthemum viewing, Double Ninth Festival is the golden autumn season of the year, and chrysanthemums are in full bloom. It is said that appreciating chrysanthemum and drinking chrysanthemum wine originated from Tao Yuanming, a great poet in Jin Dynasty. Tao Yuanming is famous for his seclusion, his poems, his wine and his love for chrysanthemums. Later generations have followed suit, so Chongyang has the custom of enjoying chrysanthemums. In the old days, literati and officialdom also combined chrysanthemum appreciation with banquets in order to get close to Tao Yuanming. The Double Ninth Festival has always had the custom of enjoying chrysanthemums, so it has been called Chrysanthemum Festival since ancient times. The custom of appreciating chrysanthemums originated from chrysanthemum culture. Chrysanthemum is a natural flower. Chrysanthemum has formed chrysanthemum culture because of its colorful colors and blooming in Ao Shuang. September of the lunar calendar, commonly known as Chrysanthemum Month, holds a chrysanthemum party on holidays, and people from all over the city go to the meeting to enjoy chrysanthemums. Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties in the Three Kingdoms, it has become fashionable for Chongyang parties to drink and enjoy chrysanthemums and recite poems. In the ancient customs of China, chrysanthemum symbolizes longevity. Chrysanthemum is the flower of longevity, and is praised by scholars as the unyielding symbol of first frost.

Drinking chrysanthemum wine on Double Ninth Festival is a folk custom of ancient Double Ninth Festival, which means keeping fit and prolonging life. The ancients called chrysanthemum wine "not old prescription", which recorded a kind of "not old prescription": "It is not old to pick chrysanthemum, poria cocos and rosin on September 9." The Double Ninth Festival is the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, which is homophonic with "99" and "99", meaning that for a long time, the ancients brewed chrysanthemums into wine and took them out for drinking every Double Ninth Festival. Besides health care, it also means praying for good luck.

The custom of wearing dogwood and horns on the Double Ninth Festival was very popular in the Tang Dynasty. People think that inserting dogwood in the Double Ninth Festival can take refuge and eliminate disasters. Or wear it on your arm, or make a sachet, put Cornus officinalis in it, called Cornus officinalis bag, and some are inserted in your head. Cornus officinalis is a kind of fruit that can be used as medicine. Because the quality of Cornus officinalis produced in Wuyuedi (now Jiangsu and Zhejiang) is the best, it is also called Evodia rutaecarpa. The ancients believed that climbing a mountain and inserting Evodia rutaecarpa on the Double Ninth Festival could repel insects, remove dampness and drive away cold. So he put Cornus officinalis on his arm or in a sachet and on his head. Most of them are worn by women and children, and men in some places also wear them.

Eating Chongyang cake originated from climbing, and the Double Ninth Festival is also called "Climbing Festival". Legend has it that climbing high can avoid disaster. Eat cake at home if you can't climb or don't want to climb. Eating Chongyang cake originates from the height of climbing, and the word "cake" is homophonic with the height, which symbolizes the meaning of "rising step by step" and "everything is high" Pay attention to some pagodas with nine floors, on which two lambs are made to conform to the custom of "Double Ninth Festival" and "Double Ninth Festival (Sheep)". Some people put Caiqi Yang on the cakes of Double Ninth Festival, light candles, and use "lighting" and "eating cakes" instead of "climbing the mountain", while Caiqi Yang is a metaphor for dogwood. According to historical records, Chongyang cake, also known as flower cake, chrysanthemum cake and five-color cake, is made randomly. It was the original intention of the ancients to make cakes at dawn on September 9. The child put a cake on his head and said a word in his mouth, wishing the child all the best.

The Double Ninth Festival is one of the four traditional festivals for ancestor worship in China, and there is a tradition of ancestor worship and blessing in ancient times. With the development and evolution of history, the family concept and ancestor worship in many places are getting weaker and weaker. In ancient times, the traditional custom of ancestor worship on Double Ninth Festival was still popular in Lingnan area, and people held ancestor worship activities on Double Ninth Festival every year. Whether it's ancestor worship or farsightedness, its most fundamental function is to enhance people's cultural identity and strengthen the cohesion of family and society.

Flying kites is the main custom of celebrating the Double Ninth Festival in the south. The folk Double Ninth Festival is characterized by flying kites. Guangxu's "Huizhou Fuzhi" is also recorded. It's a kite now. In the folk tradition, besides climbing mountains, flying kites is also a major feature of the Double Ninth Festival.