Literature and history | the Waxing Moon and the Year of the Tiger

Wax moon and wax day

The Year of the Tiger in the Lunar Calendar is approaching, and the Waxing Moon is the prelude to the new year.

Lap Yue is the most important month in Chinese culture that has lasted for thousands of years since ancient times.

The twelfth month of the lunar calendar, the last month of the first year of age, is in the period of alternating between the old and the new. Its other names such as the moon, the end of winter, the winter, Jiaping, the season winter, the severe winter, the winter, the remnant winter, the poor winter, the ice moon, the yu moon, the polar moon, the Qing Qi, the winter su, the big Lu, etc., there are about 30 kinds of names. Among them, the most well-known is the "Wax Moon". Because it is the moon, its last night is called Chinese New Year's Eve.

The waxing moon is named after the oldest festival in China, "Lap Day", which exists at least in the summer, and the Ming "Wuyuan" even says: "Shennong's first La festival", which shows its long inheritance.

Lap Day is the most important festival in ancient times, from the Son of Heaven to the princes and even the whole society are respectful of this festival, and solemnly determined in the calendar - in the Han Dynasty it was clearly defined as the third day after the winter solstice, because the winter solstice day is not fixed, so there is no exact time for "Lap Day". In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was a record of "December 8 as the Wax Day" in the Jingchu Chronicle, and after that, the eighth day of the first lunar month of the lunar calendar was gradually determined as the "Wax Day". Since the wax day is set in December, December is also gradually called "wax moon" because of the wax day.

Lari was the most lively festival in ancient times, so much so that when Confucius asked Zigong what he felt like when he watched the Lari Festival, Zigong actually said: "Everyone in a country is crazy."

Although the date of Lapa Day is in Lapa Ba, "Lapa Porridge" has nothing to do with Lapa Ba.

The three meanings of "la"

In ancient China, there was a special custom of eating red bean porridge - Shen Yue's "Book of Song" said: Wei Jin winter solstice day "make red bean porridge", "Jing Chu Shi Ji" said: "November winter solstice day, make red bean porridge, in order to suppress the epidemic." "Southern Song Dynasty Zela month 25 food porridge, Fan Chengda", "Murata Lefu" prologue cloud: "twenty-five days to cook red beans as millet", named "several mouthfuls of porridge", in Yongkang Dongyang and other places in Zhejiang, this red bean and rice boiled porridge is called "silkworm flower porridge", all with the auspicious meaning of dispelling plague.

Since then, the Southern Song Dynasty Wu Zimu's "Record of Dreams" has a record of Laba Porridge, but that is the content of the Buddhist Dharma Treasure Festival to worship the Buddha, and has nothing to do with the Lapa Festival of the Chinese "Lap Day".

Since Laba porridge is not the food of Lapa Day, what is the classic food of Lapa Ba? What kind of festival is the "Lap Day", which makes everyone in a country crazy, and it is necessary to examine the word "Lap".

First of all, the ancient "wax" means dried meat, and the wax sacrifice is the use of meat made of bacon and other sacrifices.

The ancient word "la" does not have a "moon" next to it, originally pronounced xī, pictograms of animal meat placed on the sun and roasted. Later, people called lumps of dried meat "wax". In the Zhou Dynasty, the person in charge of "La" was called "Laren", and the Zhou Li Tianguan said: "Laren, palm dried meat." ”

The word "La" in the moon of Layue has not yet been found in the oracle bones of the oldest mature script in China, and the earliest "La" character found is found in the inscription of Xu Wangding in the early Spring and Autumn Period: "Xu Wang used his good gold, cast his ding, used vegetable wax, used to entertain guests, children and grandchildren, and the world is Ruo." The juxtaposition of "wax" and "dish" here indicates that wax is food, and Xu Shen's "Explanation of Words" of the Eastern Han Dynasty interprets it as "dried meat also".

The traditional character for La is "臘", from meat, and "巤" is from the sound of hunting, which symbolizes the head and neck of an animal with hair, which is also the meaning of animal meat - but this is cured meat.

Later, the words "la" and "臘" were also used interchangeably, and when the Chinese characters were simplified, "臘" was directly simplified to "la".

Therefore, the custom of making bacon in the wax moon is the remnant of the ancient "lap day", and the "wax flavor" is the authentic lapa eight food.

The west wind kills the dry things, people will be salted or sauce after the sun dried as the annual dish, this is the wax taste - because the air dried, so some wax flavor such as wax chicken is also known as wind chicken.

Secondly, lak is the common word for "hunting", "la sacrifice" is also "hunting sacrifice", and "la sacrifice" refers to the meaning of hunting animals and sacrificing ancestors.

The Customs and Customs rituals say: "The Waxer, the Hunter, hunts the beast in the field of words, in order to sacrifice its ancestors." Zhang Shoujie's "History of Justice" Yun: La Ri "Hunting animals and beasts to sacrifice ancestors at the end of the year, because this day is also established."

From the traditional character for "hunting", "஍", we can see that the meat used for sacrifice was obtained through hunting.

Third, "La" also has the meaning of replacing the old and the new, leaving the old and welcoming the new.

The Book of Sui and the Table of Etiquette says: "The ancient name of the lak, the successor, takes the meaning of the alternation of the old and the new." The Customs and Customs rituals say, "Waxer, pick up." Handover of the old and new. Therefore, the great sacrifice is also repaid. The "great festival" here, the "Qing Festival" of the Yin Shang Dynasty is "big wax", and the "big wax" is also called "wax" - so "wax" is also connected with "wax".

The above three words related to sacrifice, "wax", "hunting" and "wax", have gradually been integrated by concept with the passage of time, and the pronunciation is là. Thus, "la" is expressed as the day of the handover of the new and the old, and the day of lak becomes the most important year-end festival of the year with dried meat from hunting.

The traditional "Lap Day" on December 8 is dedicated to the worship of hundreds of gods and ancestors, and adds the meaning of warding off evil spirits and driving away epidemics and avoiding disasters. The food of La ri is the flavor of wax as a sacrifice - to this day, the wind chicken in Lieyu Township, Kinmen County, still belongs to the folk disgust and avoidance of evil, with the meaning of town wind, exorcism and disaster avoidance, home protection, and peace.

However, some scholars believe that the word "la" has another meaning - la, tiger also.

Wax Sacrifice and Tiger Ancestor Sacrifice

La Ri was also once the new year of the ancient Han people, and the "Book of History and Heavenly Officials" has the saying "La Mingri", and the "Lü Shi Chunqiu" also has the saying "La Nian", which is the New Year of the Wax Moon.

This custom of taking "la" as the new year cannot help but remind people of the New Year that the Yi people still have inherited to this day, with the sacrifice of "la (tiger)" as the main content.

Originally a sacrifice to the god of nature, the festival was later a combination of the god of nature and the ancestors – in China, the most widespread, typical and passed down to this day is the tiger as the ancestor.

The Tiger Totem was once the most extensive and long-standing presence in China. The Shang Dynasty "Tiger Fang" was an extremely common existence. The Tang Dynasty 'Book of Barbarians' records that there were "LuLu Man" in northeast Yunnan, as well as "Luobu" and "Luolanbu", which means "tribe of tigers".

In Chinese culture, the Queen Mother of the West and the Three Emperors and Five Emperors are almost all related to the "tiger totem". There is a saying in the Book of Rites and Suburban Animals: "The Great Wax Eight of the Heavenly Sons", in which among the gods sacrificed there is "Yinghu", but its interpretation is "for its eating field Toyoya." In fact, this should be the remnant of the ancient "Tiger Ancestor" sacrifice. Scholars of cultural history also believe that according to the study of the annual customs preserved by the Yi people to this day, the "Wax Festival" was originally a ritual for worshiping tigers (ancestors), and there should be a historical and cultural connection between the two.

Many ethnic groups, such as the Yi, Bai, and Tujia, not only believe that their ancestors and leaders are tigers, but many ethnic groups still use tigers as names or call themselves tigers. Among them, the name of the tiger is similar to the sound of "la", and the Chinese characters are also written as "la", "la", "luo" and so on. The ancestor worship of the Yi people is still called "La", the day of sacrifice is called "La Day", and the New Year's Tiger Festival is also called "Tiger Jumping Festival".

The Chronicle of the Jingchu Chronicle says: "December 8 is the day of Lap. The proverb is drumming, spring grass is born. The villagers also beat the waist drum, wore a beard, and acted as a Vajrapani to ward off the epidemic. This is also very similar to the "Wax (Tiger) Day" held in the current Yi Tiger Month (the first lunar month), and the common use of thin waist drums in the relics of ethnic minorities in southwest China should also be related to this.

All these show that the ancestors in the festival of La ri are inextricably linked to the tiger, and that the totem belief is deeply rooted in Chinese culture, otherwise why is "everyone in a country crazy"?!