The twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon is a small year for southerners, and it is also the day when Chinese dusts and sweeps the house before the New Year. After the end of the 23rd festival, in order to welcome the New Year, the people also began to dust and dust and clean their homes. So do you know why cleaning on this day? What is the legend about the twenty-fourth sweeping dust of the waxing moon?
Sweep the dust day back to the source
In fact, the traditional custom of sweeping dust has a long history, and the "Lü's Spring and Autumn" records that from the time of Yao Shunyu in ancient times, there was a custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival. In Chinese, "dust" and "Chen" are homophonous, and sweeping dust a few years ago is "sweeping Chen", which means to sweep out all obscurity and obsolescence.
In the past, people's tools for sweeping dust are also interesting, in addition to the basic broom, there is also a long broom that is specially swept up, and a few years ago people made a long broom with straw, and then dismantled the broom after cleaning, leaving it lit at night Chinese New Year's Eve, which means to drive the broom star away. However, in order to prevent fires in modern society, it is no longer allowed to bake fires.
Legends and stories
Ancient China swept the dust on the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon because in folklore, it is said that the gods and immortals on this heaven and earth have returned to the heavenly court to report for duty, and the mortal world belongs to the place of no god supervision, so this time cleaning will not collide with the gods who were at home before, such as the home god Stove King and the door god. There is a saying: "The waxing moon does not sweep the dust, and the next year will attract the plague god." "The plague god belongs to the god in China, when the main god is in the nether realm, the plague god is also in it, and the wise Chinese people have long discovered that the plague is frequent and dirty and unclean, and clean hygiene is the secret of longevity and blessing, so in order for the main god to not provoke the plague god who likes to be dirty, he cleaned the house clean.
There is also an interesting legend about sweeping dust, Taoist mythology believes that there are three corpses on the human body, the three corpse gods are evil gods, like to create rumors and cause trouble, in front of the Jade Emperor said that the world is sinful and dirty, disrespecting the gods, the Jade Emperor was furious after listening to it, sent the spirit officials to the netherworld to check, marked the evil families with cobwebs, and killed all the people with cobweb marks Chinese New Year's Eve night. When the three corpse gods saw this, they went down first to put cobwebs on the homes of all the common people. After this matter was known to the king of the stove, he thought of a way to let people clean the home after offering the stove, and the unclean family gods did not bless it, so there was a custom of sweeping the dust after the stove.
The days of the Southerners and northerners are not the same, the Northerners wax the twenty-third month, the southerners wax the twenty-fourth month, but the dust sweeping day is the twenty-fourth day of the Waxing Moon, and the dust can only be swept after the sacrifice stove.
Sweeping dust is exquisite
Regarding sweeping dust, the ancients had a saying that "seven sweep gold, eight sweep silver". The ancients: "seven" and "eight" are not modern seven and eight. The ancients used the twelve branches to record the time method, the twelve branches are the zi ugly yandi, Tatsumi noon, Shen You noon hai, "seven" refers to 11 a.m. to one o'clock, "eight" refers to one o'clock to three o'clock in the afternoon. This time period is the hottest time of the day, the noon sun is empty, this time to sweep the house, the ancients believe that there will be more and more wealth, of course, we know that this is unreliable, but noon is indeed a good time to sweep the house.
epilogue
Sweeping dust can not only keep the home tidy and reduce the occurrence of epidemics, but also because it is a collective activity, it can also increase the feelings between family members. The taste of the new year is getting weaker and weaker now, life still has to have a sense of ceremony, this is not the twenty-fourth of the month, so your family sweeps the dust?