Editor's note: Approaching the Spring Festival, this is our Manchu folklore expert Mr. Fu cha Chenfeng wrote "Manchurian New Year Customs" in 2020, with a long article of more than 10,000 words, when it was expected that Jilin Radio station would broadcast during the Spring Festival, due to the sudden epidemic, many festival activities were cancelled. At that time, Mr. Fucha Chenfeng handed over the article to the Manchu Culture Network for publication. Now I'll merge some of the sections and publish them here again.
On January 26, the article "Manchurian New Year Customs: Manchurians Prepare for the New Year After Entering the Waxing Moon", the second part was issued today.
Enter the day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, paste the New Year painting in the newly pasted room, the West House South Kang is the oldest kang in the family, because the Manchurians have the custom of "taking the west as the big, the south as the respect", the elders or elders must sleep in the West House South Kang, and the wall wall between the walls is pasted with "Song Crane Extending the Year" or "Magu Sacrifice" and other Blessings for the Elderly New Year paintings. The door couplet is "one night even two years old, five more years and two years" and other couplets. Three "hanging signs" should be posted under the horizontal batch of the door couplet and the door couplet, and the vertical banner of "Look up to see joy" is posted on the high wall of the mountain in the house, and there is a vertical banner of "Go out to see joy" outside the gate. The "hash" (barn), chicken coop, pigsty and ino on the big car are also posted with related couplets.
The Manchus first wrote couplets on white paper, because at that time the Jurchens revered white, and in the Later Jin Dynasty, they used yellow, and after advancing into the Central Plains, due to the fusion of Manchu and Han, they changed to red paper to write couplets. The word "Fu" is something that every household must write, the word "Fu" is written on square red paper of different sizes, and the small "hanging sign" should also be pasted below, and there must be several "Fu" characters pasted upside down, which means "Fu to (inverted)", and the Various Spiritual Craftsmen of Manchuria are skillful, and the window flowers of various patterns are also pasted on the windows, bringing a harmonious and festive atmosphere to the New Year.
For those who have grandparents and family trees, they should paste the pairs before the other pairs. Paste the ancestral shrine pair first, and then paste the pair of the music box. Some Manchurian families Chinese New Year's Eve children should light up (hang) the genealogy at night for the clan to worship the ancestors and the family tree during the New Year, generally until the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, and the sacrifices and incense candles must also be withdrawn on the fifth day of the first year.
Manchu and Han communication also prompted the Manchus to also have the custom of sticking to the door gods. At the same time as pasting the couplet, the "Door God" is also pasted on the door heart panel. The two members of the door gods were both military generals who were founding the tang dynasty, and the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty suddenly fell ill in a certain year after he ascended the throne, and Li Shimin, who was sick in the palace, lay on the sick bed, closed his eyes and saw that the palace was full of sneaky things, and many military attachés and generals could not be driven away, except for the former generals Qin Qiong Qin Shubao and Wei Chigong who opened the door, the demons and ghosts could not enter the palace. Later, people revered Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong as door gods, and with these two door gods holding the gate, any ghost worship was turned away and protected the family from safety.
Early in the morning, Chinese New Year's Eve, the whole family got up. The man in the house cleaned the courtyard again. After opening the gate, a pile of broken grass was placed on the west side of the gate, and the man lit the broken grass and then used the basket to add a basket of broken grass to the burning grass pile, which the Manchurians called "Tim Nian (Broken)", which means that the whole family has grown another year.
After Chinese New Year's Eve'er's breakfast, the man in the family should put up a "heaven and earth table" not far from the door in the middle of the courtyard, and there are divine plates with the tablets of "Emperor", "Earth Emperor" and "Human Emperor" on the table, and an incense burner (also known as "incense lamp bowl" is placed in front of the tablet, and a vertical "poke lamp" is placed on each side of the heaven and earth table, and the incense and poke lamp are lit before dinner, and the whole family, regardless of male or female age, prostrates to the three emperors, and the man prays to the three emperors, and wishes the three emperors to bless the whole family in the new year. The financial resources are widespread. After paying homage to the Three Emperors, the whole family had dinner.
Chinese New Year's Eve's dinner, also known as the "Chinese New Year's Eve Meal", is the most sumptuous meal of the year. The number of dishes must be made to be even, not to be single. "There must be fish at the thirty dinners, and there must be chickens at the first dinner", which is the custom of the Manchurians to celebrate the New Year. "Fish" and "Yu" are homophones, meaning "every year there is more than enough", "chicken" and "ji" are harmonized, which means the new year. Before dinner, the whole family prostrates in front of the ancestral shrine and the incense and candles that are placed on the offering of fruit and incense, and also prays to the ancestors to bless the family with good health, peace, and abundant food and clothing.
After paying homage to the grandfather and the family tree, everyone in the family should give the elders and elders a "bowing ceremony" and at the same time call "so-and-so (title)" New Year's Eve. After the meal, the hostess of the family distributes new clothes, shoes and other clothes made in the winter to everyone in the family, so that everyone can wear new clothes for the New Year.
After dinner, the family members prostrate to the elders and the elderly. After the newlywed daughter-in-law performs the prostration ceremony, she must "pack cigarettes" for the elders or elders, and the recipients must give the bride a lot of gifts and "old money".
After eating Chinese New Year's Eve meal, the man in the house led the male personnel in the family to the west side of the gate to burn "baggage". The "baggage" is actually a pocket filled with printed burnt paper or hand-folded "golden yuanbao" made of Yellow Immortal paper, and the cover of the pocket is written with the name of the deceased relative or elder of the family. When men kneel down to burn the "baggage", they also pray to their deceased relatives to bless the whole family with auspicious and abundant grain.
After burning the burden, the men of the whole family have to go to the home of the elder or patriarch of the family (Mukunda) to bid farewell to the new year, and the worshippers have to give the children some money (also known as resignation money).
Newly married couples, under the leadership of their sister-in-law or aunt, go to the home of the elderly elder of the close relatives in the family to bid farewell to the New Year, the man uses the prostration ceremony and the woman uses the "Ten Thousand Blessings Gift", and the elderly elder who accepts the resignation ceremony receives the lit cigarette bag handed by the new daughter-in-law and takes the "cigarette money" to give back to the new daughter-in-law.
On this day, the thirty children also boiled sorghum rice, filled it with small pots and put it into the wooden liter, and the man took the wooden liter through the door, and sprinkled half of the sorghum rice in the small box in the sky, while the other half was scattered around the wall of the courtyard, in order to send the hungry ghosts, so that those hungry ghosts could eat outside the wall, and the ghosts of these hungry ghosts would not enter the courtyard.
After the end of the resignation, it is time to receive God. The god of the family is actually the god of wealth, the god of wealth is surnamed Zhao, the word Gongming, is the leading marshal in front of the account of the king of Shang in the Fengshen Yanyi, in the battle with the two armies of The King of Zhou Wu, he was killed by Jiang Ziya, and after his death, he was sealed by Jiang Ziya as the god of wealth. Later, people carved the portrait of Zhao Gongming into a plate and printed it on six K-sized paper, and people called it "The Code of the God of Wealth". Before Chinese New Year's Eve, someone took the god of wealth yard and walked around the street to deliver it. The person who sent the code of the god of wealth did not wait to enter the door and shouted: The god of wealth has arrived home, and the more it has crossed. Then talk about a fortuna code on the lid of the tank in Xi kang. There are also rap forms to send the God of Wealth yard to each household, and each family will take out some tips to give to the person who sent the God of Wealth.
Some places are to go to the big temple to pick up the god of wealth. The Daoist chief in the temple had already prepared the God of Wealth Yard. In the middle of the night of the 30th of the New Year, the men came to the temple with incense candles and offerings. Put on the offerings to light incense and candles, pray that the god of wealth will come to his home more often in the new year, and after prostrating his head, the chief will send a piece of the god of wealth yard to the worshipper, and the worshipper will also take out a tip and send it to the square bowl on the case. You are not allowed to greet or talk to people on the way home, but you can talk to people who are in the same place when you come. After arriving home, the invited god of wealth yard was placed on the heaven and earth table that had been placed in the courtyard earlier, and the offerings and incense were accepted, and the whole family prostrated and prayed according to the direction of the god of wealth on the god of wealth yard, praying for good fortune in the new year.
Author Fucha Chenfeng
Produced by the original article of manchu culture network.