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Sichuan-Chongqing Tiger Year talks about the customs of the year
Hu Plain
Traditional Chinese folk culture, and folk culture is Chinese culture flowing in the blood, thousands of years and generations. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "In the long river of history, the Chinese nation has formed a great national spirit and excellent traditional culture... It is also the spiritual force for realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and it should be carried forward and expanded in the light of new realities. ”
From ancient times to the present, what local traditional culture has been circulating in the cities and villages of Sichuan and Chongqing?
Kill the pig
There is a custom of killing Pigs in the countryside, and the Pigs should choose mature pigs that grow normally and fatten. Do not feed and clean your body properly for one or two days before slaughter. In the past, whoever killed a pig had to prepare incense candles to keep burning, as if to make some expression of worship for "killing". When killing a pig, it was first lured out of the pigsty to the scene, and several men who had been waiting for it for a long time quickly caught it on the door panel or a stone under the butcher's password and could not move. But when he saw the butcher holding a sharp knife in his right hand, and his left hand pressed against the pig's neck, he only listened to the sudden - loud "roar", the knife only flashed - straight into the throat of the pig, and then rotated and picked out, and then followed by the gushing blood, running into the prepared basin. At the same time, several people who bound the pig's body appropriately lifted the pig's hind legs according to the call of the slaughterer to accelerate the blood flowing from the knife edge. In this way, about three or five minutes the pig will return to the west. At that time, the pig was wailing, but the butcher still cut a knife in one of its heels, and used a sharp iron rod to penetrate into the skin to the hips, and he used his mouth to mouth to preach for a while, and the pig became fat, and after the hot water was sprinkled and scraped, the pig hair was stripped away. Then, a few men picked up the strip of the pig upside down, let the butcher use two special iron fishing to hang one of its hind feet, and finally began to open the cavity, break the anus, take out the internal organs and put aside, the kung fu butcher, less than an hour to decompose the pig, the skill is quite similar to the master of the cattle, but also let the viewer sigh.
Worship the god Vesta
The twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon, this day is also known as the Small Year. In addition to eating a small New Year meal in a lively manner, an important ritual is to worship the god of Vesta. The sacrificial stove is a custom that has a great influence and is widely spread in the mainland, and in the old days, almost every stove had a "stove prince" in front of the stove. Legend has it that he was the "Nine Heavens Eastern Chef Si Ming Zhao Wangfu Jun" by the Jade Emperor, responsible for managing the stove fires of each family, and people called this god "Si Ming Bodhisattva" or "Stove King Si Ming", and was worshipped as the protector of the family. The folk proverb "three sacrificial stoves, four sweeping houses" refers to the sacrificial stove on the 23rd day of the waxing moon every year. Legend has it that on the twenty-third day of the lunar month, the King of the Stove will ascend to heaven and report to the Jade Emperor the good and evil of the family for a year, and the Jade Emperor will, according to the report of the King of the Stove, hand over the fate of the family's auspicious and evil blessings in the new year to the hands of the King of the Stove. The ritual of sending the vesta god is called "sending the stove" or "ci stove", and the people offer red candles and sugar melons, send the vesta god to heaven with solemn etiquette, and pray that the vesta god "will say good things in heaven and send good luck to the netherworld". For Vesta's report determines whether heaven is a blessing or a plague. Today, many parts of the countryside still follow this custom. There is also the "custom of women not sacrificing stoves", legend has it that the god of stoves is a beautiful man, after he married Guo Dingxiang, he also hooked up with Wang Haitang and became an adulterer, which is an adulterous image. I am afraid that women cannot resist the temptation and will have things that are not right or wrong.
Sweep the dust
"On the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon, dust sweeping the house", according to the "Lü's Spring and Autumn", the mainland had the custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival in the Yao Shun era. According to folk sayings, because of the harmonic sound of "dust" and "Chen", the new spring sweeping dust has the meaning of "dust removal and cloth new", and its intention is to sweep out all the poor luck and obscurity. This custom carries the people's desire to break the old and build a new one, and the prayer to leave the old and welcome the new. Every spring festival comes, every household must clean the environment, clean various utensils, remove and wash the futon curtains, sprinkle the courtyard of Liulu, dust and spider webs, and dredge the open channels and ditches. Everywhere is filled with joy and joy, hygiene, clean and clean to welcome the New Year.
Take a New Year's bath
In the old days, conditions were poor, and in winter - ordinary people did not bathe every day. "Bathing for the New Year" is an ancestral rule, at that time almost every family had a large wooden box, in the New Year's bath on the use of the use, rushed into some Chinese herbal boiled hot water, people in the improper wind and try to use the "baking cage" or charcoal stove to heat, take off their clothes and crouch next to it, while heating the water into the basin and then pouring it on the body, until the washing is hot, sweating slightly. There is also a folk saying: "Twenty-seven wash mold; twenty-eight wash sloppy; twenty-nine wash old dogs." He also said, "The waxing moon should take a bath, and the year will be good."
Paste Spring League
Chunlian is also called door pairs, spring stickers, couplets, pairs, peach symbols, etc., it depicts the background of the times with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words, expresses good wishes, and is a unique literary form of the mainland. Every Spring Festival, whether in urban or rural areas, every household should select a pair of big red Spring Festival and paste it on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. This custom began in the Song Dynasty, began to prevail in the Ming Dynasty, and by the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic nature of the Chunlian had been greatly improved, and liang Zhangju's Monograph "The Words of the Chunlian" discussed the origin of the Chunlian and the characteristics of various works.
There are many types of Spring League, and according to its place of use, it can be divided into door center, frame pair, horizontal batch, spring strip, bucket square and so on. The "door center" is attached to the center of the upper part of the door panel; the "frame pair" is pasted on the left and right door frames; the "horizontal cloak" is pasted on the horizontal wood of the door; the "spring strip" is pasted in the corresponding place according to different contents; the "doujin" is also called "door leaf", which is square diamond-shaped, and most of it is pasted on the furniture and shadow wall.
Window flowers
Paste the word "Fu" upside down
In the folk, people also like to paste various paper cuts on the windows - window flowers. Window flowers not only set off the festive atmosphere, but also combine decoration, appreciation and practicality. Paper-cutting is a popular folk art in the mainland, and has been loved by people for thousands of years, because most of them are attached to windows, so it is also called "window flowers".
With its unique generalization and exaggeration, the window flower vividly expresses auspicious events and good wishes, and decorates the festival with red fire and richness. At the same time as pasting the Spring Festival, some people should paste large and small "Fu" characters on the door, wall, and lintel of the house. Pasting the word "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a long-standing custom of mainland folk. The word "Fu" refers to blessings and good fortune, and pins people's yearning for a happy life and wishes for a better future. In order to more fully reflect this yearning and wishing, some people simply paste the word "fu" upside down, indicating that "happiness has arrived" and "blessing has arrived". Folk also carefully draw the word "Fu" into various patterns, such as shouxing, shou peach, carp jumping dragon gate, grain fengdeng, dragon and phoenix Chengxiang and so on.
Paste New Year paintings
Spring Festival hanging and pasting New Year paintings are very common in the city, and the colorful New Year paintings have added a lot of prosperity and joy and festive atmosphere to thousands of households. New Year painting is an ancient folk art on the mainland, reflecting the simple customs and beliefs of the people and pinning their hopes for the future. New Year paintings, like the Spring Festival, originated from the "Door God". With the rise of woodblock printing, the content of the New Year paintings has not only been limited to the colorful New Year paintings such as "Fulu Shou Three-Star Chart", "Blessing of Heavenly Officials", "Five Grains and Fengdeng", "Six Animals Prosperity", "Welcoming Spring and Receiving Blessings" in the Workshop of the Gate God to meet people's good wishes for the Celebration and New Year.
The earliest New Year paintings in mainland China's current collection are the woodcut New Year paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty's "Sui Dynasty Presents the Fangrong of the Country", which depicts four ancient beauties, Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Ban Ji and Lu Zhu. The most widely circulated folk painting is a New Year painting of "Mouse Marrying Relatives", which depicts the interesting scene of rats marrying their brides according to human customs. In the early years of the Republic of China, Shanghai Zheng Mantuo combined the two calendars and New Year paintings, which is a new form of New Year painting. This kind of two-in-one New Year painting later developed into a wall calendar, which is still popular throughout the country. Generally, the time for pasting New Year paintings is the last day or two at the end of the year.
Pick up the God of Wealth
This custom is popular throughout the north and south, and the time and ceremony of receiving the god of wealth vary from place to place. Most of them received the god of wealth on the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve. In the north, before receiving the god of wealth, the whole family makes dumplings together, and in the middle of the night, the housewife goes down to the kitchen to cook dumplings, and the door of the house is wide open. The man went outdoors with a lantern, and received the god of wealth according to the direction of the god of wealth said in the imperial almanac, such as this year the god of wealth was in the east, and when he went out, he went east, stopped at the right time, put down the lantern, lit the incense candle, knelt down, and then went home. In the courtyard of the home set up an offering table, light incense and set off cannons, the man knelt down, from the outside into the room, the indoor people asked in unison: "Welcome to the god of wealth." The man replied reverently, "Here we are!" Welcome to the God of Wealth"! The youngest child in the family had to lie on the folded high quilt beforehand, and heard the man ask, "Is the little day up?" The child sat up and answered loudly: "Get up, the little day is up!" "It means that the god of wealth has come to the house." The hostess first fished out a bowl of cooked dumplings to sacrifice to the god of wealth, and then put the rest of the dumplings on the table, and the whole family ate the New Year dumplings with joy. On the second day of the first lunar month, the god of wealth was sacrificed, and incense candles were lit to pour wine, and the rooster was offered to store live carp, and the old and young people of the family performed the ceremony, and the firecrackers sounded to shock the world.
Wear new shoes
"It's New Year's, put on new shoes!" When the little babies are cheering and rejoicing, why don't you know the hard work of the women to make new shoes? In the old days, the township was very poor, and they all went to the fields, walked, and went to school barefoot. When the bride and groom, the bride, rush to the scene, and leave the house to wear shoes. Mostly make their own cloth shoes. Making cloth shoes is a compulsory course for women. Before marrying, the eldest girl is usually passed on by her mother or sister-in-law. "Shelling" (choose The bamboo shell is flattened as a lizi), "Montage cloth block" (sporadic cloth strips glued into blocks), "Na sole" (cut into soles according to the soles of the shoes and then sewn with twine), "lining the uppers" (color new cloth as the surface and then lining the white cloth), "sewing soles and uppers" "threading the shoe mouth cloth strips" (buying special color cloth strips near the upper to cover the opening edges), "thread security shoe loops and fixed shoe buckles" (homemade shoe mixing, shoe buckles). Learning the whole set of crafts marks that this woman has a strong female red kung fu to survive in the world.
Eat a reunion dinner
Nine bowls, Chinese New Year's Eve the night of the New Year to eat particularly rich, the first is to put on the nine bowls: one is dry dishes, with four plates of candy, melon seeds, tobacco, peanuts and rice; the second is cold dishes, cold mix lean meat, cold mix spicy chicken, cold mix pork heart liver belly, pickled cabbage, sausage, beef bar; the third is stir-fried vegetables 2-4. There are sea pepper slices, leek meat shreds, and now there are three fresh seafood; the fourth is a bowl, also known as a fragrant bowl. First mix and mix eggs with bean flour tong, spread on the pork, fry and cut into thick slices, and then use the cooked potatoes or radish to pad the bottom, and set the meat in the bowl meat; fifth, steamed vegetables, wine rice, salty roast white, sweet roasted white; sixth, fish, must be whole fish; seventh, baked; eighth, chicken, to be whole chicken; nine is soup, miscellaneous soup, crispy broth, kelp shredded broth. No matter how the semen is changed now, chicken and fish are indispensable. This is to please the joke, because "chicken" and "auspicious" are harmonic sounds, Tujili. "Fish" and "Yu" are harmonic sounds, and there is more than one every year. Before eating, the highest elder of the family should first pay homage to the gods with incense candles and sacrifices, to feel the gods' blessing for their families this year, and at the same time pray that the gods will continue to bless their families next year. If there are relatives who cannot go home for the New Year, they can vacate a seat and put on the dishes and chopsticks to show "reunion".
Keep the age
Chinese New Year's Eve observance is one of the most important annual activities. The custom of keeping the age has a long history, and the earliest record is found in the "FengshiZhi" of the Western Jin Dynasty: Chinese New Year's Eve night, each phase and gift, known as "feeding the year"; wine and food invitations, called "other years"; the elder and young gather to drink, wish the completion of the song, called "years of division"; everyone sleeps all night, waiting for the dawn, called "keeping the age".
"One night is two years old, five is divided into two years", Chinese New Year's Eve night, the whole family gathers together, eats Chinese New Year's Eve meal, lights candles or oil lamps, sits around the stove and chats, waiting for the moment to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, and keeps vigil all night, symbolizing the drive away of all evil plagues and diseases in anticipation of the auspicious new year. This custom gradually prevailed, and by the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin wrote a poem "Shou Nian": "Cold resigns from winter snow, and warmth brings into the spring wind." To this day, people are still accustomed to keeping a new year on Chinese New Year's Eve night.
In some places, there is also the custom of "keeping the field", people come to the field to keep the age, accompany the field, thank you - the good harvest brought to us by the field, and pray for a good harvest next year.
There are two meanings of the old age keeping: the elderly keep the age as "resigning the old age", which means cherishing time; the young people keep the age to prolong the life of their parents.
Since the Han Dynasty, the alternation of the old and the new is generally in the middle of the night.
Set off firecrackers
Chinese folk have a saying of "opening the door and firecrackers". That is, on the occasion of the new year, the first thing every household does when it opens its doors is to set off firecrackers to remove the old and welcome the new with the sound of firecrackers.
Firecrackers are a Specialty of China, also known as Firecrackers, Cannons, and Firecrackers. Its origin is very early, and it has a history of more than 2,000 years. Firecrackers are removed from the old, and the peach runes are updated. Firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere and are a kind of entertainment for the festival.
With the passage of time, the application of firecrackers is more and more extensive, the variety of colors is also seeing a variety of colors, every major festival and celebration, and weddings, building houses, openings, etc., firecrackers should be set off to show celebration, picture an auspicious.
Up to now, Liuyang in Hunan, Foshan and Dongyao in Guangdong, Yichun and Pingxiang in Jiangxi, Wenzhou in Zhejiang and other places are the famous fireworks towns in the mainland, and the firecrackers produced are colorful and of high quality, not only selling well throughout the country, but also exported to the world.
Money
During the Spring Festival, the younger generation should first pay homage to the elders, wish the elders a long and healthy life, and the elders can distribute the money prepared in advance to the younger generations, it is said that the pressure money can suppress the evil spirits, because the "year" and "qi" are harmonious, and the pressure money obtained by the younger generations can spend a year in peace and security.
There are two kinds of pressed money, one is to weave a dragon shape with colored rope threading and placed at the foot of the bed, which is recorded in the "Records of the Yanjing Years". The other is common, where parents wrap money around their children in red paper. The money can be given in public after the younger generations pay their respects, or it can be quietly placed under the child's pillow by the parents when the child is asleep on Chinese New Year's Eve night.
On the grave
On the first day of the first lunar month, people get up early, put on the most beautiful clothes, dress up neatly, eat tangyuan that symbolizes the fullness of the circle, and then go to the grave. At the grave, fruit, knife-headed meat, or three animals (chicken, fish, meat) are offered, money paper candles are lit, grave notes are inserted, and the elders silently talk to their dead relatives in front of the grave, praying for the blessing of the dead.
In the southern Sichuan region, the first day of the first year is a major play, indicating that at the beginning of the new year, future generations will not forget to remember their ancestors, and also hope that the predecessors will bless the future generations with a smooth and smooth new year.
Lantern Festival
The first is to eat the Lantern Festival, called Tang Yuan in the south. The Lantern Eating Tangyuan was first seen in the Song Dynasty Zhou Bi's "Pingyuan Continuation": "Lantern Cooking Floating Balls". Eating tangyuan has the meaning of reunion, life is complete, and the etiquette of all things is included, so it has long been welcomed by people.
On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival is celebrated, and there is a folk custom of playing lanterns and dancing dragons during the Spring Festival in Chongqing. In the old days, the lanterns would be mainly divided into two forms, one was fixed, such as various colored lamps hanging on the eaves, aisles, trees, palace lamps, marquee lamps, rabbit lamps held by small dolls, orange lamps in their hands; the other was the folk art performance of Liugong, also called lights, such as dragon lamps, lion lamps, cow lamps, mussel shell lights, and car lights. The dragon dance in Tongliang County is famous at home and abroad, and the Jiang family dragon dance in Banan District is well-known and is known as the hometown of dragon dance.
Author series of articles
Source: Sichuan Provincial Local History Work Office
Author: Hu Pingyuan (Special Researcher of the Research Museum of Literature and History of Chongqing Municipal People's Government, Member of Chongqing Communist Party History Society, Member of Chongqing Writers Association, Member of Chongqing Documentary Literature Society, Editor of Oral Banan Party History, Party History Research Office of Chongqing Banan District Committee)
Pictured: Fang Zhi Sichuan
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