About the author Fucha Baoren: Mr. Fucha Baoren served as the director of the Greening Division of the Parks and Forestry Bureau before his retirement. At present, he holds the following social positions: Jilin Municipal CPPCC Researcher, Visiting Professor of Beihua University, Historical and Cultural Advisor of Shulan Municipal People's Government, Vice President of Jilin Manchu Culture and Economy Promotion Association, Vice President of Jilin Manchu Friendship Association, Director of Jilin Manchu Culture Research Association, Director of Jilin Folklore Society, Director of Jilin Changbaishan Cultural Research Association, Member of Jilin Writers Association, Jilin Taoist Xuandiguan, LingxianFu Restoration Consultant, Secretary General of Jilin City Landscaping Association, etc.
Mr. Fucha Baoren has written many books, especially books on Manchu history and culture, mainly including the series of "Manchu Past Events in the Great Northeast", which is a project for the development of local history resources in Jilin Province. The series of books is about 1.24 million words, and is divided into 5 volumes, including "The History and Culture of the Manchus in the Great Northeast", "The Old Events of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Culture of the Manchus in the Northeast", "The Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Culture of Slang Culture", "The Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, the Architectural Culture", and "the Old Affairs of the Manchus in the Great Northeast and The Shamanic Culture". Our platform is authorized to publish some articles. Those who wish to purchase this book can contact the author, Mr. Hosa Hohito.
Our platform has published part of Mr. Fucha Baoren's "The Past Events of the Manchus in the Great Northeast, History and Culture", and now Mr. Fucha Baoren has provided "The Old Events of the Manchus in the Great Northeast and the Culture of the Years", which we will publish one after another.
Sacrifice to the god of wealth and break the five
The Manchus are an ancient northern people who believe in shamanism, and since their ancestors, the Jing people, established the "Haidong Shengguo" Bohai State, established a vassal state relationship with the Tang Dynasty in the Central Plains, and established the Jin Kingdom with the Jurchens and occupied a large area of land in the Central Plains, the economic and cultural exchanges between the north and south of China have become increasingly close.
After the Qing Dynasty and DingJing, cultural exchanges between the Central Plains and the North, and between the Han and Manchus, have become blended. Therefore, although the ancient Manchus retained many traditional folk customs and customs, they also integrated many traditional folk cultures of the Central Plains, such as the Spring Festival new year and new year worship, the worship of the god of wealth, and the breaking of the fifth year customs have integrated the central plains culture.
The second day of the Chinese New Year is the day of the sacrifice of the god of wealth, and it is said that this day is the birthday of the god of wealth. There are many gods of wealth in the northeast, such as the god of literature and wealth, Fan Li and Bigan, the god of martial wealth, Zhao Gongming, Emperor Guan, and so on, and I don't know which day is the birthday of the god of wealth. In fact, people will not study these things in detail, but only sacrifice to the god of wealth, and ask the god of wealth for gifts and a wide source of wealth. In the past, the Manchu family sacrificed the god of wealth on the second day of the Chinese New Year, and set up a confession in front of the main gate, with incense candles, offerings, chickens, sheep, fish and other sacrifices. Then, paste a tile basin on red paper, write the words "cornucopia" on it, and place it in front of the confession. During the sacrifice, the rice of the god of wealth is incinerated along with pine branches, sesame seeds and grains, and people will chant some old clichés:
On the second day of the new first year, the great god of wealth.
Light a candle and fill it with wine.
Offer fish and sheep, feed on.
The whole family, young and old, prostrate themselves to the gods.
Merchants and shops to do business, is to seek wealth to make money, although the rich family has money, but want more money, so they set up a tent, paste couplets, burn firecrackers, set up offerings to the god of wealth, the scale is larger and more lively. The "Chronicle of Hunchun County" contains:
At the dawn of the second day of the first year, merchants worship the god of wealth, burn firecrackers, set up a mat shed in the courtyard, and worship the gods of heaven and earth. Two or four or six former pine trees
, sticking peach charms on it, setting up lights and coloring, and rich families are also for it.
The third day of the first lunar month is the first three days of the new year, which is called the auspicious day of the zodiac, just like the first day. In the old Manchu custom, the third day of the first year is the day when the new daughter-in-law returns to her mother's house. Early this morning, the newlyweds began to dress up. When you meet your parents-in-law, you must take four boxes of gifts such as fruit, trough cake, Sachima, mung bean cake, and two bottles of wine. My parents-in-law walked in this village, and if the road was far, they had to put on their horses and climb the plow to face the wind and snow.
My father-in-law's family is also full of people because it is the New Year, and when he sees his married daughter come back, his parents will treat him warmly. The Custom of the Manchus is that the aunt should toast to the parents-in-law during the banquet, and the brother-in-law should toast to the sister and brother-in-law on behalf of the family, and everyone is very lively and harmonious. Parents-in-law will happily give their son-in-law and daughter "waist money", and the gifts brought by the son-in-law will only be half, which means "relatives do not have to be polite". When the son-in-law and daughter come home, the parents-in-law will also send some gifts to show their hospitality.
In the early years of Manchu etiquette, girls had to return to their mother's home on the third day of the first lunar month for three years after marriage. Because the Manchus have to make offerings to ancestors and gods during the New Year, the daughters who marry out are people of other families, and they are not allowed to participate in the big New Year festivals in the family, and girls who marry out are not allowed to see the sacrifice customs of the mother's family.com. Therefore, the custom of the new daughter-in-law returning to her mother's house three times in the New Year has also been formed.
The Manchus have an important custom on the third day of the first year, that is, "sending gods". At three o'clock in the afternoon, after the worship of the gods, after eating the last New Year's meal ("dumplings for the gods"), the ancestral gods, the five-way god of wealth, and the god of four joys invited by Chinese New Year's Eve night were sent away. The custom is to offer dumplings in front of the Woruku (divine throne), the whole family kneels on the ground and prostrates three, and then the man of the house chants: "O ancestors of the throne, the year is over, please go back!" "Something like that. Then put away the ancestral card or family tree, even if it is to send the ancestral god away. The Chronicle of Anda County, Heilongjiang Province, contains:
At dusk, incense is burned, ancestors are sent back, and dumplings are also boiled, "sending dumplings to the gods".
The ancestral gods invited from the family were sent away, and the other gods such as the five-way god of wealth and the god of four joys did not explicitly ask them to go their own way, anyway, the god of wealth and the god of joy were better at home for a longer time, showing people's expectations for a better life.
In the few days of the Manchu New Year, people are busy, after worshiping the New Year and sending away the ancestral gods, people can finally relax and relax. On the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, the Manchu New Year custom is to set up a family banquet to entertain the close relatives of the clan, and the relatives sit together to eat a meal and be close to each other, called "Hui Nian Tea". The "Chronicle of Gaiping County" says: "(Fourth day of the first year) Zhang Feast invited relatives, relatives and friends to drink spring wine, known as 'Huinian Tea'".
The "spring wine" drunk by the Manchus is ordinary wine, which is only drunk on the occasion of the New Year reunion. At this time, most of the "spring wine" drunk is rice wine, which is a unique Manchu rice wine made of millet (rhubarb rice) or river rice (glutinous rice), also known as "millet wine". To brew this wine, the millet is first soaked and boiled, and then put into the wine altar after it is cooled, and then the koji is added and mixed well to seal the altar mouth, and it can be drunk in three or five days. This wine is soft and sweet, even those who are not good at drinking alcohol can drink a cup.
On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the Manchus set up family banquets to entertain relatives, friends and close friends, and large households would set up a "whole sheep feast". The Manchu whole sheep feast has a long history, at least dating back to the Liaojin period. Eat whole sheep with skins, which the Golden Lady calls "hidden sheep". At that time, the backward productivity of the sheep would only be used to entertain distinguished guests. The Song Desert Chronicle records: "Whoever slaughters a sheep eats its flesh." Noble people enjoy heavy guests, and they must point to and boast: 'This hidden sheep also'. ”
Mongolians and Hui people eat mutton and drink mutton soup are well known, but the Manchus not only eat mutton and drink mutton soup, but also have all kinds of cooking methods such as frying, frying, cooking, frying, steaming, bursting, and roasting, and the dishes are meat, skin, heart, liver, lungs, and the taste is also salty, sweet, spicy, sour, pepper and salt. The Qing Dynasty's "Qing Barnyard Banknotes" records:
(Manchu) can be made delicious with all parts of the sheep's whole body. Cook with steaming, cooking, cannoning, stir-frying, bursting, burning, smoking, frying, etc
Techniques can be made into soups, soups, pastes, etc., with differences such as sweet, salty, spicy, and pretzel flavors.
The Manchu whole sheep feast not only has a long history, has been more than a thousand years, and the varieties are more than "known as one hundred and eight products". According to records, the Qing Dynasty Imperial Palace held a feast on the first day of the New Year's Day, and it was customary to hold a feast in the Taihe Hall every year, setting up 210 tables, using 100 sheep and 100 bottles of wine to entertain high-ranking officials and important ministers who had worked hard for a year. Because of the ancient saying "sheep" means "auspicious", the Yuan Day celebration feast eating sheep has the meaning of praying for the New Year's "auspicious hongxi".
Manchu folk people eat mutton, drink sheep soup and even the whole sheep feast on the fourth day of the first month, because according to the traditional slang customs of "chicken one, dog two, pig three, sheep four, cow five, horse six, man seven, valley eight", the first four is the sheep day, so like the indispensable chicken of the first family banquet, eating sheep is to meet the slang custom of "sheep day".
The five full Han chinese customs at the beginning of the first month of the new month all call this day unlucky as "breaking the fifth". If it is "breaking five", it must be repaired, so there is a slang custom of "breaking five and making dumplings". Manchu dumplings are not very different in the dough, and the difference in dumpling filling is great. Ordinary people mostly use cabbage, sauerkraut and pork to make stuffing, while the dumpling filling of official eunuchs is quite rich. "Insights on Court Life in the Late Qing Dynasty" contains the New Year's dumpling filling of the late Qing Dynasty: "There are pork auspicious dishes (that is, purslane), pork cabbage, mutton cabbage, pork spinach (there are dried and fresh), pork leeks, lard leeks, three fresh, roasted duck bean sprouts and vegetarian stuffing, stuffing, etc. ”
The Manchus attach great importance to the burning of incense gods from Chinese New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the first month, and the average person burns incense three times in the morning, noon and evening to worship the god until the fifth day of the first month. Those who sincerely make a wish are "burning incense" to this day. The "Chronicle of Haicheng County" says: "From the first day of the first month to the fifth day of the first month, before the offering of the god Buddha's throne, the incense embers continue, which is called 'long incense'. After this (day), incense is burned three times in the morning, noon and evening, "until the fifteenth day of the first month." It can be seen that the Manchu people who believe in ancient shamanism worship the ancestors of the gods.
The "broken day" of the fifth day of the first year, the Manchus have a lot of taboos, in the past there were "the day is not auspicious, do not go out", "should not go out" customs. Therefore, people mostly do not go out at home to avoid disasters. On this day, after the fifth day of the first month, the New Year's greeting is called "worship of the old age", which is slightly disrespectful. Therefore, people have completed the Spring Festival New Year's celebration activities before the fifth day of the first year.
The Manchus will pay great attention to their speech and deeds on the fifth day of the first year, and they cannot say anything like broken, broken, dead, or mourned, and children who do something wrong cannot be beaten. On this day, it is also taboo to sweep dirty soil and pour sewage outwards, and it is taboo to open boxes and turn over cabinets. The "broken five dumplings" eaten on the fifth day of the first year must be steamed dumplings, which is to take the new year and new atmosphere, and the life at home is thriving. Before the fifth day of the first year, manchu families will steam the sticky bean buns, sticky dumplings and frozen dumplings that were prepared in advance before the hot year, and eat them without cooking rice. There is a slang custom that raw rice is cooked before the fifth day of the first year, and the family will "raw points" after eating. Firecrackers are also indispensable before the first five families reunite to eat dumplings, people call it "Breaking the Five", which has the meaning of driving away the old evil and welcoming festive happiness, in order to pin people's expectations for a beautiful New Year.
In the old custom, the fifth day of the first year is also the day of worship to the god of wealth. In the early morning of the same day, the merchants and shops began to worship the god of wealth, offering chickens and carp on the god of wealth, taking the harmonic meaning of "auspicious and profitable". In the early years, the great merchants and rich people in and around jilin province sacrificed the god of wealth very solemnly. People first set up a mat in the courtyard and set up offerings and a tablet for the god of wealth, and then planted two or four or six pine trees before the offering, and pasted peach charms and red and green colored paper. This is a manifestation of the remnants of the Manchu shamanistic sacred tree worship, which means that the sacrifice of the god of wealth can be accessed to the heavenly court through the sacred tree, so that the god of wealth can know. After everything was ready, he began to burn incense and prostrate his head and set off firecrackers to sacrifice the old master, the god of culture and martial wealth.
On this day, Kanto is accustomed to the merchant shops to feast on the guys, hoping that they can do their best in the new year, commonly known as drinking "Fortuna wine". But the feast is not a good feast, because the feast will announce the departure of the guys. Therefore, although many guys are at the banquet, they have no intention of eating and drinking, lest they be resigned home and lose their jobs.
In the early years, the status of Manchu women was very low, and there were many stereotypes that women had to follow, but they were relatively broad for men. Like the fifth day of the fifth day of the first year, men can walk and hurry to worship the New Year, while women are not allowed to go out. In the past, the Manchu Gege (girl) and Ulun (daughter-in-law) could only go out to visit the New Year after the sixth day of the first year, and it was customary for the "girl who married to see the mother's family offerings before the sixth day of the first year, and the life was poor and life was terrible."
Due to the vast area of Manchu residence, the customs are slightly different, such as the New Year's Greeting is carried out in the Chinese New Year's Eve and the first day of the first year, while the gift of gods is carried out from the second and third days of the first year until the sixth day of the first year. Liaoning's "Chronicle of Xinmin County" carries the divine tao: "In the morning, I rinsed my face, picked up incense, and prostrated myself before the case of each god." All incense embers are withdrawn. "After the withdrawal of the confession, the tablets of the ancestors and various gods and immortals written years ago were burned on the knees of the family man, and the gods were sent away as soon as they slipped away. As the "Folk Customs of Jilin in the Past" said: "A puff of green smoke goes straight up into the clouds, and the gods and immortals will go to heaven."
The women who had been bored at home for five or six days were liberated, and they went out to visit relatives and friends or neighbors to visit the New Year, the most important of course was to return to their mother's home to visit their fathers and mothers. Women return to their mother's home for the New Year is also very solemn, and after dressing up, they bring gifts to return to their mother's house accompanied by their husbands or concubines.
In the early years, Manchu daughters mostly brought "fruit boxes" to their homes. The fruit box is made of thin wooden planks in a rectangular shape, and the eight pieces of Shengjing or some special candies and pastries such as Sachima, candied fruit, donkey rolling, etc., are covered with red paper to show respect. When the daughter arrives at home and is accompanied by her husband's family, the parents naturally set up a feast and hospitality, commonly known as "picking up the girl". Jilin 'Rural Materials of Buyeo County' says: "For example, on this day (the sixth day of the first month), a married daughter was received, commonly known as 'picking up a girl'. ”
Most of the stereotypes and slang of the Manchu New Year no longer exist, and many fine traditional customs, such as sticking pairs (Spring Festival), setting off firecrackers, eating dumplings, and celebrating the New Year, are deeply rooted in the black land of kanto in the form of folklore. The Manchu tradition of "passing the New Year" lasts until the fifteenth day of the first month, during which people are both busy and excited, and everything in every day contains a strange meaning of the New Year.
The New Year brings people joy and hope for the new year, and the happiest is still the children, who have food, drink and pressure money, and there will be new clothes and firecrackers. So just after the New Year, the children began to count their fingers again, looking forward to next year's New Year.
Author Fucha Baoren
Produced by the original article of manchu culture network.