Guining Day, pick up the aunt and grandmother
Author Fucha Baoren
On the second day of February, the Manchus received their married aunts (daughters) to go home to their relatives and live for a few days, which was called "Guining Day".
The Manchus have a peculiar custom, women have a very low status in the family, all day long to do housework, serve in-laws, take care of children, but also feed pigs, raise chickens, pick up vegetable fields, but eat behind the table, and can not eat with in-laws and men. However, the status of the family (miss, girl) is very high. They don't have to do any housework, feed pigs and chickens, and they can run around outside the house to play, and they can also eat with their parents when they eat, so people call them "aunts".
After the Manchu aunts got married, their status plummeted, and they were inexhaustible work and in-laws who could not finish their services all day, and there were many old rules that bound them. For example, from the first to the fifth day of the New Year, you can't go out, and you can only go back to your mother's house to see it on the sixth day of the first year, and you have to go back to your mother-in-law's house at night, because a lot of housework is still waiting for her to do! It was hard to stay up until the lantern festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, but I couldn't go back to my mother's house for a few days, because the old rule was that the girl who married out could not look at the lamp of her mother's house. The Manchus have fifteen days when "the girl sees the lamp of her mother's house, and the mother's family suffers great poverty for a year." Therefore, you can only go to the street to watch the lights, see the song, go up the riverside well along the "walk a hundred diseases", and rudder and reel ice.
In the early years, the Manchus had an old rule that newly married women could not let men guard empty houses during the first month, otherwise it would be unlucky. So it wasn't until February that the second dragon looked up, and the aunt who married out was truly liberated. On the second day of February, the mother's family will come to pick up her daughter (aunt) "Guining", which probably means "returning home to rest quietly for a few days". If the in-laws are too busy to come or have something to go home, the mother's family will be very sad to see the aunt who thinks about it day and night, so there is a saying:
February 2, pick up the baby. Can't pick up, shed tears.
If Ulun (daughter-in-law) cannot return to her mother's house on the second day of February, the in-laws will send someone to tell the reason. If the in-laws do not come to the mother-in-law's family, the parents of the mother-in-law will be anxious, and there must be a reason for this. So the elders of the family would go to inquire and see the aunt who was married.
Grandma took her home, and the family would make many delicious chews for her to eat, of which lotus leaf cake (that is, spring cake) was indispensable. In the early years, people's lives were very difficult, and it was not easy to eat small lotus leaf cakes made of white noodles. In particular, the box dish rolled in the lotus leaf cake is cabbage, bean sprouts, coriander, cucumber, radish and other vegetables are complete, and sauce meat, sauce elbows, small belly, chicken shreds, etc. are usually difficult to see. Some people are reluctant to eat in order to give the aunt and grandmother who married out to Eat when they return to Ningning. On the second of February, the aunt returned to her mother's house, the whole family gathered for dinner again, a lotus leaf cake and box dish eaten in the spring, people all recalled the good memories of the old aunt and grandmother at home. So the Manchus have a proverb:
February 2, pick up the aunt,
Good food and drink all come up.
Sauce elbows, box dishes.
On the second of February, the aunts and grandmothers who returned to their mother's house would live in their mother's house for three days and five days, and they and Amma (dad) had endless affection, and they had endless whispers with Nene (mom).
The Manchus are a northern people with a colorful life, not only fishing, hunting and shooting bows, "after women ride more horses, play children to undo the eagles." The Manchus are also a nation that can sing and dance, have good and cheerful in all four seasons, and are full of pursuit of a better life. In particular, women's love for flowers is manifested in all aspects of life, they wear flowers, flower arrangements, embroidered cheongsam, shoes and hats on their bodies, and quilt sheets, curtains, pillow tops, etc. used at home are embroidered with flowers.
Manchu women are known for their head flowers, in the spring and summer seasons, wildflowers are planted on their heads; in autumn and winter, silk flowers, paper flowers, and satin flowers bloom on top of black hair, which are called "flower fairies" and "flower houses". But strangely, women between the countryside, whether it is Gege (Miss), Ulun (daughter-in-law) or Grandma (old mother), mother, in addition to grand occasions or festivals, are more stomped (barefoot) straw shoes or cloth shoes, animal skin boots, more elegant people call "trim head without pruning", while vulgar people call it "full of flowers on the head, bare feet". Therefore, the poem "Longjiang Miscellaneous Verses" yun:
Exquisite hair braided bun crow, full of Kanto tong grass flowers.
A case of head trimming does not trim the feet, hugh teaching on the mirror to regret the years.
In traditional Chinese culture, there are many interesting cultural phenomena, such as people's worship of flowers. Legend has it that for twelve months of each year, there are flower gods in charge of the flowering period, and that flower god is also some famous and surnamed celebrities, what Lingren clan, Zhang Qian, Shi Manqing, Yang Guifei, Lin Qinghe, etc. are all flower gods, the famous Emperor Huan, Emperor Wu of Han, Su Dongpo, Tao Yuanming are also flower gods, and even the ghost catcher Zhong Kui, who looks very frightening and seems to have nothing to do with flowers, is also a flower god.
Since the flower is controlled by the flower god, of course, there is also a flower festival to celebrate. The Flower Festival is also known as "Hundred Peanuts Day". The Day of the Hundred Peanuts is divided into two more times, one is February 15, which is the "Flower Dynasty Festival", and the other is August 15, which is the "Moon Festival". The Qing Dynasty 'Xi Dynasty Pleasures' says:
February 15th, for the Flower Dynasty Festival, cover the flowers and the moon and the sunset. As the saying goes: "February and August are in the spring and autumn, so february and a half is the flower dynasty,
August 1998....
On the 15th day of February in the lunar calendar, the traditional Chinese folk custom of the Flower Dynasty Festival has long been gladly accepted by the Manchus who love flowers and love flowers. On this day, the Manchu Hehe (woman) will be busy, celebrating the birthday of the flower god "Flower Lady", and also dressing herself up as a "flower mountain". As the famous Qing poet Yuan Ming wrote in "Flower Dynasty":
Red pears are first blooming willows, and the cold snow is still drifting in the spring of February.
Except for the daughter who remembers, the Day of the Hundred Flowers is this dynasty.
In the "Qing Barnyard Notes" written by Xu Ke of the Qing Dynasty, it is recorded that Empress Dowager Cixi in the Year of Guangxu was in the Summer Palace, dressing up as a flower god, performing flower celebrations, and watching the ribbon cutting. Its text:
On February 15, for the Flower Dynasty, Empress Xiaoqin (Empress Dowager Cixi) went to the Summer Palace to cut the ribbon. Sometimes there were eunuchs preparing yellow and red silks, by the palace
The treaty is two inches wide and three feet long.
Xiao Qin personally took one red and one yellow and tied it to the peony flower, and the palace eunuch took the red one and tied it to each tree. So, the garden was full of red silk,
And the palace relatives also dressed in costumes, colorful, like butterflies wearing flowers. After the end of the department, that is, the service of filial piety and the drama, the flower god celebrated the birthday. The tree is
Male immortals, flowers for female fairies, who dress up as a certain tree and a certain flower god, the clothes are made of xiao qi color. Dressed as a lotus fairy, dressed in pink shirts, to shaw
Lotus flowers, plus green silk short shirts, to shaw lotus leaves. Yu imitates this.
The set is a mountain forest, surrounded by mountains and stones, there are caves in the stones, and there are countless small immortals holding wine in the caves. The little immortal is the little flower, such as gold
Honeysuckle, pomegranate flower is also. For a long time, the immortals gathered to drink, drink and sing, silk bamboo wine, the sound is extremely soft. Finally, a rainbow fell from the sky,
Falling on the stone mountain, the immortals cross it, and the rainbow rises and rises in the sky.
February in the northeast is still icy and snowy, but the married daughter Guining makes her parents and the whole family feel very warm. On the fifteenth day, the "Flower Dynasty" is a festival of hundreds of flowers, and many colorful flowers bloom in the ice and snow, but these flowers bloom on the blue hair of Manchu women.
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 "The History and Culture of the Manchus in the Great Northeast", and now Mr. Li has provided the "Manchu Past Events of the Great Northeast and the Culture of the Years", which we will publish one after another.
On February 5, he published "The Fifth Day of the First Lunar Month, the Manchu Sacrifice of the God of Wealth and the Breaking of the Fifth".
On February 6, he published "Manchu New Year Customs".
Manchu Culture Network