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The folklore of not shaving one's head in the first month is traced back
There are many folk customs about the New Year, and one of the folk taboos is "shaving the head and dying uncle in the first month". This folk taboo is very strange, why does shaving the head lead to the death of a person? And why would a nephew shave his head cause an accident to his uncle? Let's go back to the roots, starting with the origin of this sentence.
There are many legends about the origin of this folk taboo, the most widely circulated is related to the "shaving order" in the early Qing Dynasty. In the second year of Qing Shunzhi (1645 AD), the Qing government issued the "Edict of XueFa": "Now a Chinese and foreign family, the father of the king, the father of the people, the father and the son, the father and the son, the father and the son, can not violate, if not unified, it will eventually belong to the two hearts." Since the issuance of the notice, the days of ten days have been limited inside and outside the capital, directly under the provinces and localities, from the ministry to the day, but also the tenth day, in order to save the hair to stay, never light loans. This is the famous "shaving order" in history of "leaving no hair, leaving hair without leaving head", forcing Han people to shave their peripheral hair within 10 days like the Manchus and leave a "money rat tail" hairstyle. The Han tradition is that "the body is hairy, the parents do not dare to destroy the injury", the shaving order has aroused strong resistance from the people, especially the bloody struggle in the Jiangnan region is the most tragic, although it ended in failure, but the people still have resentment in their hearts. The plan of the year lies in the spring, not shaving the head in the first month, in order to express inner dissatisfaction and thoughts of the "old dynasty", so it is said: do not shave the head in the first month - thinking of the old, and then "thinking of the old" is falsely rumored as "dead uncle".
The reason why this folk taboo is tacitly approved is that the legend is related to Wu Sangui. After Wu Sangui led the Qing army into the pass, he was made the King of Pingxi, and qing, in order to envelop Wu Sangui, married the fourteenth daughter of the emperor Taiji to his son Wu Yingxiong, so Wu Yingxiong's children should be called Uncle Shunzhi Emperor according to Han customs. Legend has it that after the Shunzhi Emperor knew about the phrase "shaving his head and dying uncle in the first month", he asked the Han officials whether they really had something to do, because they could not touch the source and did not dare not return, so they had to say that "the folk song is through the heavens, or it may be fulfilled." With this scruple, we had to resign ourselves to it, and this folk taboo spread to modern times.
There is also a warm source legend about this folk taboo. Legend has it that a barber who gave gifts to his uncle because of his family's poverty and lack of money, in order to honor his uncle, he shaved his uncle's head during the New Year's visit in the first month of the month, and after skillful pruning, the uncle was very satisfied, so it was agreed that every year in the first month of the year, he would ask his nephew to shave his head. Many years later, his uncle died, and the barber wept bitterly every first month because he could no longer fulfill his uncle's filial piety. Therefore, there is a legend of "shaving the head of the first month to think of the uncle", and later it was falsely rumored as "the uncle who shaved the head in the first month".
Regarding not shaving the head in the first month, there is also a basis for TCM health care. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, The Great Treatise on the Four Qis, and the Spring march records: "Being sent to slow down, so that Zhisheng, born without killing, giving and not taking, rewarding and not punishing, this spring qi should be, the way of health is also; the opposite is to hurt the liver, the summer is really cold, and the elderly are few." The gist is to say: In the first month, the yang qi between heaven and earth gradually rises, all things (including hair) begin to grow outward, according to the concept of "the unity of heaven and man", people must also conform to nature, let the hair grow freely, if the hair is cut, it will block the vitality of the human body, but also restrict the vitality of the human body.
Folklore taboos this culture, because of the relationship of time, coupled with the misinterpretation and false rumors of the dynasties, it is difficult to explore the original meaning. Nowadays, many barbers are open for business in the first month, from the perspective of hygiene and aesthetics, everyone should cut their hair, do not have to worry about the health of their uncles.
Author Lu Qingyuan