Cover news reporter Xie Jie intern Liang Yongqi
Every year on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month, in the Xichong River Basin of Nanchong City, Sichuan Province (Jialing District, Shunqing District, Xichong County, and some townships in Southern County), and in Pengxi and Shehong Townships of Suining City, adjacent to Nanchong, there is an important folk festival - "Grub Festival". In recent years, a blessing and disaster relief activity that maintains unique regional customs and local customs has become a modern folk festival during the Spring Festival.
On February 9, Li Chunjiao, professor of history at West China Normal University, honorary director of the Chinese Historical Documents Research Association, and researcher of the Sichuan Regional Cultural Research Center, talked about the Spring Festival culture and told everyone about the "Grub Festival" in his memory.
Professor Li Chunjiao (Image from Jiahu Academy)
The mighty crowds wind through the mountain paths. Photo by Fan Jun
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The story of Grandfather Gao
Tells about the toad festival with a strong nostalgia
"Fourteen nights, shake the tender bamboo, the tender bamboo is high, I am as tall as the tender bamboo; fourteen nights, shake the tender bamboo, the tender bamboo is long (the long growth), I am also long, I and the tender bamboo grow together." Fourteen nights, send grubs, grubs, grubs, send you grubs down the river; ..." This is a folk song that spreads in the mountain township of northern Sichuan, "The Fourteenth Day of the First Month".
According to legend, at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the area around the Xichong River Basin in Nanchong was in constant turmoil, and the plague epidemic was epidemic, especially many children with coughs, and the villagers were panicked. One day, a high-ranking person arrived and gave guidance to the local people, saying that this was the "grub plague" in the human world, and the "grub plague" should be sent away before the plague would leave.
Li Chunjiao, a professor of history at China West Normal University, has been engaged in the teaching of Chinese culture classics and the study of Chinese history and culture in colleges and universities for more than 40 years, and the "Grub Festival" with strong nostalgia has always been an important research object in his folk culture research.
"The Toad Festival has a long history. When I was young, every year when I arrived at this festival, my father would always mention to us some old things about him and his ancestors related to this. "Professor Li Chunjiao is a native of Xichong, Nanchong, Sichuan, and his hometown of Shuangjiang Township in Xichong is adjacent to Shuanglong Township in Yanting, Mianyang." In my memory, these two townships celebrate the Toad Festival every year. ”
"My grandfather and great-grandfather were farmers and engaged in paper tobacco, incense, candles, and straw paper businesses. Every year, when it comes to the Toad Festival, the ancestors will be particularly busy. Before dawn, they had to go on the road to catch the 'corner field', and several townships on the same day went to catch up, in order to take advantage of this festival to make more money. Professor Li always remembers that when he was a child, his grandfather often said that the family began with his grandfather, that is, he followed his father's generation to "run business" from the age of ten.
"The names and birthdays of my great-grandfathers and great-grandfathers are unknown. However, my grandfather was born in 1879, the 5th year of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, which is 143 years ago. If I count the years experienced by my great-grandfather and great-grandfather, the time that the Toad Festival can be considered is much more than 200 years. Li Chunjiao said that from this deduction, the time of the formation of the grub festival should also be boldly moved forward.
Put the toad lamp in the field to pray for blessings. Photo by Liao Lan
Giant toad lamp. Photo by Liu Quan
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Academic research in nianwei
Unique folk culture value and inheritance innovation
Professor Li Chunjiao told reporters that according to his father, Gao Zu, great-grandfather and grandfather used to rush everywhere to do business, and they knew that the place where the Toad Festival was celebrated every year was not just the township under the jurisdiction of xichong county in his hometown. "The southern counties, Shunqing District, and Jialing Districts bordering Xichong, as well as the rural farms on the edge of Yanting County in Mianyang City, such as Jinji, Folding Bow, Zonghai (Shuanglong), and Washze Field, Renhe and Caobei Fields on the edge of Shehong County in Suining City, and three venues on the edge of Pengxi County in Suining City, all have the custom of celebrating the Toad Festival on the fourteenth day of the first month."
In his memory, attending the Toad Festival as a child was a very happy thing. "The activities of this day are generally carried out in the unit of natural courtyards or natural villages, and the content is also very colorful." Li Chunjiao introduced that the Grub Festival in his memory is a set of customs and activities that run through the Spring Festival, including the killing of lice (lice flea eggs), sprinkling stove ash on the ground of the house, eating flower buns, sending grubs (jumping) fleas, "shaking tender bamboo", stepping on stilts to chase the moon rabbit, playing with dragons and putting on flower tubes, burning fireworks and so on.
In the past two years, the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic needs to be stopped, and the activities related to the Toad Festival have been suspended. On February 10, Nanchong issued a notice that the folk culture activities of the 2022 Toad Festival will also be suspended. Li Chunjiao always felt that something was missing in the Spring Festival, so he once again combed the connotation of the Toad Festival in his memory and literature, studied the Toad Festival from the academic perspective of history and culture, and analyzed the unique folk culture value and inheritance innovation of the Nanchong Toad Festival. The results of the study will be shared with you after the start of the next semester.
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