In many costume dramas, it is not difficult to find that the pillow shape inside is mostly rectangular and basically wooden. So many people have such a confusion: when the ancients slept, their heads were placed on such a hard wood, would they not panic? Even if it can be pillowed on a soft fabric, if the ancients were to choose, they would rather pillow on wood or ceramics. In fact, this small wooden hard pillow is of great use to the ancients.
The ancients invented the word "pillow", and from its beginning, it can be deduced that it is linked to wood. But what may surprise you is that the word "pillow" is "sleeping" by our old acquaintance Cao Cao. Once Cao Cao picked up a lamp to read at night and suddenly fell sleepy. His bookboy did not have time to remove a stack of wooden boxes of military books at the head of the bed, so Cao Cao fell asleep on his head, resting on the pillow on the military book, and the bookboy found that he slept very peacefully when he was usually tossing and turning. The next day, the book boy presented a carved wooden box to Cao Cao, who felt inexplicable. After listening to the book boy's magical story, he named it "Pillow" and carried it on the march.
Ancient wood resources are very rich, pillows originally used wood, naturally in line with the principle of "relying on the mountain to eat the mountain, relying on the water to draft water".
Over time, the ancients found that although the pillow of this hard state was not very comfortable, it had its own unique "charm". It is worth mentioning that the pillows of the ancients were not pillowed on the back of the head, but supported the cervical spine.
When the person lies flat, the head is slightly tilted back in the air, and the hair is coiled up, which can provide support for the cervical spine and effectively prevent cervical spondylosis.
In the ancient heat, it was no better than today's air conditioning to adjust the temperature, and it was cool in all four seasons. On summer nights, the ancients were prone to restless sleep. Although the texture of the pillow in ancient times is very hard, it is a well-deserved product to keep cool when sleeping on a hot night. In addition to wooden pillows, the ancients also made ceramics into pillows, and the royal family and nobles made jade into pillows - jade pillows. Li Qingzhao mentioned the experience of pillow jade pillow in "Drunken Flower Yin":
Festive and heavy sun, jade pillow yarn cabinet, cool in the middle of the night.
A "cool" word, reflecting the hard pillow that the ancients were keen on, is indeed a summer artifact!
The ancients were popular for hair growth, and the "Filial Piety Sutra" has clouds: the skin of the body, received by the parents. Therefore, in ancient times, both men and women liked to have long hair. In ancient times, the living standard was backward, washing hair was not as convenient as it is today, generally using sawdust and fine sand, wrapping the oil sludge of the hair, and then repeatedly combing with grates, but also washing with rice water or grass and wood ash, it took a long time to dry, and then re-bundled. Therefore, the frequency of washing hair by the ancients was not high, and they especially cared for the cleanliness of their hair. Therefore, when sleeping, men often comb their hair on the side of the head, women have more hair, often use a wooden stick to roll up the hair and get stuck, at this time the height and structure of the hard pillow play a major role - the neck is stuck, the head is fixed, the hair can be easily combed on the side, the hairstyle will not be messy!
In addition, the pillow also plays the role of an alarm alarm. In order to obtain the name of merit, the ancients reminded themselves every moment that they could not be sleepy, so they invented a kind of log pillow - police pillow, also known as the wake pillow, similar to the suspension beam thorn strands, if you move a little while sleeping, the head will slide off the pillow to wake up. In this way, prevent a sleep deprivation. It is recorded in the "Cold Lu Miscellaneous Hours":
King Qian Wusu used a police pillow, and Sima Wengong also used a police pillow. Xingwang Xianxiang, industriousness is the same also. ”
It seems that if the ancients wanted to get a meritorious name, they still had to read more books and sleep less!
Of course, ancient pillows also have the use of storage, storage refers to storage in the pillow, rather than pressing under the pillow. Ancient lacquered wooden or inlaid jade pillows resembled a cassette box in which some items could be stored. Therefore, people collect precious simple books and books, which are called "pillow books". The Book of Yue Zhi and the Outer Tale of the Pillow records:
Ibny was placed in a pillow as a treasure
—"——The King of Yue practiced the way of governing his vassal Fan Li, written in cinnabar, and stored it in a pillow box.
So, are the pillows of the ancients hard? Not really. One such cultural relic, silk pillow, was excavated from the Mawangdui Western Han Tomb in Hunan Province, which belongs to soft sleeper wood. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, pillows made of ceramics gradually disappeared, replaced by soft silk fabric pillows, and cloth pillows began to be popular among the people. I don't know if the ancients slept on such a comfortable pillow, would they still like to pick up the lamp to read at night and smell the chicken dancing?
The small hard pillow of the ancients contains great wisdom, and behind this hard pillow is also flashing the beautiful qualities of the ancients such as self-discipline, cleanliness, time-saving, and heavy sage. Even if we now sleep on the exquisite Simmons four-piece set and rest on the comfortable soft pillow, we still have to uphold the good qualities of our ancestors, always warn ourselves, cherish time, work hard, and live up to Shaohua.
Wen | the miscellaneous history of the | of the South Study
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