On March 30, young pioneers from Xiwang Central Primary School in Baixiang County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province, came to the County's Zhonglu Martyrs Cemetery to hold a Qingming festival sweeping activity. Chestnut Sword Soldier Photo/People's Vision
On the eve of the Qingming Dynasty, children in Huangken Town, Yifeng County, Yichun City, Jiangxi Province, experienced the custom of painting eggs in the Qingming Dynasty. Ho Ho Lai Photography/People's Vision
From solar terms to festivals
Every year around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar, when the sun reaches 15 degrees of ecliptic longitude, it will usher in the Qingming Festival. Qingming is a festival name, but also a festival name. The Qingming Festival is a folk festival formed on the basis of the time of the festival.
As a festival, Qingming was formed in the Tang Dynasty, and as a festival, Qingming appeared as early as the pre-Qin period. The "Pipe" cloud "Twelve Qingming, Forbidden", has clearly mentioned Qingming. According to the Han Dynasty's Huainanzi Astronomical Training, the spring equinox plus fifteen days, dou "refers to B, then the Qingming wind arrives, and the sound is better than Zhonglu". According to the interpretation of the ancients, the reason why this solar term after the spring equinox is called Qingming is because "everything is clear and clear at this time." The three days of the Qingming Dynasty are Tong Shihua, the voles are transformed into wagtails, and the rainbow is first seen. At this time, the sky is clear, the earth is warm, the precipitation increases, the sycamore flowers begin to bloom, the quails fly to the new green branches, and the rainbow begins to appear, and there are moving scenes full of life.
The Evolution of the Qingming Dynasty from Festivals to Festivals in the Tang Dynasty was very closely related to the Han Food Festival, a major folk festival at that time.
The Cold Food Festival, once an important festival in ancient China, was named after the prohibition of using fire and eating cold food during the festival. There are different theories about the origin of the Cold Food Festival. However, scholars mostly agree that the Cold Food Festival appeared in the Han Dynasty and reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty.
Before the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Cold Food Festival was in the middle of winter, with a single custom and activity, and the festival style was sad. Because it cannot be eaten hot and cannot be used by fire, the phenomenon of "old and young, old and dead" has occurred, which has caused official intervention many times. However, the cold food festival was not prohibited, and major changes had taken place by the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. On the one hand, the festival of the Cold Food Festival was moved to the spring, specifically 105 days after the winter solstice; on the other hand, with seasonal foods such as barley porridge, a variety of customary activities such as pick-up, cockfighting, chicken fighting, and cockfighting were developed. In the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival became one of the most popular festivals, and the Tang Dynasty scholar Wang Lengran's "Cold Food Chapter" Yun: "Heavenly fortune becomes a year at four o'clock, and the eight festivals greet each other pitifully." Autumn is precious and winter is expensive, and it is not as good as cold food before spring. ”
Since the Cold Food Festival starts from the 105th day after the winter solstice, according to the calendar at that time, it is exactly one to two days before the Qingming Festival, and the Cold Food Festival is generally more than 3 days long, and the Qingming Festival is actually during the Cold Food Festival, so the related activities of the Cold Food Festival will be held in the Qingming. The customs of the Cold Food Festival in the Tang Dynasty were very rich, including tomb sweeping, changing fire, stepping on green, cockfighting, horse walking, bowing, swinging, chicken skeletonization, etc., these customs and activities continued to the Qingming Festival, so that the Qingming Festival changed its nature and had the identity of the festival. Over time, the cold food and the Qingming Festival gradually merged into one, and the Qingming Festival not only absorbed the customs of the Cold Food Festival, but also inherited the style of the Cold Food Festival.
Rich Qingming customs
"Born without forgetting the sect, thousands of miles to catch up with the grave." Sacrifice is the most important custom of the Qingming Dynasty. The object of the sacrifice is first of all the ancestors who are related by blood. Some people will worship their ancestors at home or in the ancestral hall, but mainly go to the cemetery, so the sacrifice sweep is also called the tomb, the tomb sacrifice, the tomb sacrifice, the tomb worship. In addition to ancestor worship, the Qingming Festival also worships ancestors who have contributed to the country and society. For example, every Qingming Festival, thousands of people will sacrifice the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan at the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum in Qiaoshan County, Shaanxi, the Yanling Emperor in Yanling County, Hunan, and the Water Release Festival will be held in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, to worship Li Bing's father and son who built Dujiangyan. People will also go to the martyrs' cemetery to pay tribute to the revolutionary martyrs. In modern society, many people leave their hometowns to study and work, and they cannot return to their hometowns to worship and sweep during the Qingming Dynasty, so new methods of sacrifice and sweeping such as substitute sacrifices and net sacrifices have emerged.
"Qingming ate green, walking lightly." Qingming Festival has unique eating customs. Generally speaking, the south is dominated by rice culture, and the food of the Qingming Festival is mostly made of rice or rice flour as raw materials, made of green dumplings, mochi, Qingming dumplings, five-color glutinous rice, soft koji dumplings, Qingming dumplings, malt cakes, cocoon dumplings, etc.; in the north, wheat is mainly planted, and grains are planted, and the Food of the Qingming Festival is mostly made of wheat noodles, cornmeal, and multigrain flour as raw materials, making offspring dumplings, steamed noodles, sub-tui swallows, snake pan rabbits, red bean buns, swallow swallows, stone cakes, baby women, wild foxes, etc. These foods are not only used as offerings to ancestors and gods, but also as gifts to relatives, friends, neighbors, and people's good wishes. In the Southwest Lu area, during the Qingming Festival, a food called "more fighting" is often eaten, and before eating, it is necessary to circle around the wheat field a few times, and while turning around, he said: "Fight more and fight more, hit more grain and eat more." Fight more and fight more gods, more grain and more people. "Eating" and "playing more" has the meaning of praying for a good harvest and prosperity.
"Young and old, deaf and blind". Qingming Festival is a spring festival, people take off their heavy winter clothes, walk to the fields or gardens with green grass and flowers, and enjoy the spring light. In addition, there are a variety of recreational activities such as cockfighting, kicking football, tug-of-war, kicking shuttlecocks, swinging, kite flying, etc., which not only get close to nature, but also exercise the body.
Willow cutting is also an important custom of Qingming, and the Qingming Festival is also known as the Willow Festival and the Willow Cutting Festival. People fold willow branches and insert them on doors, eaves, bedsides, windows, stoves, etc., or wear them on their heads, hang them between necklaces, or make willow whistles and hydrangea balls. The willow tree sprouts early, which is a symbol of the arrival of spring, decorating the door and decorating itself with tender green wicker, adding a vibrant spring feeling. The willow tree is alive and has a strong vitality, and in the hearts of the ancients, it has the magical power of "parasitizing with spirits and preserving the abundance of the body". As the saying goes: "Qingming does not wear willows, and the red face becomes hao's head." "People wear willows in Qingming and express their desire to maintain eternal youth.
"As soon as qingming arrives, the farmer jumps." During the Qingming Dynasty, when the temperature rises and the amount of rain increases, it is a good time to raise silkworms and pick mulberries, sow seeds and cultivate, and plant trees, which has formed many agricultural production customs. During the Qingming Dynasty, the southern silkworm farming town worships silkworm gods, white tigers, pick greens, and invite silkworm cats to pray for a good harvest of silkworm cocoons. In North China, there will be "rice cattle", at the beginning of spring ploughing, feed the cattle a delicious meal, reward its hard work, the so-called "beat a thousand, scold ten thousand, eat dry rice under the Qingming Festival"
Thick cultural connotations
The diverse customs of the Qingming Dynasty contain rich cultural connotations. The first is gratitude. "Knowing the gratitude of the map, the good is great". Only by forming a virtuous circle of receiving and giving, receiving grace and returning, can a person establish a good mutual assistance and cooperative relationship with others, can the society continue to operate in an orderly and warm manner, and can human beings and nature live in harmony, coexist and prosper. The Qingming Festival sweep is a solemn ceremony to commemorate the deceased, expressing the remembrance and gratitude for the ancestors of parents, the ancestors of humanities, and the revolutionary martyrs. The sons and daughters of China are grateful together, cultivate a strong sense of family and country, and form a strong national cohesion.
The second is the spirit of timing. This aspect is manifested in respecting the laws of nature and not missing the time of farming. During the Qing and Ming Dynasties, all parts of the country engaged in agricultural production and related activities such as tea picking and silkworm raising, afforestation, and planting melons and beans according to the conditions of the times, and planted the hope of a bumper harvest in the future with diligent hands. On the other hand, the activities carried out by the Qingming Dynasty such as walking green, flying kites, swinging, tug-of-war, and willow cutting are all in line with the climate and natural environment in spring, which is conducive to the expression of vitality and has a positive effect of strengthening the body.
The third is life consciousness. During the Qingming Dynasty, people walked to enjoy the spring, enjoyed a variety of delicious foods, held various entertainment activities, actively enjoyed the joy of life, felt the beauty of life to the fullest, and showed the side of cherishing life. The Qingming Sacrifice sweep is a manifestation of caution in pursuing the distant and respecting the deceased. Not only that, Qingming also carries Chinese deep thinking about the value of life. Chinese actively seek a path beyond limited life and realize the value of life. One of the paths is the inheritance of the bloodline, which makes the Chinese pay special attention to the prosperity of the family, emphasizing the participation of descendants in the ancestral tomb sweeping ceremony, and strengthening family unity through this ritual. The second path is to engage in the "three immortals" cause of morality, meritorious service, and speech. This makes Chinese have a strong sense of life responsibility and a spirit of sacrifice at the cost of life. The remembrance of the ancestors and martyrs on the Qingming Festival is not only gratitude, but also an affirmation and praise for this sense of life responsibility.
Qingming is both a festival and a festival, with joy and mourning coexisting, mourning and rebirth intertwined. It is a ceremony of spring, mellow and full of warmth, and has played an important role in Chinese society for thousands of years. It embodies in a unique way the principles and wisdom of Chinese handling the relationship between man and nature, man and country, man and family, man and self, living and deceased, etc., and is also of positive significance for the construction of a new form of human civilization today.
(The author is a researcher at Beijing Studies Research Base of Beijing Union University)