"Roundabout Morning Glory Star, Kyaukgyao River Han Girl." Tanabata Festival is coming again, are you ready to spend the festival with your male gods and goddesses, and tell each other their hearts?
However, if you want to think that Tanabata has been a festival of "show love" since ancient times, then you are too simple! Tanabata of the ancients, do not love shows, love elegance!
On the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, it is known as the "Beggar's Festival", and the worship activities are held on the evening, so it is also called "Tanabata". The legend of Tanabata must be familiar to everyone. According to legend, the Emperor of Heaven vigorously opposed and destroyed the love between the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, and separated them in the north and south of the Tianhe River, and were not allowed to meet, only once a year on July and Tanabata. The "Nineteen Ancient Poems" has the sentence "Between the waters, the pulse is not spoken", which is written that the little couple is blocked.
However, the earliest credible record of the festival of July 7 comes from the Eastern Han Dynasty. The festival was originally not associated with the legend of the cowherd weaver girl. The Seventh Book of the Jade Candle And the Seventh Month of Mengqiu in July quotes the Eastern Han Dynasty scholar Cui Yi (shí) from the Four People's Moon Order:
"On the fourth day, he was ordered to rule the chamber, and to take the hammer in his book and take the net ai; on the sixth day, he served and cured the five grain abrasives; and on the seventh day he made a squirrel and a mill. It is also a day, can be combined with blue pills and Shuqi pills, exposing scriptures and clothes, making dry rice, picking hui ear also. ”
It can be seen that the original Tanabata was a festival for the ancients to dry books and clothes.
In "The New Language of the World", there is also a more interesting story about Tanabata:
"Hao Long lies on his back in the middle of the sunrise on the seventh of July. When asked why, he replied, "I dry my books." ”
That is to say, Hao Long, a person, engaged in performance art on the day of Tanabata. When others dry things, he drys himself, which is called "drying books".
In that era, this custom of exposure to sun and moisture was very grand and solemn, and on the day of the Tanabata Festival, from the royal to the commoners, the whole country would enthusiastically devote itself. A common labor, it also acquires the sense of ritual necessary for the festival.
Exposure itself belongs to labor, although it has gained a sense of ceremony, but after all, it is not very entertaining, and in the long run, such a festival is likely to decline. Fortunately, a weaver girl and a cowherd arrived later. Thus, another core custom of Tanabata emerged.
The legend of the cowherd weaver girl turns the main body of Tanabata into a young woman, and Tanabata is therefore called "Daughter's Day", or Women's Day.
The legend of the weaver girl's emotional destruction is reminiscent of the grievances of the daughter after leaving home. So this day has become the ancient new daughter-in-law "back to the mother's home" day, folk parents for the newly married daughter,every july seven to take home, meaning to protect the daughter and son-in-law's happy life.
In addition to returning to her mother's home, "begging" is the highlight of the Tanabata Festival. It is said that the Weaver Girl is a skilled worker, so on the day of Tanabata, women of all generations have to beg the Weaver Girl for help, hoping to learn good skills. The Southern Dynasty Liang Dynasty Emperor Zong wrote in the "Jingchu Chronicle": "On the seventh day of July, it was the night of the gathering of the morning glory weavers. On the eve of the night, the women of the family knotted colorful wisps, wore seven-hole needles, or used gold, silver and jade as needles, and Chen Ji feasted on wine and prodigy fruits in the court. There is a hi subnet on the melon, then think that the symbol should be. It can be seen that Tanabata begging was very popular during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and worshipping double stars, needles under the moon, spider web silk, etc. became the main customs.
Begging with Kiko is one of the most popular ways for folk women. Kiko refers to spiders of the family Schoenidae. If Xiao Fei made a net on the melon fruit offered to the gods, it was a sign of begging for cleverness, and the denser the net, the more skillful it was. Because spider webs and human weaving have some similarities, the girls often catch a Xiao Gong in Tanabata and put it in the box for a night, wait until dawn to open the box, and everyone compares with each other who has more Xiao Gong knots. The more nets, the more skillful the girl's hands this year.
Well, worm-feared girls, if you were born in ancient times, you probably wouldn't be able to play the tarot cards of that era happily with other girls
In the court, the way of "begging" was more elegant. Wang Jian's "Palace Words" said: "Every year in the palace, the needle is worn at night, and the relatives are given to beg Qiao Gui." "The Beggars House is mainly used as a stage for Beggars performances. The palace women each hold a special seven-hole needle in the palace, with five-colored silk thread to the moon needle, the needle hole is small, the silk thread is thin, the moonlight is faint, the night wind is strong, if the girls can wear it smoothly, it is "clever". The qiao girl was excited for the coincidence, and the onlookers cheered in unison.
Emperor Tang Ming was arguably the most ardent advocate of Beggar Qiao, and he and Yang Guifei also exchanged heartfelt feelings on Qixi: "In heaven wish to be a bird with wings, in the earth wish to be a branch." ”
Ancient Jiangnan also has such a custom: embroidery girls will be in the night moonlight, the embroidery needle will be gently placed on a bowl of water, with the help of the surface tension of the water to float the needle holder, in the moonlight, the needle will appear around the water ripples, which one of the most complex ripples, will embroider the best work, sometimes the needle is worn with red silk, which means to the weaver girl "begging". The Tang Dynasty poet Lin Jie's poem "Beggar Qiao" said: "Qixi tonight to see the blue sky, cowherd weaver girl crossing the river bridge, family beggar qiao look at the autumn moon, wear tens of thousands of red silk." ”
Obviously, ancient women celebrating festivals was not as simple as buying, buying and buying! It was an era that belonged to the daughter-in-law!
In addition to begging, you can also beg for something else. On the day of beggars, there is also the custom of asking for children. A few days before tanabata, first put a layer of soil on a small wooden board, sow the seeds of corn, let it produce green and oily seedlings, and then put some small huts and flowers and trees on it, make it look like a small village of farmhouses, become "shell boards", or soak mung beans, beans, wheat, etc. in a porcelain bowl, wait for it to grow sprouts, and then tie a bunch of red and blue silk rope.
In addition to the Daughter's Day custom, the first seven days of July also carry a hint of book aroma. July 7 is the birthday of Kui Xing, and the folk call it "Kui Xing's main literary affair". In Fujian and Taiwan, especially the readers of the "Qixi Festival", they have the custom of "worshiping the Kui Star" and praying for their own luck and prosperity. Kui Star is the first star of the Big Dipper. In ancient times, when the emperor was called "The Great Que Tianxia Corporal" or "Won the Championship in One Fell swoop", it was because the KuiXing was in charge of the examination luck. The ceremony of "worshiping KuiXing" is also held in the moonlight, in the area of eastern Fujian, "Qixi" this night, the patio is often placed "Worship Weaver Girl", "Worship Kui Star" two incense cases, ladies gather together, and are divided into two small worlds with relatively different genders, which are very lively and interesting.
Chinese festivals tend to pay attention to eating, but the Tanabata Festival does not seem to leave much of a tradition of "eating".
Ancient books have little record of Tanabata cuisine, but in the Taiping Imperial Records we can vaguely see Tanabata's emphasis on food:
"Wei Shiren may have asked Dong Xunyun: 'July 7 is a good day, and the diet is different from the ancients, so why not?' Xun Yun: "The month of July is ripe, and the seven days are the yang number, so the rice is precious, and on this day there is only soup cake that has no more rice." ’”
However, this custom of eating "mime" has disappeared as early as the time of the Zhou Dynasty. Over the next thousand years, there have been a variety of Tanabata specialties, but none of them have been widely spread and passed down to this day.
It is only in recent years that barbecues have taken on this function. However, like lanterns and mooncakes, barbecue is not a healthy diet for most modern people.
Here, Xiaobian also calls on everyone to cherish health and choose plant-based foods as foods that carry Tanabata culture! If you like to buy, buy and buy, you can also learn from the ancient people, do handicrafts on this day, practice skillful hands, and live an elegant Tanabata Festival!