What are the traditional customs and activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day?

There is a traditional custom in Tomb-Sweeping Day to bury the grave and worship the ancestors.

1, willow

Some experts believe that the custom of inserting willows is to commemorate Shennong, the agricultural ancestor who taught people to grow crops. In some places, people put willow branches under the eaves to forecast the weather. There is an old saying that "the willow branches are green and the rain is raining;" The saying that there is another village. Willow has a strong vitality. As the saying goes, "If you plant flowers with your heart, you won't make them grow. If you don't plant flowers with your heart, you will plant willow in the shade. "Wicker lives when it is inserted in the soil, where it is inserted, where it is inserted every year, and the shade is everywhere.

2. Sweeping graves to worship ancestors

Grave-sweeping is the center of Tomb-Sweeping Day custom. In some places, Tomb-Sweeping Day's grave-sweeping is called "sweeping the mountain", "offering sacrifices to heaven" and "offering sacrifices to the mountain", out of respect for ancestors, or as a rhetorical habit of "removing evil words and calling beauty". For example, when Tomb-Sweeping Day visits the grave, it is called going to the grave in the north and "worshipping the mountain" in the south coast, avoiding the words "grave" and "tomb".

Cultural connotation

Tomb-Sweeping Day is the most solemn festival for ancestor worship of the Chinese nation, and it belongs to a traditional cultural festival for ancestor worship. Tomb-Sweeping Day embodies the national spirit, inherits the sacrificial culture of Chinese civilization, and expresses people's moral feelings of respecting and honoring their ancestors. Tomb-Sweeping Day has a long history, which originated from the ancestors' beliefs and spring sacrificial customs of early human beings.

According to the research results of modern anthropology and archaeology, the two most primitive beliefs of human beings are the belief in heaven and earth and the belief in ancestors. According to archaeological excavations, a 10,000-year-old tomb was found at the Qingtang site in Yingde, Guangdong Province, which is the earliest tomb in China, indicating that ancient ancestors had a clear sense of burial behavior and customs thousands of years ago.

Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Tomb-Sweeping Day