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Traditional grave sweeping process in Chaoshan area of Tomb-Sweeping Day

Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the 24 solar terms in China and a traditional folk festival in China. According to the lunar calendar, Qingming Festival has no fixed month or date, but it is always in February or March, that is, from last winter to 106 days later. According to the solar calendar, it is April 5 or 4 (depending on whether February is a flat year or a leap year). The origin of the word "Qingming", according to "A Hundred Questions at the Age of Years", said: "Everything grows clean and bright, hence the name Qingming."

Tomb-Sweeping Day is also called "Willow Festival", and inserting willows is a very common activity among the people. Wei Zanshi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, "The streets are full of willow and green smoke, drawing a clear March day." There is a saying in Song Ci that "the festival is near Qingming, and the willow is inserted into the play." "I suddenly saw every family, only to know that today is Qingming ..."

The influx of people from across Tomb-Sweeping Day has some similarities and differences with the customs and activities all over the country, and it has a strong local color, such as eating pancakes, steaming vegetarian oranges, sweeping graves, and having an outing. Among them, sweeping graves is the theme of Chaoshan Tomb-Sweeping Day. Folk grave-sweeping is called "hanging paper" (hanging paper money), which is different from sweeping graves from winter to Sunday. Qingming is called "hanging spring paper". People go to ancestral graves to worship, inscribe inscriptions on Dan books, trim cemeteries and cut weeds. Overseas Chinese often visit graves in their hometown in Tomb-Sweeping Day to show that they don't forget their ancestors and homeland.

Contemporary Qingming sweeping graves is no longer confined to the people. After the founding of New China, organs, organizations and schools advocated commemorating the heroes and heroes, and often organized teams to hold commemorative activities in cemeteries, monuments and cemeteries of revolutionary heroes and heroes in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Chaozhou people has the custom of Tomb-Sweeping Day's sweeping graves to worship ancestors.

Grave sweeping is carried out two or three days before the festival to three days after the festival. Early or late is regarded as disrespect for the dead.

When people go to the cemetery, they first pull out weeds and miscellaneous trees in front of and on the tomb, clean them up, and then paint the words on the stone tablet with red paint. After the sacrifice, a note will be pressed on the tomb. If the new grave was built after Tomb-Sweeping Day last year, twelve Ming coins were pressed down at the top of the monument, and thirteen coins were pressed down in the leap month, which were used to bury the dead. Five or seven layers of paper should be pressed on the grave. How wide the pressure is this year, how wide it will be next year, and it cannot be expanded or reduced. It is said that this is the scope of the deceased's "land rent". There must be boiled clams for grave-sweeping offerings, which are pressed with paper when eating, meaning that they are reserved for ancestors as money. There is a rule for pressing money: the newly built grave last year is called "Xinhua News Agency" this year, and red and white notes should be pressed. From now on, it will be pressed with white paper every year. Because it is inseparable from paper, sweeping graves is commonly known as "passing paper".

Grave-sweeping is a very solemn ceremony, which often involves families, clans, villages and mountains. Every year, a person sponsors grave sweeping. If the ancestors left property, the brothers in the family took turns to take charge of the grain and rent rented from public land every year and used it to prepare offerings. After the ancestor worship, the offerings will be distributed to everyone. When having dinner in front of the tomb, if the ancestors left no legacy, the offerings will be distributed equally according to the population (male). When eating, offerings are distributed according to the number of people who attend the grave-sweeping, so as to encourage relatives to visit the grave.

Tomb-Sweeping Day's grave-sweeping is called "Spring Club". In addition to "Spring Society", there are also "Winter Paper" around October 15th of the lunar calendar every year. In the past, people who were not well off read Spring Club, and only rich people read Winter Paper. The weather is cool because there is little rain in autumn. It is more convenient to hold grand ancestor worship ceremonies and banquets in Shan Ye.

For some reason, when a grave has not been visited for many years, it is necessary to choose an auspicious day and kill a rooster as a sacrifice to eliminate the evil spirits in front of the grave. In addition to commemorating ancestors, sweeping graves also means showing the decline of the family and the amount of financial resources.

No matter where you go, this custom in chaozhou people has been handed down, which can be confirmed by chaozhou people overseas. Because of these customs, this is the root and this is the foundation! ! ! Chaozhou people is busy again. ...