The Origin and Characteristics of Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival, which originated in China, was originally a festival in which ancient ancestors offered sacrifices to their ancestors in the form of dragon boat races.

Qu Yuan, a Chu poet in the Warring States Period, committed suicide by throwing himself into the Miluo River during the Dragon Boat Festival, and later took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan. In some places, there are sayings in memory of Wu Zixu, Cao E and meson tui.

Generally speaking, Dragon Boat Festival originated from dragon totem sacrifice. It began on the "bad month and bad day" in the north, injected the seasonal fashion of "getting rid of diseases and preventing epidemic" in summer, and added commemorative contents to commemorate Qu Yuan's suicide by jumping into the river, which finally formed the cultural connotation of today's Dragon Boat Festival.

Characteristics of Dragon Boat Festival:

1, eat zongzi and send zongzi.

Every Dragon Boat Festival, many people always pack a bunch of zongzi at home-two days before the Dragon Boat Festival, housewives often start to get busy and marinate ribs with soy sauce, wine and sugar.

Jiaozi wrapped in red bean paste, red beans must also be cooked and mashed, stirred with lard and sugar and fried until dark red and shiny; Increase the glutinous rice one by one to white fat; Wash the palm leaves bought on the street. Palm leaves must be fresh. Zongzi wrapped in fresh palm leaves often has the smell of bamboo, but the old leaves don't have such a good smell.

2. Insert calamus and Folium Artemisiae Argyi

Besides eating, you can find many different places on this day. Before the festival, the number of people selling calamus, mugwort leaves and sachets will suddenly increase, but at ordinary times, calamus and mugwort leaves are relatively rare.

On the Dragon Boat Festival, early in the morning, villagers from nearby villages came to the city to carry burdens, while vendors shouted for colorful sachets and sachets. The air seems to be full of the fragrance of grass and strong medicinal smell. "Zongzi is fragrant, and the kitchen is fragrant; Artemisia argyi leaves, full of fragrance; Acorus calamus is inserted in the door frame, and when you go out, you can see that the wheat is yellow; There is Duanyang here! "

Step 3 drink realgar wine

In fact, when realgar is mixed into yellow rice wine, it becomes realgar rice wine. But there are not many people who drink realgar wine now, saying it is harmful. In fact, the taste of realgar wine is not good, it is too strong. But many people fell in front of the house, and realgar wine was spilled everywhere. The child's forehead was also painted with the word "Wang" by adults.

4, five-color silk thread

Five-color silk thread is called longevity thread, which is used to exorcise ghosts. Because the Dragon Boat Festival is a five-poison day, not an auspicious day. In rural areas such as Tiantai, there is still a saying that it is called the day of avoiding children. On this day, sachets and sachets are also indispensable. In the past, women would sew sachets, wrap aromatic drugs such as Atractylodes lancea and Realgar with silk, or weave mesh bags with mothballs, which meant expelling insects and evil spirits.

5. Dragon Boat Race

Most of them are in memory of the great poet Qu Yuan. As you can imagine, gongs and drums are loud, and ships are flying around like arrows. It must be fierce.

Extended data:

According to folk custom, on the Dragon Boat Festival, daughters-in-law must go back to their parents' home for the New Year. This custom is called "hiding from the Dragon Boat Festival"

1, hide from the Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival is a custom of the Dragon Boat Festival, which refers to taking a newly married or married daughter home for the New Year. Short for "hiding in the afternoon", it is also called "hiding out". It is customary to take May and May 5th as evil months and days, and it is necessary to ward off evil spirits in everything, because there is a custom of taking women home to ward off evil spirits during the Dragon Boat Festival. This custom seems to have been formed in the Song Dynasty. There is a line in Lu You's poem "Feng Sui" that "the goat cavity wine bears the burden of welcoming women, and the drum dragon boat is sent to compete with God".

"Jiajing Longqing Zhi" also records a cloud: "Marry a woman and call her home for the holidays". Luan Zhou Zhi: "A woman bride welcomes the moon back, which is called" hiding from the Dragon Boat Festival ".

2. It rains on Dragon Boat Festival

It rains on the Dragon Boat Festival, and it is a custom for people to check when they are old. It is unlucky to think that it rains during the Dragon Boat Festival. On the contrary, it is good. This folk belief existed in the Song Dynasty. Chen's Chronicle of Years Old quoted the Summary as saying: "On May 5th, people were poisoned, and at the age of eighteen, there was no disaster. When it rains, ghosts expose drugs and many people get sick. This proverb in Fujian. "

Xu Yueqing's "Li Shizhou Dragon Boat Festival" also notes: "Linchuan people say that when it rains, ghosts will cause man-made disasters. The self-annotation of Zhao Huaiyu's poems in Qing Dynasty also quoted the proverb "No rain in Duanyang is a good year".

In some areas in the north, people like to pick tender leaves and steam wild vegetable leaves to make tea during the Dragon Boat Festival. In Chaozhou, Guangdong, people go to the suburbs of Shan Ye to collect herbs and cook herbal tea. This is also good for health.

Taking a bath with orchid soup at noon is an ancient custom recorded in Da Dai Li. At that time, orchids were not orchids today, but flying grasses of Compositae, which were fragrant and could be decocted and bathed. "Nine songs?" "Jun in the Cloud" also has the sentence "Bathing orchid soup will make you fragrant". "Jingchu years old": "Five

May 5th is called Bathing Orchid Festival. "Five Miscellanies" records that people in Ming Dynasty bathed in five-colored grass at noon because "blue soup is not available". Later, herbs such as cattail and wormwood were usually fried for bathing.

In Guangdong, use wormwood, cattail, impatiens, magnolia and other flowers and plants; In Hunan, Guangxi and other places, cypress leaves, anemone roots, wormwood, cattail and peach leaves are used for bathing. Regardless of men, women and children, the whole family washes. This custom still exists today. It is said that it can cure skin diseases and ward off evil spirits.