[New Tang Dynasty News, Beijing time, April 4, 2024]April 4 this year is Tomb Sweeping Day, which is a day for Chinese people to honor their ancestors. There are many taboos on this day. To put it simply: one is not to buy; the other is not to borrow; the third is not to do anything. Chinese elders often warn younger generations that these old traditions cannot be lost.
Qingming Festival is an important sacrificial festival in China. There are some customs and taboos spread throughout China. They are summarized as follows:
1. Don’t buy shoes
There is a folk saying that “new shoes should not step on the graves of old people”, which means that you cannot wear new shoes to visit the graves, let alone buy new shoes on this day. The older generation believes that you cannot buy shoes on Tomb Sweeping Day because “shoes” has the same pronunciation as “evil”, and you should avoid evil spirits and evil spirits.
2. Don’t borrow money
During the Qingming Festival, people will burn paper money for their ancestors. The older generation believes that Qingming is a day to send money to ancestors. It is very unlucky to borrow money from others on this day.
Three Don’ts: Don’t get married, don’t celebrate birthdays, don’t add dirt
Tomb-Sweeping Day is a day to remember and express gratitude to ancestors, and to express grief. There is a poem that says: “It rains heavily during Qingming Festival, and pedestrians on the road feel like dying.” Such an atmosphere will inevitably be incompatible with the joyful weddings and happy events. According to traditional customs, the week before and after Qingming Festival is not suitable for marriage to avoid getting into trouble.
The same goes for celebrating birthdays. This is a happy thing, but it would feel inappropriate to do it at the same time as offering sacrifices to ancestors with mourning. Therefore, it is best not to celebrate your birthday on Qingming Day. You can celebrate it earlier or later.
When visiting the tombs to worship ancestors during the Qingming Festival, some new soil will be filled in the tombs, but filling the soil is also particular. When shoveling, start from the left and right sides, never start from the front or back of the grave. Old people say that shoveling soil from the front will ruin the future of descendants, while shoveling soil from the back will affect the prosperity of the population; in addition, during the filling process, do not hit the grave with a shovel.
It is worth noting that this year’s Qingming Festival falls on Wu Day, and “Wu Day” is the festival of the Earth God. You cannot dig soil on Wu Day.
It is recorded in “Nüqing Tianlu” that the Queen Mother said: “All the people are ignorant. During the four seasons, on the day of Liuwu, the fields are plowed, so that the water does not fall, the grains are not harvested, and the people suffer from hunger. Because of knowing If you commit a crime, it will bring disaster to the Nine Ancestors, and they will never recover for eternity, and there will be no way to forgive them. Digging the earth in Chunwu will make people live longer and eliminate heirs.”
Planting willows during the Qingming Festival to ward off evil spirits
Wearing and inserting willows is a custom of the ancients during the Qingming Festival. Willow trees have strong vitality. The ancients said that willow branches have the function of warding off evil spirits. In the Song Dynasty, after people visited the tombs, they often broke off the willow branches from the side of the tomb and inserted them on the graves. They also took the willow branches home and inserted them on the lintels of their doors to ward off evil spirits.
Lu You, a poet of the Song Dynasty, wrote in “Spring Day” that “people plant willows to remember the Qingming Festival.” A proverb from the Song Dynasty said, “If you don’t wear a willow during the Qingming Festival, a beauty will turn into a bright head.” This added the meaning of wearing a willow to protect your youth.
A proverb in the Qing Dynasty said, “If you don’t wear a willow during the Qingming Festival, you will turn into a yellow dog in the next life” (“The Records of the Imperial Capital”). At that time, children wore willows to pay tribute to their tombs (“The Records of the Imperial Capital”).
Outing, spring outing
Qingming Festival is also called the Outing Festival. Traveling during the Qingming Festival originated from the ancient “祓禊” (pronounced the same as “Fuxi”). This custom of going to the river to cleanse oneself from evil origins from the Zhou Dynasty’s ritual of purifying one’s body with vanilla.
The Spring Exorcism is held on the first Si day of March (Shangsi), when the heaven and earth are clear and bright. It is the best time of the year to eliminate impurities and keep fit. People in the Zhou Dynasty used aromatic herbs to bathe and cleanse the body, which is called “provoking bath”.
“Han Shi” records that in the Spring and Autumn Period, the people of Zheng State went to the river for an outing on the first day of the third month of the lunar calendar, and used orchid grass on the Qinjiang River to drive away the ominous atmosphere on their bodies.
Later, it evolved into the custom of drinking from water cups and going outing in various places. Meng Haoran, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem, “Spring grass grows every year, and I go out for a walk in February and March.” There is also a poem by Li Jiayou, “The mulberry leaves are small during the Qingming Festival, and the apricot blossoms are sparse during the rain… We are about to go out for an outing, but we don’t know how to cherish our clothes.” ”. They all describe people’s outing customs before and after Qingming Festival.
Flying kites during the Qingming Festival to get rid of disasters
During the Qing Dynasty, there was a folk custom of “flying kites” during the Qingming Festival. Kite is also called paper kite or paper kite. There is a saying that “breaking the kite during the Qingming Festival will release disasters”. “Breaking the kite” is homophonic with “breaking medicine”, which means letting go of disasters.
People bring kites to the graves when they go out of the city to sweep the tombs. After sweeping the tombs and paying homage, they fly the kites in the cemetery. People write the disasters and illnesses they want to eliminate on the kite, and then fly the kite into the sky. After the kite flies far away with the wind, they cut the silk thread, which means that the disaster will disappear with the kite (paper kite).
Pan Rongbi, a native of the Qing Dynasty, recorded in the book “The Record of Success in the Imperial Capital” that people played kite flying competitions during the Qingming Festival, which reached a grand occasion of “alluring people out of the city”.
(Editor: Tang Ying)
2024-04-04 15:56:00
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