Qingming has a unique position in the Chinese age system, is a major commemoration day of the Chinese nation, most of the ethnic groups in China have Qingming or similar to the Qingming ancestor worship day, the ancestor mourning and sacrifice is an important part of the traditional social life. To this day, ancestor worship is still a major event in folk life. Every year during the Qingming Festival, not only the relatives living around the ancestral tombs have to go to the grave to make sacrifices, a large number of Overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan compatriots have also rushed back to their ancestral homes to pay homage to the ancestral spirits, and the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum and Xuanyuan Temple in Qiaoshan, Shaanxi Are the sacrifice sites of the Chinese nation.
Among the folk festivals that have been passed down to this day, only the Qingming Dynasty is a folk festival with festivals and festivals (although the winter solstice has a considerable status in history, it has a small influence today, except for local areas). As one of the twenty-four solar terms, the Qingming Dynasty was originally mainly a sign of the season, 107 days after the winter solstice, 15 days after the spring equinox, and around April 5 in the Gregorian calendar. The Huainanzi Astronomical Training says: Fifteen days after the spring equinox, when the handle of the Big Dipper points to the B position, the wind will arrive. Qingming wind is one of the eight winds in ancient times, it is warm and refreshing, under the gentle spring wind, the heavens and the earth are clear, the air is fresh, and all natural things show vitality. The "Qingming" solar terms got their name from this. Qingming is the agricultural season of spring ploughing and spring planting, and the agricultural proverb has "before and after the Qingming Dynasty, plant melons and beans". The guiding significance of Qingming in agricultural affairs still serves the production activities of farmers. Before the Han and Wei dynasties, Qingming mainly referred to natural solar terms, which were general festivals closely related to agricultural activities. Later generations became an important festival of the Qingming Dynasty, and at this time it was carried by another folk festival, which is the Cold Food Festival. Cold food Two or one day before the Qingming Dynasty, the prohibition of fire and cold food, tomb sacrifices and witchcraft games constitute a special landscape of cold food festivals. Regarding cold food, another article is discussed, and it is omitted here.
Qingming really became a folk festival after the Tang and Song dynasties, and it took a different route than the traditional festivals. Ancient festivals generally follow the seasons of the festival, but away from the time of the solar terms, another folk festival is generated, and this path is taken from spring to new year, summer solstice to dragon boat festival. However, Qingming did not follow this cultural habit, and it adopted the cold food festival customs under its own name, and at the same time, Qingming also changed its own nature. After the Tang and Song dynasties, Qingming had the dual meaning of seasons and festivals, and its festival significance was increasing day by day. In the four hours and eight festivals, qingming appeared late, but the influence was quite prominent, why so, intriguing.
Although the Qingming Dynasty came out late, it has a long historical source, which is the synthesis and sublimation of traditional spring customs. For the sacrifice of ancestors in China has always attached great importance to, the ancient four hours of the festival in the spring sacrifice of the temple of the big ceremony called the spring (later the spring temple) ceremony, when the time without the tomb sacrifice of the custom, to sacrifice the deceased ancestors, set up a "corpse" god lord, in the zongmiao temple sacrifice. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the atmosphere of tomb sacrifice became increasingly strong, according to a joke recorded in mencius, there was a poor man in the country of Qi who had nothing to do and had a good face, and his people went out, often returned home drunk, claiming that they had many rich friends, commanding their wives and concubines, and their wives were suspicious and secretly followed, and found that their husbands were not in and out of the rich house, but begging between the cemeteries. It can be seen that at that time, there was already a custom of worshipping ancestors in the cemetery area with wine and food. However, this custom seems to be limited to the families of people with a certain social status, and it is not common for the low-status and financially weak class of ordinary people. In the Han Dynasty, with the popularity of Confucianism, the expansion of clan life, people due to the needs of real social life, the concept of returning to the ancestors and pursuing the ancestors is growing, people pay more and more attention to the tombs sent by the souls of the ancestors, and the wind of tomb sacrifices has become popular. For example, Yan Yannian was not far away from the Beijing Division and "returned to the East China Sea to sweep the graveyard."
The Tang people followed the custom of sacrificing tombs in previous generations and expanded to the entire society. Judging from the records of the Book of Rites, there was no custom of going to the tomb in the spring to sweep in ancient times, but it had become a common practice in the Tang Dynasty, and Tang Xuanzong, in view of the fact that the Shishu family did not have cold food to go to the tomb to sweep, so he issued an edict that "the shishu house, it is advisable to go to the tomb, compile into the five rites, and always be the norm" (Old Book of Tang, Xuanzong Ji). The imperial court fixed the custom of civil tomb sweeping in the form of government decrees in the cold food festival before the Qingming, because of the connection between cold food and the Qingming festival day, the cold food festival custom was associated with the Qingming very early, the cold food forbidden fire, the Qingming fire, the tomb sweeping was also extended from cold food to Qingming, the Tang people have the cold food Qingming and said, Bai Juyi's "Cold Food Wild Hope Yin" described the cold food scene "Black crying magpie noise dim trees, Qingming cold food who cries.". Every time in the Qingming Dynasty, "the fields and roads, the soldiers and women are full, and the lowly servants and servants all have to go to the tomb of their parents" (Liu Zongyuan," "Book with Xu Jingzhao"). Qingming not only shared the function of sacrificing tombs from the cold food, but also put some of the game entertainment that originally belonged to the cold food festival under its own name, such as keju and swing are the famous festivals of cold food, which has also become the entertainment of the Qingming, Du Fu's "Qingming" poem Yun: "Ten years of trampling will be far away, and the customs of the swing are the same." "If it is said that the cold food of the Tang Dynasty is juxtaposed with the Qingming, and the status of the Qingming is inferior to the cold food, then the Qingming of the Song Dynasty has basically completed the substitution of the cold food, in addition to the prohibition of fire and cold food is still unique to the cold food, the Qingming has undertaken many of the ritual functions that originally belonged to the cold food." During the Ming and Qing dynasties, cold food basically died out, and the spring festival except for the New Year was clear.
Yuan· Qian Xuan, "Linsu Hanchen Song Taizu Keju Diagram" (partial)
The festival of the year is the symbol of the people's time paragraph, time in the traditional folk life, is not the kind of uniform physical time as we understand it today, time for them, has a different nature, the nature of time is determined according to the attributes of its yin and yang five elements. Therefore, the traditional festivals are divided into three categories in the time classification of the people, namely, human festivals such as Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival, Ghost Festival with Qingming Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, and October 1st, and God Festival with March 3, June 6, and September 9. The human festival focuses on human activities, the ghost festival focuses on the pursuit of the dead, the god festival naturally sacrifices the gods, in fact, the three are often implicated in folk festivals, personnel activities can not be separated from the help of the ghost gods, and the sacrifice of the ghost gods is ultimately for the life of the world. The ancients have long believed that people die as ghosts, ghosts have good and evil, as the ancestors of the deceased, they are naturally a kind of good ghosts, and they need to be worshipped religiously. In the four hours of sacrifice, ancestor sacrifice has always been the main content of sacrifice, the word "ghost" in ancient times is not pejorative, the old interpretation is "return", if analyzed from the perspective of faith, it is probably believed that people at that time believed that people returned to the original place after death. Human ghosts are only ghosts opposite to natural gods, and descendants are called ancestral gods because of changes in beliefs, ghosts, which are derogatory, so ancestors are not called human ghosts, but called ancestral gods. However, in some ethnic minority areas or remote villages where traditional customs are preserved, there is still a distinction between domestic ghosts and wild ghosts. Among the three major mourning festivals, Qingming is the first, and later generations generally do not directly call Qingming a ghost festival, while for Zhongyuan and October Shuo, they are generally named as ghost festivals. The slight difference is that Qingming focuses on the sacrifice of the ancestors in the tomb and the expression of filial piety, while the other two sections focus on the sacrifice of death, and also take care of the lonely souls and wild ghosts, hoping to appease the ghosts through sacrifices and prevent the wandering souls from causing trouble.
Ancestor worship is the center of the Qingming Festival. As soon as the Qingming Dynasty arrived, people were busy going to the graves to sweep, and the folk proverb had "In March, the Qingming Rains, and Every Household Goes to the Ancestral Grave" (Hubei). Whether it is the suburbs or the countryside, the tomb sweeping of the ancestors of the Qingming Dynasty is surprisingly lively, and the momentum and pomp of the ancient imperial court sacrifice to sweep the mausoleum needless to say, that is, the ordinary people are also carrying baskets and boxes, carrying paper and candles, and competing for the cemetery. The time of the festival is not limited to the day of the Qingming Dynasty, but can be within the range of the first three days and the last four days. Folk have the saying that "the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty, the first three and the last four". Such customary provisions obviously provide people with convenient time choices, especially for those who go out of the city to worship the tomb, do not have to be crowded in the crowds on the day of the Qingming Dynasty.
The tomb sacrifice sweep includes two contents: one is to hang paper and burn money; the other is to cultivate the grave. Before the Tang Dynasty, there was a custom of burning money to sacrifice to the dead, but because of the prohibition of fire during the cold food, the tomb sacrifice could not be cremated paper money, people inserted and hung the money paper in the cemetery or on the tomb tree, and some pressed on the head of the grave, indicating that the descendants sent fees to the ancestors. This kind of sacrifice custom changed by the prohibition of fire was questioned by some people at that time, "three days without fire paper money, paper money that gets yellow spring" (Tang), but once the folk custom is formed, it often becomes a specific folk tradition, it is still circulating in the environment where fire has been prohibited in later generations, and hanging money has become one of the characteristics of the Qingming tomb festival. With the relaxation of the custom of cold food and fire prohibition, the popularity of the Qingming tomb, in the Qingming tomb festival, people are no longer taboo to burn paper money, and then say that Qingming is originally a day to drill a new fire, "a new fire before the god a furnace of incense", naturally has its spiritual response. The custom of burning paper money and hanging paper money coexists. In modern Wuhan, the Qingming Tomb Festival, known as the "Mountain Head Sacrifice", on the day of the sacrifice sweep, the late generations must wear hemp and wear filial piety, hold the sacrifice banner, burn red candles, offer treasure rice, and offer gold dollars. The rich and noble family burned 91 kilograms of money paper to express their wish for the deceased to "live nine deaths and one life", and the food offered must include meat buns and incense cakes, so that the deceased can get rid of the evil dog when he is reincarnated and steps out of hades. Repairing tombs, cultivating new soil, and removing weeds are another activity of tomb sweeping in the Qingming Dynasty. In the spring before the rain came, people took the opportunity of the Qingming sacrifice to clean the graves, which not only saved the ancestors, but also fulfilled their filial piety. The Tang people were very concerned about this custom and behavior, "but there is no new soil in the long soil, and the white bone in this should have no owner" (Wang Jian's "Cold Food Line"), and whether there is new soil on the tomb can judge whether the tomb owner has descendants or not. At present, some villages still use the presence or absence of Tomb Sacrifice activities as a sign of whether the family is continuous, and the folk have the saying that "there are descendants, hang Qingming, no descendants, and a light grave". Qingming sacrifice sweeping in the traditional patriarchal society really can not be ignored. Folk also have a set of spontaneously formed custom pressure, "Qingming does not worship the ancestors, dead become pigs and dogs" proverb, which is a warning to those who try not to fulfill the obligation of ancestor worship.
In addition to the "mountain sacrifice" of sweeping the tombs, there are ancestral hall sacrifices in later generations, called "temple sacrifices", temple sacrifices and ancient spring festivals have a close relationship, although the two are far apart in time, the blood is indeed connected. Temple festivals are common gatherings of clans, and some places are directly called "Qingminghui" or "Eating Qingming". After the ancestral worship ceremony, the patriarch presided over the major affairs of the clan, admonished the family law and family rules, and finally gathered to eat and drink. Sharing the blessings of the ancestors and reuniting the clan in the form of eating and drinking together is an ancient tradition, the so-called "family brothers with the gift of food" ("Zhou Li, Great Patriarch"). As recorded in the Book of Poetry gong liu, "Clinging to the prison, using the dagger as you please, eating and drinking, and the emperor's sect." In later generations, the cost of ancestor worship is generally paid by the rent of the special sacrifice field, which is the property of the ancestral family. In modern Yunhe, Zhejiang, there is a special "sacrifice god rent", which is rotated by each room every year, and the undertaker prepares a banquet in the Qingming Dynasty to entertain the tomb sweepers, and the more people come, the better, called "scattered sacrifice gods". Some are divided into tables according to the room, and the seats under the room are not enough, so they stand in the corner of the table and squeeze to eat, and they are also happy. Some people, one or two or three people at a table, ate tears and were sad for the decline of the people in the house (Chen Delai, editor-in-chief of "Zhejiang Folk Customs Grand View", p. 28).
Qingming is in a season of vigorous vitality, but also a season of yin and yin, people on the one hand to thank the grace of ancestors and relatives, at the same time in the form of cultivating soil, exhibition of tombs, hanging green to show the prosperity of future generations. The ancestral dwelling in the grave is related to the prosperity of the descendants, and the prosperity of the descendants can ensure the tranquility of the ancestors and the continuation of the incense, which is a "reciprocal relationship" (see [Japanese] Watanabe Shino and Zhou Xing, translated by "Folk Religion of the Han Nationality", p. 31, Tianjin People's Publishing House). Such ancestral cemeteries are not only the root of life, but also the knot of emotions, in traditional society, people no matter where they go, they are worried about the township tombs.
Stepping on the green is another important festival of Qingming. During the Qingming Dynasty, the willows are green, the natural world is full of vitality, and people take outings through the tombs. Before the Tang Dynasty, cold food and Qingming were two festivals with different themes, one was nostalgic mourning, and the other was to seek new protection. Cold food forbidden fire cold food sacrifice tomb, Qingming take a new fire to travel out. One yin and one yang, one breath for a lifetime, the two have a close cooperative relationship; the prohibition of fire is for fire, and the sacrifice is intended to be born, which is the internal cultural basis for the later Qing Ming annexation of cold food. The original meaning of outdoor sports in the Qingming season is to conform to the times, is the moon is full of vitality, yang qi vents, all things sprout, people take the initiative to conform, and then promote the popularity of the times. Walking, bowing, swinging, tug-of-war, kite flying, egg fighting, etc. are mostly activities that contribute to the divergence of yang qi. Contemporary Shandong still has this inheritance of ancient customs, when The Children of the Qingming Dynasty walk outside the village, some of them use wicker to make a whistle to blow, and some of them exhale on their faces to vent their internal fire. The Song Dynasty was an era of increasing urbanization of life, and it was also an era in which folklore developed in the direction of entertainment. In order to allow people to sweep tombs and walk in the Qingming Dynasty, the Song Dynasty specially stipulated that Taixue would take a three-day holiday and a martial arts study for one day. At this time, the cold food was not only sheltered under the Qingming Festival, but also the custom of the Qingming Festival was also flourished as never before. History says that "the four wilds are like a city, often under the fragrant tree, or between the gardens, listing cups and plates, and persuading each other." The song and dancers of the capital city are all over the garden pavilions, and they return at dusk" (Tokyo Dream Record, vol. 7 Qingming Festival). "Qingming On the River" more intuitively and vividly shows us the life picture of the urban residents of the Song Dynasty during the Qingming Dynasty. The most striking of the custom of stepping on the green is the willow cutting and wearing the willow.
Tang Zhang Xuan's "Lady Yu Chun Tu" (partial)
Willow cutting or wearing willow is a custom and fashion unique to Qingming. The willow tree is a good tree in the spring, and it is the first to get the spring. When the four fields were in the middle of nowhere, the willow tree was the first to spit out new green. The willow tree is easy to plant and easy to live, showing the strength of its vitality. Therefore, in the concept of the ancients, the willow tree is not an ordinary forest, it has a magical effect. The new fire of Qingming is taken from the willow elm, and the Analects say: "Drill flint to change fire." Spring to take willow elm. It is said that the transmission of folk new fire is also transmitted by wicker. Jia Dao's verse "The wind blows willows in the breeze, and the new fire raises the kitchen smoke" probably praises this situation. Willow wood not only brings new fire, but it has long had the function of driving away evil spirits and protecting living beings. Folk practices have been made to reduce the qi with peach bows and willow arrows, and willow wood is known as "ghost wood". The Qi Min Zhi Shu has the saying that "take the willow branch to the household, and a hundred ghosts do not enter the house". This is the psychological root of the custom of "planting willows at the Qingming Gate in March". During the Qingming Festival of the Song Dynasty, "the family was inserted on the door with a wicker", saying that it could be "clear-eyed" ("Mengliang Record" volume II), that is, it could distinguish between ghosts and evil and watch the door. Later generations inherited the custom of willow cutting, such as the modern Shouchun "Qingming Day, the door of the house planted new willow, commonly known as can get rid of the ghost of the epidemic" ("National Customs of China" under the anhui). New willows are generally folded back in the cemetery when people walk in the cemetery when they are sacrificing the tomb, and the Song people's poems say: "Don't fold all the qingqing, the Ming Dynasty has more people out of the city." "Planting willows in cemeteries is an ancient custom, "people have no graves, and trees are willows" (Weishu Integration Li Han Wenjia).
To this day, the people of Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, still use willow branches as weeping sticks when they come out of the funeral, and after burial, they are inserted in front of the grave, so where there are willow trees in the wild, it is a cemetery. Tomb willows naturally have special spiritual abilities. In addition to the willows in the portal, Qingming also has the custom of wearing willows. People wear it on their heads with a spherical willow branch or willow leaf, and the folk proverb says: "Qingming does not wear willows, and the red face becomes a hao head." "The people of the city live in love with this custom, and the sideburns are planted with green willows, which are both auspicious and lively. A bamboo branch poem in the Qing Dynasty describes this scene, "In the qing dynasty and the present dynasty, I heard the willows selling along the street." Meet the sisters next to each other, and a branch of green clouds is inserted obliquely" (Yang Yunhua's "Song of Shantang"). This is the inheritance of ancient jewelry customs, and it has the same belief and beauty nature as folk customs such as Dai Sheng and Dragon Boat Festival, which is intended to eliminate disasters and disasters. There are also explanations of soul summoning and requiem in folk, some say that willow cutting is to push the soul of the meson, and some say "willow willow stay spring".
In fact, at the turn of spring and summer, due to the climate, people are susceptible to seasonal epidemics, and in order to successfully pass this dangerous period, people use the Qingming Festival customs to pre-solve it. This is the original folk meaning of wearing willows and cutting willows in the Qingming Dynasty. Leaving spring in the green willow means that in the spring season when it is about to pass, people use the green willow branch to symbolize the retention of youth, "stay green", but also retain the "red face" and retain life.
Since the Tang and Song dynasties became a folk festival, while the content of the festival has been expanding, although the fundamental nature of the festival has not changed greatly, but with the evolution of social life, the Qingming festival has earlier appeared from the trend of transforming from sacred sacrifice to secular entertainment, this trend is particularly evident in the city, the Qingming festival tomb has become a holiday for youth tourism, the custom of sharing sacrifices in front of the tomb has become a picnic for outings, and the willow planting day has also become a "tree planting day" during the Republic of China. The new changes in Qingming customs reflect the general trend of customary evolution during the years. Of course, due to the characteristics of Chinese history and culture, the concept of blood relatives and the sense of respect for relatives in the Chinese are still deep, qingming is still a display day for the filial piety of the Chinese people to recognize their ancestors and return to the ancestors, and the folk picture of "Qingming arrives, children fulfill filial piety" can still be seen in urban and rural areas. At the fast pace of modern life, sometimes it is really necessary to pause, return to nature, return to the place where ancestors rested, relive the wisdom of their ancestors, and listen to the voice of tradition.