Shortly after the Dragon Boat Festival, I wrote this short article because I thought that there was a vegetable stall selling wormwood before the festival, and I saw someone hanging wormwood at the door of the community on the Dragon Boat Festival. First of all, what is mentioned in this article may only be an occasional phenomenon in a small place, which is very niche. Unlike the description of "phenomenon", this short essay is an "interpretation" of the niche phenomenon described. "Interpretation" is a personal opinion, not necessarily right.
In the novel or opera text about the legend of the White Snake, the plot of the White Snake incarnating as a beautiful girl and appearing in its original form after drinking realgar wine is a necessary description, and there is such a lyric in the Henan opera "The Legend of the White Snake": "...... Regret that you shouldn't listen to the sea beasts of Nafa, and force your wife to drink male yellow and take revenge. Nong Guanren, you are scared to death at the mouth of the Luo curtain tent...... "This is a large section of 28 singing, by the Henan Opera master Mr. Chang Xiangyu dedication, if you have heard, you know what it means to be sincere, such as crying.
Why is realgar wine so violent? Because realgar is poisonous. In real life, it is also commonly used for the poisonous nature of realgar, which is on the Dragon Boat Festival, when the countryside of that year, the Dragon Boat Festival will smear realgar wine on children's ears, mouths, nostrils, etc., so as not to get centipedes (or other small insects) into it. If it is said that after the "sting", the sting of the dragon and snake can be awakened, after a spring, to the Dragon Boat Festival, it is necessary to take the initiative to prevent the harm that "insects and ants" can bring, the reason for this smearing realgar wine. As for the effect, I think that the ritual is greater than the substance. Due to the dramatic changes in the living environment (such as the children now going to kindergarten), there are very few children who do this now, and children no longer roll in the dirt all day, and naturally, the worry about "insects and ants" is unnecessary.
Realgar is a mineral, made from a poisonous mineral, reminiscent of the poisonous plant - cat's eye grass. Cat's eye grass is everywhere in the north, and people in the city don't know it, which is normal; In the countryside, it is rare for anyone to touch cat's eye grass. The time for people to pick cat's eye grass is on the Dragon Boat Festival, and there is a time limit.
Cat's eye grass is poisonous? That's right. In rural areas, everyone knows that cat's eye grass is poisonous, and its white secretion can cause severe swelling if it touches the mucous membranes.
So, why do you know that it is poisonous and picked? When will it be picked? What's the use of it? That's the question to be answered.
In my opinion, "people" should first "identify" this poisonous grass as non-toxic for a "specific time", and only if it is non-poisonous can it be drunk and edible. And the "specific time" is before the sun rises during the Dragon Boat Festival in May, and this time can be extended to before meal time. Mealtime, that is, around 9:00 a.m., is a pure concept of time and has nothing to do with eating. If you have read "Dream of Red Mansions" carefully, you will know that this word is used in the book, but unfortunately some red researchers do not understand the meaning of the word and make some different interpretations.
"People" also refers to a specific group of people, i.e. people who are about 50 years old. These are the elderly people I identified as old people when I was a child, and they are old people with a fixed image. Some of them believe that cat's eye grass is non-toxic before the Dragon Boat Festival in May, so the cat's eye grass picked that morning can be used as tea (or even salted as pickles, but rarely).
The cat's eye grass collected has two uses, one is the same as wormwood, hanging on the door. The second is to drink tea (the hometown does not produce tea).
Wild wormwood has a strong smell, people will hang it at the door to repel mosquitoes, and it also has the effect of repelling other insects and ants, but its meaning of warding off evil spirits is heavier, and it is an "identifier" for the Dragon Boat Festival. The cat's eye grass hanging at the door may also have this effect, usually with a red rope, tied with a small handful. Obviously, in this regard, cat's eye grass cannot be compared with wormwood, so I don't need to explain too much.
The following mainly explains why cat's eye grass is regarded as a substitute for tea.
The aforementioned "determination" of non-toxic is subjective and not a fact, so why is no one poisoned by drinking it? This involves the problem of the size and amount of toxicity, during the Dragon Boat Festival, cat's eye grass is still only young grass, the toxicity of the juice is still small, so far we can understand that it is meaningful to set the time limit of picking cat's eye grass, with the further growth of cat's eye grass, such as picking it in another month, its toxicity must be stronger; On the other hand, soaking water as tea and putting one or two cat's eye grass will not bring a big problem.
I guess that the biggest reason for replacing tea with cat's eye grass may be precisely because cat's eye grass is "poisonous", and the understanding of "fighting poison with poison" has a certain folk basis. The Dragon Boat Festival is coming, the day has been hot, the conditions in the past are poor, the food is easy to be unclean, there are many people suffering from intestinal diseases, drink some of the lightly toxic cat's eye grass "tea" picked from the Dragon Boat Festival, or have certain medicinal value; In addition, people attach importance to the prevention of "fire" in hot weather, and some people believe that cat's eye grass has this effect.
Cat's eye grass is indeed a traditional Chinese medicine, and the name of traditional Chinese medicine is lacquer.
"Compendium of Materia Medica: 800 Cases of Primary Colors (2)" [1] contains its sexual taste function: "The taste is pungent, bitter, and cool; Poisonous. It has the functions of reducing swelling, dispersing knots and killing insects by water. And clearly stated its application: "Bacillary dysentery: 9 grams of lacquer, decoction in water." ”
It seems that cat's eye grass can indeed clear fire and detoxify.
At this point, it can be regarded as a theoretical basis for the folk drinking cat's eye grass.
Although cat's eye grass is a herb, its toxicity is indeed not small, and it is best not to touch it. I also don't think that there are many benefits to using it as a substitute for tea, and some things need to be discarded, just as children are now abandoned. When I was in the countryside, I used to mow the grass for the livestock of the production team, and I was very careful when mowing the grass, for fear of accidentally cutting the cat's eye grass and causing poisoning of the livestock. (Ma Jiming, picture from the Internet)
Bibliography:
[1] Lin Yulin, "Compendium of Materia Medica: 800 Cases of Primary Color Atlas (2)", Hualing Publishing House, 2020.01