When is the earliest May Festival in history?

The fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

Dragon Boat Festival, originally founded by ancient ancestors, is a festival to worship the ancestors of dragons and pray for evil spirits. According to legend, Qu Yuan, a Chu poet in the Warring States Period, committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River on May 5th. Later, people also took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan.

There are also sayings in memory of Wu Zixu, Cao E and meson tui. Generally speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the ancient ancestors' choice of "flying dragons over the sky" as an auspicious day to worship their ancestors and pray for evil spirits, and injected the seasonal fashion of "eliminating diseases and preventing epidemics" into summer. The Dragon Boat Festival, regarded as "bad month and bad day", began in the northern part of the Central Plains and was attached to commemorate Qu Yuan and other historical figures.

Dragon boat festival custom

The customs of Dragon Boat Festival are rich and colorful, mainly including dragon boat race, Dragon Boat Festival, herb picking, hanging wormwood, drinking water at noon, washing herbs, offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, soaking in dragon boat water, eating zongzi, putting paper dragons, flying kites, tying colorful silk threads and wearing sachets.

Dragon boat rowing is very popular in the southern coastal areas of China. After it was spread abroad, it was deeply loved by people all over the world and formed an international competition. The custom of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival has been popular all over China since ancient times, and it has become one of the most influential and widespread folk food customs of the Chinese nation.