What are the customs in Lengshuijiang City?

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Also known as transplanting rice, it is a major event for farmers, and Hunan people attach great importance to it. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, farmers chose auspicious days to go to the fields. On the day of transplanting rice seedlings (that is, opening the seedling door), the fragrance of rice wine and glutinous rice wafted from every household. Everyone put on clean clothes or new clothes and brought the best wine, glutinous rice and other sacrifices to the field. After the householder or the old people in the village or the famous old farmers burn incense and worship God, they pull out the first seedling to wish a bumper harvest, and then people transplant rice seedlings happily.

Pulling a seedling with one hand is called "opening the door of the seedling farm", which is very particular. Don't face the direction of Taibai Star, and avoid "Miao Feng" to avoid "evil spirits". Experienced field inserters can insert the field from one embankment to another according to the straight direction of the field, and the straight line is straight, which is called "breaking the city" After the completion of "Chengtian", the inserter will go to the field and follow Chengtian. When you are in the field, you should pay attention to "five drinks and three meals to make Ciba", that is, drink, eat sugar and Ciba first in the morning, and then go to the field to pull out seedlings; Eat snacks in the morning and eat half in the morning; Drink wine for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with rich dishes; After all the fields were over, the host family also held a banquet to show comfort. Generally, there are ten courses and five main courses, which means "the best of all grains".

When the field is inserted, it is full of joy. Young people compete with each other, sing folk songs and sometimes throw water or fight with mud. Therefore, there is also a popular saying in the province that "children are looking forward to the New Year and adults are happy". The day of sowing is coming to an end. If farmers have more seedlings, as long as farmers who lack seedlings tell farmers who have more seedlings, they can readily agree and accept nothing. But you can't steal seedlings. As the saying goes, "stealing chickens does not erode rice", stealing chickens does not erode rice. 1956 collectivized agricultural production and abolished the custom of "opening the seedling door"; After the 1970s, few farmers would "open up territory and expand soil" through close planting, so they used ropes to row and insert fields.

In the old society, marriage was called red marriage, and there were often couplets such as "Six Rites" on doors and gates. Six rites are custom-made marriage etiquette in the Zhou Dynasty, such as receiving gifts, asking names, accepting gifts, inviting guests, welcoming relatives and so on. Changsha wedding custom, on the basis of these ancient ceremonies, has derived complex procedures. Generally, the man's parents entrust relatives and friends or matchmakers to propose marriage, which means receiving ancient gifts. There are also matchmakers who make profits and cover up the truth in order to make up the marriage. Therefore, parents or relatives of both sides should go to each other's house to make an unannounced visit to "check the roots", which is called visiting relatives. If both sides think that the other side has good roots and good seedlings, the man will give birth to a boxer (year, month, day, and hour), which is represented by the eight characters of dry branches and ask the matchmaker to give it to the other side, which is called "sending eight characters". After the "fortune-telling", the woman thinks that it meets the requirements, and also gives her a boxer back to the man, which is called "returning the eight characters". If the man thinks that the character of both parties is bad or that of the woman is bad, he must return it within 7 days. The so-called "men are flying all over the sky, and women are seventeen times." This is the ancient ceremony of "combining Geng", that is, "asking the name to pass Geng" Some people accept each other's birth and put it on the sacred constitution first. If there is a phenomenon of losing chickens, dogs and broken bowls within 3 days, it is that they think that there is a conflict between the eight characters and will retreat. If family affairs go smoothly within three days, it will be lucky. He Geng went smoothly and gave each other tokens. The man gave him clothes, cloth and a small amount of gifts, plus a pair of shoes for the future groom, which means "harmony". The woman responded with pen and inkstone stationery and made a pair of cloth shoes and socks soles according to the shoe pattern. The two sides exchanged the words "a perfect match made in heaven" as evidence. This process is called "Ding Geng" or "Ding Geng", that is, the ancient ceremony of "Naji Xing Hire".

After the marriage is settled, the man must prepare a certain amount of bride price and other property for the woman as a dowry, which is also called big engagement, bride price, chicken and goose gift or door-to-door gift (some women ask for a high bride price, which is actually the nature of buying and selling marriage). The woman prepares a dowry, which is a gift for collecting money in ancient times. Then, the man sends a date list, that is, he chooses two auspicious days to urge the bride to go through the door (also called visiting the door). This is called reporting the day, and the common name is looking forward to the day, which is the ancient ceremony of "inviting the day to announce". The woman chooses one of the dates as the wedding date. One or two days before marriage, the man gives a bride price and likes to watch it. To the woman's house, this is called "giving gifts". The woman will pick the dowry box (box) to the man's house, decorate the new house and call it a shop. There are also men who carry dowry boxes when they take over marriage. The day before the bride's wedding, the married woman is asked to twist off the hair on her face with twine, and trim the velvet hair and eyebrows at the temples to make the temples neat and the eyebrows thin and curved, which is also called face-opening. On the wedding day, the man picks up his relatives in a sedan chair carried by four or eight people, or calls the bride, guided by flags and gongs. If there is a cage, the chickens and geese in the cage are paired. The pairing of chickens and geese originated from the ancient "drinking geese" ceremony: in the pre-Qin period, it was no longer an accident that the new husband needed to present two geese as a meeting gift when he went to Yue's home, in order to get the geese without losing the festival. Because geese fly in a line without losing the group, if they lose their lovers, they will only be together for life, and the road is at the end. Later, because geese were hard to find, chickens and geese were gradually regarded as symbols of "drinking geese". Hua Shan County Records Marriage in Qing Dynasty holds that "the so-called goose in Gaigu is also a goose". In cities, most of them also have ancient "marriage" ceremonies. In rural areas, matchmakers or other family members greet the bride. The bride is wearing a wind crown, a Xiapi (commonly known as a veil) and a red headscarf. Before getting on the sedan chair, an elderly woman twisted red paper soaked in vegetable oil and lit it, and looked inside and outside the sedan chair several times with a mirror in one hand, commonly known as "looking at the sedan chair" in order to exorcise evil spirits.

When the sedan chair entered the room, the ceremony exploded. The bride got off the sedan chair, and the floor was covered with a red carpet, supported by her mother, so that her feet didn't touch the ground. Otherwise, she thinks she stepped on her husband's house and her mother. There is also the custom of holding the bride in Changsha county, that is, relatives and friends carry the bride to the first room. After bowing to the bride in the hall, the bride entered the bridal chamber, and the newlyweds chose auspicious days to sit side by side. Their mother suggested that they drink a glass of wine (tea). In ancient times, it meant two spoonfuls of a glass of wine. In ancient times, the newlyweds each held a spoonful of acacia wine, indicating that they were one, so it was called wine in a cup. You bring your mother into the wine, praise her with happy words, and throw red dates, peanuts, cassia seeds, melon seeds and other things on the bed, which means "early birth." Then open the bride's red scarf (Ningxiang custom, the bride unveils the veil), and the newlyweds can only meet here. After the ceremony, the bride is taken to the hall to meet her relatives, elders and other family members. This is called "dividing the size", that is, seeing the ceremony in an ancient temple.

The wedding relatives of the woman are called big relatives, upper relatives, high relatives, the chairman sitting at the wedding banquet, and the old relatives of the man accompany the new ones. In some places in Nanxiang, Liuyang, after the wedding banquet, "high relatives" should try their best to steal a bowl and take it back, indicating that they are constantly picking up food for their families.

On the wedding night, it is informal to make trouble in the new house, and it is also fun to laugh at the bride. Some dragged their elders to the bridal chamber and forced them to carry ashes. The more elegant program is to praise tea. The bride and groom grab the tea tray to deliver tea, and the greeting guests must reply with rhyming compliments, such as: "As soon as they enter the new house, the lights are shining, gold and silver are everywhere, and the children and grandchildren are full." Another example is: "The tea tray is square, and the newcomer is better than Yuanyang. Tonight's wedding night, a champion lang will be born next year. "

On the second or third day of the wedding, the bride and groom go back to their parents' home to visit their relatives, which is called Huimen, which was called mothering in ancient times. The bride's family held a luncheon to thank the wine cellar, called a "back door banquet" to accompany the new guests, and served dry tea after the meal. On this day, the groom should be alert to being teased and become a laughing stock. Ningxiang, in particular, has a tradition of "harming new customers". When the groom is unprepared, young men and women often paint their faces with red and black pigments, which are called "coloring" and "refreshing".

In the early years of the Republic of China, especially after the May 4th Movement, urban youth began to fall in love freely and find their own reference. At the wedding ceremony, there are emcees and witnesses, introducers, newlyweds bowing to each other and exchanging rings. And old habits to meet the bride being abandoned. In rural areas, the matchmaker leads young men to the woman's house for blind date, which is called meeting relatives. Girls can offer tea to male guests, which changes the custom that they can only meet when the veil is lifted.