Folk festivals and customs in Shanxi

China has a tradition of attaching importance to customs since ancient times. "To be a politician, you must first learn the customs" and "observe the customs and know the gains and losses" are the ancestral teachings adhered to by emperors in past dynasties. The following are the folk festivals and customs in Shanxi that I arranged for you. Welcome to reading. I hope you will like them.

Dragon Head Raising Day (Dragon Head Raising Festival)

According to legend, the second day of the second lunar month is the day when everything recovers. On February 2nd, the dragon looked up. This is a popular festival in Shanxi. In Shanxi, people are used to having their hair cut on this day, while in rural areas, they shave their heads to get rid of the filth of the past and welcome the prosperity in the coming year. Generally speaking, in the countryside, on February 2nd, we always improve our food and eat jiaozi, fried dough twists and pancakes.

Tim Cang Festival

Tiancang Festival is a unique festival in Shanxi. The specific date of Tim Cang Festival is the 25th day of the first lunar month every year. Adding a warehouse means that farmers add food to the warehouse. It is on the basis of the original grain output that we want to increase the harvest and increase production, which has pinned people's good wishes for a bumper harvest in the coming year. Different places in Shanxi celebrate Lantern Festival in different ways. Some places symbolically add grain to the granary on the day of Tim Cang Festival, and some places eat spring cakes and pancakes on the day of Tim Cang Festival, and put cakes into the granary, which is called filling and adding warehouses. Some places make "rain lanterns" on the festival of jiacang. These lanterns are made of cereal flour, and twelve are as big as a small bowl. There is a lamp at the top of each lamp and a small gap at the edge of the lamp. Each gap represents a month in the four seasons of the year. After the lamp was steamed, it proved that there was the most soda in the lamp in the months when the pot was boiled. Then, according to the month when crops need rain most, what will be harvested this year is inferred as the basis for planting this year.

Peach Flower Festival

March 1 day is the Peach Blossom Festival, which is really a special festival. This festival is in the peach blossom season. During the Peach Blossom Festival, unmarried women, young women and even children will put on dresses embroidered with "peaches", which are filled with garlic and herbs, sewn with pink cloth and embroidered with various silk threads, symbolizing youth and beauty, and metaphorically avoiding disaster, because the homophonic "escape" of peaches plays the role of amulet. Folk saying is, with the "Fu Tao", you can spend a year safely.

Cold Food Festival

The day before in Tomb-Sweeping Day, people in Jinzhong did not make a fire or cook, but ate cold food on this day. Locals call this day "Cold Food Festival". The Cold Food Festival lasted for more than two thousand years. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin Xiangong's son Zhong Er became the monarch of Jin and Jin Wengong. When the minister was enfeoffed, I forgot the old minister Jiezitui who "cut the shares to serve the king". When someone sent someone to ask Jiezitui, Jiezitui had been hiding behind Mianshan's mother in Wuxian County. Zhong Er ordered the mountain to be burned in an attempt to force the meson to push the mother and son out of the mountain, but it backfired. The meson pushed him to death and died in the forest, with his mother holding a tree. Jin Wengong was remorseful, that is, he changed Mianshan to Jieshan, changed Wuxian to Jiexiu, and set meson on fire, that is, the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day, as the "Cold Food Festival".

Let's go.

Walking with wheat is a unique custom in southern Shanxi. Walking with the wheat is a new son-in-law. After harvesting the local wheat, he steamed the ground flour into a jiaozi in the shape of a big moon to see his mother-in-law. It means wishing your parents-in-law a happy and healthy family and a bumper harvest.

Qixi Festival

Beggar's Day is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. On the evening of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, folk girls and young women have the custom of begging from Joe. Because the main participants in this festival are women, people also call it "Daughter's Day" and "Girls' Day". Shaanxi is one of the birthplaces of the Chinese nation, and the folk custom of Begging Qiaojie Festival is also quite popular. In the south of Shanxi, it is an ancient Hedong area in the history of China. Often on Tanabata, it is customary to make proper fruit watermelon with oil molasses to worship the Cowherd and Weaver Maid and beg for ingenuity. Now, folks often eat watermelons for the whole family as a souvenir on Qixi night. Also, on the night of Qixi, the girl's daughter-in-law brought a sewing kit and burned incense in her own yard and the ancestral temple in the village to ask for help from the Weaver Girl.

Gong beating festival

In Tianchichuan, loufan county, Taiyuan City, there is a small river called Tianchi River, and there are dozens of villages on both sides of the river. Every year in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, there is a custom of "celebrating the festival". From the first day to the end of the month, villages celebrate festivals every day. On holidays, like the Spring Festival every year, couplets are put on the doors of every household. During the day, men, women and children beat gongs and drums, danced yangko in fashionable clothes, sang songs wishing a bumper harvest and congratulating the world on peace, and sang and danced happily; In the evening, like a wedding, every household lights a fire, sets off firecrackers, hangs lanterns on the doors, and plays eight concerts from house to house until midnight. Because of the "Festival", every village beats gongs and drums, so the locals named this festival here "Gong Knocking Festival".

Ghosts'Festival

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It's time for the climate to turn cold this lunar season. People have superstitions, so they call this Mid-Autumn Festival "Ghost Festival". In the countryside at this time, people tied paper and sent clothes to their dead relatives. On the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, most families will steam steamed buns and dough sculptures of various shapes. Most farmers will go to graves, sweep graves and burn paper at this time to pay homage to their old friends. This custom has lasted for thousands of years.

Excessive singing

In the suburbs of Taiyuan, there is a rural custom, which the people call "singing opera". When singing, the villagers will invite the troupe in the city to perform in the countryside. Singing is usually once a year. There are many choices on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the eighth day of April, the sixth day of June, the fifteenth day of July and the fifteenth day of August, and there are also other times. The busy farming season is staggered, forming a relatively fixed program. Singing is not only a traditional folk custom, but also an important cultural lifestyle in rural areas. It is also a holiday to visit relatives and friends in the countryside, and it is still very prosperous.

Expanding: the custom of Spring Festival in Shanxi

Shanxi custom year

Shanxi, which contains huge energy underground, seems destined to be inseparable from "fire". "Social fire" and "flourishing fire" are traditional customs since ancient times, so it is not wrong to choose Shanxi as the first choice for a particularly prosperous Spring Festival!

"Shehuo", also known as "tiger hunting", refers to all kinds of juggling and juggling performances at festivals or festivals. Fire means bustling and lively. When you go to Shanxi for the New Year, you must not miss the "Shehuo Festival" of Shanxi merchants. Now, apart from major celebrations, the Lantern Festival is a fixed day to make a social fire every year.

Shanxi Merchants Folk Culture Tourist Area includes Yuci, Taigu, Qixian, Pingyao, Jiexiu, Lingshi and other key scenic spots in six counties and cities. During the Spring Festival, there are a series of folk art activities with strong characteristics, such as raising pavilions, carrying sticks, lighting fires, setting fires, twisting dragons, hanging auspicious lanterns, small flower plays and eight-tone concerts.

Taiyuan customhouse

There are festivals in life and folk customs in programs; Customs make festivals handed down from generation to generation, and festivals make life colorful. In the past, there were festivals every month in Taiyuan, and the most grand, lively and amorous was the New Year.

On the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, people called it the Lunar New Year, which was different from the Gregorian New Year's Day and later called the China New Year. In the old society, after Laba Festival, Taiyuan people were busy preparing for the Spring Festival, and the atmosphere became stronger every day. Wang Min's 23rd and 24th are the days of cleaning, commonly known as "Hu Cleaning Day". Since then, the preparations for the whole year have reached a climax. There used to be a proverb in Taiyuan: "Grinding bean curd is twenty-five, working is twenty-six, going to the market is twenty-seven, pasting is twenty-eight, drinking is twenty-nine, and jiaozi is thirty." (It refers to all kinds of couplets, New Year pictures, window grilles, door gods, etc. I have something to do and a plan every day. I have been busy until the afternoon of New Year's Eve, and then I will clean the outdoor, that is, I will start to get new clothes and hats on the hour, pack jiaozi, and prepare incense, lamps and other items to meet the gods.

On New Year's Eve, every family stays up all night, commonly known as "old age". As soon as the rooster crows, they start burning incense, lighting lamps, offering offerings, setting off fireworks, offering sacrifices to their ancestors, and then the whole family pays New Year greetings to each other. Children kowtow to their elders to pay New Year greetings, and elders give them lucky money for good luck. According to the traditional custom, we should have breakfast before the sun comes out. After breakfast, when relatives go out to pay New Year greetings, they go to church. Unwilling people meet on the road, bow and exchange good wishes, which are nothing more than "Congratulations on the New Year", "Congratulations on your fortune" and "Happy New Year".

During the New Year in China, businessmen's families are the most pious to offer sacrifices to the God of Wealth. Before the end of the Qing Dynasty, March 15 and July 22nd were the days of offering sacrifices to the god of wealth. After the Republic of China, only during the Chinese New Year did sacrifices be offered in money piles, cash cabinets or special shrines to burn incense and guns for chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep. Sacrifice to the god of wealth first, and then go to the homes of businessmen who have business dealings to pay New Year greetings.

The old Spring Festival dragged on for a long time, until after the Tianzang Festival on the 25th. The fifth day of the fifth lunar month, commonly known as "breaking the fifth". As the saying goes, "don't go out after breaking five." On the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, it is convenient to travel, and residents will not visit relatives until the market opens on the sixth lunar month. The seventh day of the seventh lunar month is commonly known as "People's Day". As the saying goes, sunny days are good for population reproduction. After the evening of the eighth day of the eighth lunar month, they worship the stars, light seven lights symbolizing the Big Dipper in the yard, and worship in the north in order to get a good year. The tenth day, commonly known as "ten days without moving", is said to be the day when mice get married. From 13 to 16, people celebrate the Lantern Festival. Within a few days, the night was brightly lit, and the yangko was set off in the community, which was very lively, commonly known as the "Lantern Festival". Twenty is commonly known as "small jiacang" and twenty-five is "old jiacang". East and west rice markets set up the position of warehouse officials, and people went to sacrifice and sparked off sparks. After the Tianzang Festival, the excitement during the Spring Festival is over.

Compared with cities, farmers in suburbs have different styles for the New Year. In Jinyang area, there will be a big fire on New Year's Eve, with a bunch of grass and cypress leaves on the door. Wanghuo built a tower with charcoal blocks, and the midnight bell rang, igniting Wanghuo and illuminating the whole village, symbolizing the "Wanghuo" life. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, there is a custom of eating boiled pumpkins. It is called "eating melons", which is cooked with millet at the end of the year and put in a bowl to worship ancestors, commonly known as "fishing rice every other year". Sweeping the yard and cleaning up the garbage on the fifth day, commonly known as "sweeping the poor".

In Gujiao mountain area, activities during the Spring Festival are the most abundant. On New Year's Eve, the gods of ancestors were hung up, and every family in the clan had to send offerings. At that time, there was a chicken for the boy and a pot of wine for the girl. On the third morning, the whole family got together to worship their ancestors, and the younger generation kowtowed to their elders, commonly known as "generations", and then got together to eat offerings. In the afternoon, send the gods to the village entrance, face the ancestors, burn incense and kowtow, and set off firecrackers, commonly known as "send the gods". The custom of fishing every other year is different from Jinyang. Cook half a bowl of millet for daily use at the end of the year, and put a walnut in the bowl to compete for the throne of Zaojun. It was not until the second day of February that it was poured out to dry and mixed with manure. As the saying goes, a worm is a worm. The fifth day of the first month is "send the poor day". On the afternoon of the fourth day, I cleaned the indoor courtyard. On the fifth day, I sent the dirty people outside the village at dawn, burning incense and setting off firecrackers to show off the poor. The food on this day is steamed oat flour or steamed bread, commonly known as "distilling the gas of the poor". In the early morning of the first day of the first month, in the yard, food made of naked oats flour is provided, incense and paper are burned, firecrackers are set off, and the world is prayed for a bumper harvest. Some places need to weigh a part of each pill, wrap it in paper and provide it to the hospital at the same time. After the supply, it is said that if the amount of a certain grain increases, it is said that the annual harvest is the best. This custom is commonly known as "harvesting seeds" or "grabbing seeds". On the fifteenth day of the first month, in addition to the Lantern Festival, there is also the custom of sending athel Loren. Wudao Temple or villages at crossroads set up memorial tablets for athel Loren, set fire to towers, and provide steamed bread with oil noodles. At the beginning of the activity, gongs and drums were beaten, baskets of grain were collected from house to house, a piece of cloth or cotton wool was torn off from clothes, cut into paper figures according to the number of households, and placed in front of the memorial tablet of athel loren. In the afternoon, the memorial tablets and collected items were sent to the outside of the village, and incense and firecrackers were set off and burned with fire, indicating that the plague was sent away, people and animals were safe, and all diseases were not born. On the 25th day of the first lunar month, according to the custom, rice flour or soft rice flour is kneaded into several lamps, which are in the shape of granaries, granaries and various livestock and poultry, with cooked red dates and beans wrapped inside, and the wick is made of fine rice stalks wrapped with cotton. Fill the lamp with oil at night, put the barn lamp in the grain storage place, put the cow lamp on the cowshed windowsill, put the chicken lamp on the kang, put the dog lamp on the door, put the cat lamp in the corner, etc. , and then light up one by one. Uncle Guan Cang's lamp is five inches high, wearing a hat with red tassels, a dustpan in his left hand, a bucket in his right hand, riding a horse and carrying several pockets. Put the lamp in the bowl and float in the water tank. When you release it, you should read: "Grandpa Guan Cang drinks horses and carries money and food (or pockmarked seeds and black beans). Pockmarked fry oil and black beans feed cattle. " In order to pray for good weather and good harvests.

The custom in Qingxu County is to prepare a sacrifice "jujube hill" (steamed with noodles and dates) before the New Year. The offering made by Kitchen God for glutinous rice flour is rectangular and divided into twelve squares (leap month plus one square), and each square is planted with a jujube, commonly known as "grain root". Another offering is a pot of millet porridge with a persimmon and jujube on it, commonly known as "fishing for rice every other year". Houses with adequate food also provide sheep, pig heads, fruits, walnuts, persimmons, oily noodles (fried with noodles) and sticky food. Meeting God on January 1st is different from other places. According to the orientation of the Western God recorded in the Constitution, a long pole was selected from cypress leaves and Carboniferous period and stood in front of the house. At the same time, put red paper on the new broom and put it on the house. In front of the house dedicated to the gods, a red note was put on the Carboniferous period, and hundreds of bundles of incense were sandwiched between the two Carboniferous periods, commonly known as "tender incense", to show respect for all auspicious gods. The cultural activities of the Lantern Festival begin on the 14th day of the first month. Villages walk on stilts, run dry boats, push floats, dance dragon lanterns, pile tower fires, swing and swim in nine songs. Back sticks, iron bars, table sticks and pavilions have also appeared in some large villages and towns, and stories of various opera characters have been staged in the streets and lanes, with exquisite production, gorgeous decoration and beautiful dance skills.

Not only cities and villages, but also temples are very lively during the New Year. The temples in Jinci are all opened at the entrance of Wugeng, where lanterns are hung, salaries are burned, gods are greeted, and cakes and pears are set as sacrifices.

In the old days of the Spring Festival, there were many custom stories in Taiyuan, which showed people's busy, complicated and superstitious mentality at that time.