Traditional Festival Summer Solstice Festival

Super-unpopular Ancient Festival-Summer Solstice Festival

Summer solstice is the fourth solar term in summer and the longest day in the northern hemisphere.

In ancient times, the summer solstice occupied a very prominent position in a year, so the ancients generally celebrated the summer solstice.

The origin of festivals

Summer solstice is the longest day in a year, and it is also the easiest day to find in ancient astronomical observation. Therefore, the summer solstice is one of the earliest solar terms established in China.

According to legend, in the Zhou Dynasty, Ji Dan, Duke of Zhou, was ordered to build Luoyi, the eastern capital. He set up a set of devices to determine solar terms by measuring the change of sun shadow-soil gauge and wood watch. The soil gauge is a horizontal ruler, and the wooden table is a vertical benchmark. He designated the day with the shortest shadow as "summer solstice". Since then, the observation of the summer solstice has become an important event in various dynasties.

The summer solstice festival appeared at the latest in the Han Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, every summer solstice, officials could have a three-day holiday, go home to take a shower and get together with their relatives. According to the records of Liao history, Liao people call it "Tide Festival" in summer, and women give each other colorful fans and sachets. It can be seen that the summer solstice festival was also a very important festival in ancient times.

Song of summer solstice

On the summer solstice festival, there is also a popular summer solstice song. Zhou Zundao, a poet in the Song Dynasty, recorded this song in Biography of the Leopard:

1929 to Xia Hou, the fan continued to rotate.

Drink tea like honey juice,

Four, nine, thirty-six, vying to stay at the end of the road,

Five, nine, four, five, autumn leaves dance at the top of the tree,

6954, enjoy the cool and not enter the temple,

7963, go to bed and find the sheets,

Eight, nine, seventy-two, quilt the sheets,

In 998 1 year, every family played with charcoal sticks.

From this song, we can see that the solstice of summer marks the arrival of hot summer, and people's daily life and lifestyle have also changed.

Summer customs and habits

Sacrifice to god

Summer is an important season for crop growth, and people often hold activities to pray for a bumper harvest. In the Zhou dynasty, in order to eliminate plague and famine, people held sacrificial activities from summer to Sunday. The Historian's Record also records the sacrifice of land to the summer solstice. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the royal family continued the tradition and held a ceremony to worship the land on the solstice of summer. People will also hold activities to worship the land or pray for rain.

prescribe a diet

It's hot in summer, and people often lose their appetite. Therefore, the ancients attached great importance to summer vacation and heatstroke prevention, and also paid attention to the diet in daylight saving time. Jingchu people first ate zongzi on the solstice festival in summer, and later changed it to the fifth day of May. On the solstice of summer, people in Jiangsu like to eat pea cakes. People in Hangzhou, Zhejiang like to eat black rice on the solstice in summer.

Wheat is grown in the north, so pasta is the main food in summer, and noodles are mainly cold noodles.

Prevent heatstroke

Ancient people's heatstroke prevention measures mainly have two aspects. One is to eat more raw and cold food and cold food. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, officials were in charge of the ice and facilities in the ice room. Generally speaking, ice cubes are stored in cold winter and used in summer. In summer, the emperor usually gives the minister of civil and military affairs ice to relieve the heat. People will make all kinds of cold drinks and refreshing foods, such as bean jelly, melons and fruits, sour plum soup and so on.

On the other hand, heatstroke prevention tools are used to achieve the effect of cooling. In ancient times when there were no air conditioners and electric fans, fans, summer sleeping mats and bamboo pillows for women (a kind of pillow made of bamboo) became the mainstream products to cool off the summer heat.