The Origin and Customs of Cold Food Festival

1, the origin of the Cold Food Festival

Originated from the ancient system of drilling wood for new fire. Because of different seasons, the ancients used different trees to drill fires, which is the custom of making fires in different seasons. And every time you change the fire, you have to change it with a new one. People are forbidden to make a fire until a new one comes. This was a great event at that time.

"Zhou Li Autumn Lawsuit Xuanjiashi": "In the middle of spring, it is forbidden to repair the fire with Muduo." It can be seen that he was walking in the street shaking the wooden head and ordered the fire to be banned. This is the company's propagandist, that is, a small official who specializes in making fires. When the fire is banned, people prepare some cold food to eat, which gradually becomes a fixed custom.

Later, it was linked with the legend of meson push and became the Cold Food Festival, which lasted for one month. After all, it is unhealthy, so the date is shortened from seven days to three days and gradually changed to one day. After the Tang Dynasty, it was integrated into Tomb-Sweeping Day.

2. The custom of Cold Food Festival

Worship ancestors:

The Cold Food Festival was regarded as a "wild sacrifice" from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. Later, it evolved into a royal mausoleum; Official sacrifices to Confucius Temple and sages; People go to sweep graves and so on.

At that time, a family or a clan went to the ancestral grave to offer sacrifices, add soil and hang paper money, then sprinkled swallows and snakes and rabbits on the top of the grave, rolled them down, put them on with willow branches or needles, and put them high in the room to show their ancestors' virtue.

Cold food diet:

Cold food includes cold porridge, cold noodles, cold paste, green rice and porridge. Cold food offerings include noodles, snakes and rabbits, jujube cakes, refined rye, immortals, etc. There are dozens of drinks, such as spring wine, fresh tea, clear spring and sweet water.

Most of them have profound implications, such as offering sacrifices to snakes and rabbits, which means that "snakes and rabbits will be rich", meaning that people are expected to be rich and the country is strong; Zi deduces the word "miss" in Jiexiu dialect, and does not forget to lead a virtuous and upright character. ...

Extended data:

Main value

art

During its development, the Cold Food Festival produced many literary works: Twenty-four Years of Zuo Zhuan Gong, which was repeatedly quoted by historical masterpieces such as Historical Records and Zi Jian, and was included in the enlightenment reading of ancient Chinese in the Qing Dynasty. The first article of China Prose Appreciation was Silent Record.

Among the poems of past dynasties, the poems dedicated to the Cold Food Festival have never stopped, from Qu Yuan in the Warring States, Sun Chu in the Western Jin Dynasty to modern times. There are nearly 300 poems of the whole Tang Dynasty, and more than 0/00 poems of the Song Dynasty and Yuanqu/kloc, involving historical celebrities such as Tang Xuanzong and Zhang Shuo, and representatives of various factions such as Du Fu, Bai Juyi and the Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties, which have become important materials for studying the development of Chinese poetry.