The origin of eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival

In 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and doctor of Chu, faced the pain of national subjugation. On May 5th, he threw a big stone into Guluo River with grief and indignation. In order to prevent fish and shrimp from damaging his health, people have thrown rice in bamboo tubes into the river. In the future, people will put rice in bamboo tubes and throw it into the river to pay homage to Qu Yuan. This is the origin of China's earliest zongzi-"tube zongzi".

Why did you wrap zongzi with wormwood leaves or reed leaves and lotus leaves later? There is such a record in the Elementary Book: During the Jianwu period of the Han Dynasty, Changsha people dreamed of a man who claimed to be Dr. San Lv (the official name of Qu Yuan) at night and said to him, "Everything you sacrificed was stolen by the dragon in the river. You can wrap it with mugwort leaves and tie it with colorful silk thread in the future. Dragons are most afraid of these two things. " As a result, people made "corn millet" with "leaves wrapped in millet", which was passed down from generation to generation and gradually developed into the Dragon Boat Festival food in China.

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It is generally believed that eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival is to commemorate the great poet Qu Yuan. In fact, according to experts' research, Zongzi is just a common folk food. At first, eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival was not fixed. It is said that eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival is a sacrifice to Qu Yuan, which was formed by later generations and only reflects the wishes of the people.

According to legend, in 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and doctor of Chu, faced the pain of national subjugation. On May 5th, he threw a big stone into Guluo River with grief and indignation. In order to prevent fish and shrimp from damaging his body, people throw rice into the river with bamboo tubes. In the future, people will put rice in bamboo tubes and throw it into the river to pay homage to Qu Yuan. This is the origin of China's earliest zongzi-"tube zongzi".

Maybe you will say that eating zongzi and dragon boat racing should always be related to Qu Yuan, isn't it to commemorate him after he threw himself into the river? That's not necessarily true. According to research, the custom of dragon boat racing existed long before Qu Yuan. Before the Spring and Autumn Period in Wuyue, there was a custom of holding tribal totem sacrifices in the form of dragon boat races on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. In the works identified as Qu Yuan himself, the custom of horse racing at that time can also be reflected. For example, there is a saying in "Songs of the South Involved in the River": "Returning to Yuan by boat, Qi Wubang lost." The stern boat was essentially a rowing boat at that time.

The earliest written record of Zongzi comes from Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which shows that the custom of eating Zongzi predates Qu Yuan's death for more than 400 years. At the beginning of the Western Jin Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, it was called "the fifth day of May, the summer solstice day", which shows that the ancients also ate zongzi on the summer solstice day, not just the Dragon Boat Festival.

Reference: People's Daily Online-Why do you pack zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival?

People's Network-How did the Dragon Boat Festival come about? Why eat zongzi?