When do you hang gourds and pick gourds on the Dragon Boat Festival?

In folk customs, the gourd of Dragon Boat Festival is hung in early May and picked at noon on May 5th.

Ancient ancestors thought May was an "evil month" or a "poisonous month". In the south of May, the weather was very hot, the rain increased a lot, and flash floods suddenly occurred. In order to survive, people tie natural gourds to their bodies and survive in danger. At this time, the gourd was called the "waist boat".

Because of the special function of gourd, it can save people's lives in an emergency, so people worship gourd. Later, it evolved into the custom of hanging gourds on the doors of every household during the Dragon Boat Festival. In the north, there is no gourd at home, so I cut a gourd with paper-cut and stuck it on the door.

Extended data

The origin of Dragon Boat Festival:

Dragon Boat Festival, originally founded by the ancestors of southern wuyue, is a festival to worship the ancestors of dragons. It is said that Qu Yuan, a poet of Chu State in the Warring States Period, jumped into the Miluo River on May 5th and committed suicide. Later, people also took the Dragon Boat Festival as a festival to commemorate Qu Yuan. There are also sayings in memory of Wu Zixu, Cao E and meson push.

Generally speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the ancient ancestors' choice of "Dragon Ascending to Heaven" as an auspicious day to worship the dragon ancestors, and injected the seasonal fashion of "eliminating diseases and preventing epidemics" in summer. Dragon Boat Festival is considered as an "evil moon day", which originated in the northern part of the Central Plains to commemorate Qu Yuan and other historical figures. The formation of the Dragon Boat Festival custom can be said to be the product of the integration of North and South customs.