What is the custom of shooting spring cattle?

What is the custom of shooting spring cattle? What's the point of playing with spring cattle?

In beginning of spring, it is called "Spring Cattle" at the Spring Festival ceremony, and it is also called whipping spring. Folk customs are very popular in many areas of China. "Spring Cattle", with Sang Mu as the skeleton, is made of clay on the second day of the winter solstice. The pattern with a height of 4 feet and a length of 8 feet and 360 days 12 hours was drawn at 4: 08. The day before in beginning of spring, people went to the Xianjia altar to offer sacrifices, then beat them with colorful whips, and drove the "Spring Cattle" back to the county government, and set up wine and fruit sacrifices in the hall. Men, women and children hold "cows" to help "plow", sing and plant yangko, and pray for a bumper harvest. Before and after liberation, there appeared a farm drama of "shooting spring cattle", in which one person tied the plow and the other held the plow, and danced while plowing, or played in the countryside or performed on stage, which added a festive atmosphere and expressed the love, yearning and pursuit of the working people in China for a better life.

The origin of beating spring cattle

Legend has it that Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and divided the whole grain before he started farming. The three emperors and five emperors all attached great importance to agriculture. In the Zhou dynasty, farming was put on the agenda, and local officials were ordered to hold a spring festival ceremony every year and make a calendar at the same time. Agriculture is the foundation of all industries, and spring is the first year. Of course, this "Spring Festival" ceremony will be grand. On the day before the spring, officials from all over the country must take a bath, wear plain clothes, go to the suburbs without sedan chairs or riding horses, gather villagers and set the table for them. In addition to burning incense and kowtowing, you should also make a local ox in front of the altar, so that people who pretend to be the foolish gods can whip the local ox. This kind of local cattle is called "spring cattle", and "beating spring cattle" means to beat the laziness of spring cattle and usher in a bumper harvest for a year.

Pay attention to playing with spring cattle

There is a kind of spring cattle made of Sang Mu as the skeleton, which is a "cow" specially used for the custom of "beating spring cattle". On the morning after the winter solstice, people use clay to synthesize clay blank and carve it into the shape of a cow. Draw a pattern at 4: 08 and 360 days 12 hours. The day before the start of spring, officials and people offered sacrifices on the agreed agricultural altar. Later, the county deacon personally whipped the "spring cow" to show the beginning of spring ploughing. Then, the masses began to plow the fields. Playing "Spring Cattle" while plowing, shouting: a dozen "good weather"; Two dozen copies of National Peace and Security; There are three dozen auspicious words, such as "the grain is abundant".

Why did beginning of spring hit the spring cow?

A few days ago, beginning of spring put a cow made of mud outside the east gate of the county seat, and a dummy with farm tools and whips was set up next to it as a "cultivator" to show that spring has arrived and agricultural matters have been prepared in advance.

At the beginning of spring, the government will offer offerings to Mang Shen and Tu Niu, and hold a grand ceremony of "beating cattle" at noon. Officials beat the local cattle three times with red and green whips or willow branches, and then handed them over to subordinates and farmers for beating in turn.

Playing the bull's head in spring symbolizes auspiciousness, playing the ox's waist in spring symbolizes bumper harvest, and playing the ox's tail in spring symbolizes peace in the four seasons. Whipping spring cattle anywhere symbolizes the beginning of spring ploughing to drive away the cold, and the more broken the local cattle, the better.

Later, people wanted to take the clods of cattle home and put them in the animal pen to symbolize prosperity. Sunny weather indicates a bumper harvest, while rainy weather indicates a poor harvest.

In addition, up to now, some rural areas still continue the ancient custom, that is, a person knocks on a small gong and drum, sings a hymn of welcoming the spring, and sends out red pictures of spring cows from door to door, with 24 solar terms printed on them, and a person leads a cow in the farmland. People call it "Spring Post".

Beginning of spring is the first of the 24 solar terms. The above customs show that beginning of spring occupies an important position in China's farming culture.