Hunan Spring Festival Folklore Activities

Hunan Spring Festival Folklore Activities

Zaoshen Worship

Most of the regions in Hunan have the custom of sacrificing Zaoshen on December 23rd. It is said that on the 23rd of December, the God of the Stove will go to heaven to say good and bad things about people, so on the day of the festival, every family should clean the stove, several cases, pots and pans, and put a couplet next to the statue of the God of the Stove, saying good things to the heaven, and to keep the peace in the world, and offer candies in front of the stove, and the whole family should bow to the state to make a gift to the God of the Stove and hope that the God of the Stove will eat it, and not say bad things about people. This is called "sending the stove". This is called "send stove", the entire sacrificial activities are considered complete.

New Year's dinner

The New Year's Eve vigil is one of the folk customs in Hunan, this night, the fire in the stove is not extinguished throughout the night, the whole family to keep each other together until after twelve o'clock. The Miao people in western Hunan are even more distinctive. Every year, 30 evening, the family fried good incense bacon, good sour fish and other delicacies, ready for the Baogu wine, ready to eat happy "New Year's dinner".

But this time the whole family can not be seated, the host is fully armed, hand manipulation of a pike, alone into the corner of the gate, two eyes can not stop peeping out of the fortress, in order to prevent the beasts and foreigners to offend, if a friend, the host of the high ground out of the door, will be friends into the house, the high and the low to eat a friendly New Year's Day meal, a circle furnace to celebrate the night of New Year's Eve.

Spring Festival and sticking spring couplets

The Spring Festival is China's largest traditional festival. Originally in the "waxing day" (December 8), the North and South Dynasties changed at the end of the year. The Spring Festival has a long history of posting couplets. Couplets originated from the ancient peach symbols. According to "Huainanzi" records, the peach charm is made of peach wood, that is, in the peach wood board on the book "God Tea", "Yubi" two god's name or painting the two gods hang son in the door, the five generations began to book on the board of the peach wood couplets, it is said that China's first couplets are five generations of the Hou Shu's It is said that the first couplet in China was inscribed by Meng Chang of Hou Shu in the fifth generation: "New Year's Day, Jiaojie, Eternal Spring".

The Qing Dynasty, "Yenching Years and Years", said: "Spring couplets, that is, peach symbols. Since the wax, that is, there are writers and artists, in the city eaves, writing spring couplets, in order to run the pen. After the sacrificial stove, it is gradually sticky hanging, thousands of doors, ten thousand households, a new look." It can be seen, since the Five Dynasties, the welcome toast, replaced the elusive charm, and later, peach symbols for the big red paper written spring couplets replaced, today, Hunan all over the habit of posting couplets.