What is the holiday for avoiding the five poisons?

Duanwu Festival.

The ancients believed that the Dragon Boat Festival was a mid-summer festival where centipedes, snakes, scorpions, geckos and toads, commonly known as the "five poisons", multiplied and were prone to biting, so many of the Dragon Boat Festival's customs were related to the "avoidance of the five poisons".

The oldest custom of "avoiding the five poisons" is to collect medicines, and at the same time, people in the Dragon Boat Festival will also use cypress leaves, wind root, moxa, bushels, peach leaves and other boiled into a medicinal bath, which is said to be able to cure skin diseases and get rid of the evil spirits. In addition, it is also necessary to drink bushel wine, andrographis and vermilion wine, and spray medicinal wine indoors.

Duanwu Festival other customs

Duanwu Festival is a very prevalent folk festival in China, the Dragon Boat Festival, is the traditional habits of the Chinese people since ancient times, due to the vast territory, coupled with many stories and legends, so not only produced a number of different festival name, but also has different customs around. Midsummer Dragon Boat Festival, is the auspicious day of the dragon in the sky, in the form of steak dragon boat sacrifice dragon is the Dragon Boat Festival is an important ritual theme, this custom is still prevalent in the southern coast of China.

In addition, a series of Dragon Boat Festival customs have been derived from the yin and yang magic numbers and seasons. According to the yin and yang magic number, noon is yang, heavy noon is the most yang. Ancient people put the Dragon Boat Festival at noon, three noon, heavy, as the extreme Yang time, the most to ward off the Yin and evil. The ancients also put the Dragon Boat Festival this day coincides with the summer solstice as an auspicious year, called "Dragon Flower Club", there is "a thousand years of Dragon Flower Club" said.

Summer is the time of yin and yang two gas competition, Yang moving up, Yin forced down, the month of noon, pure yang positive gas, for the Yin evil fear. Summer is also a season to drive out the plague, mid-summer Dragon Boat Festival yang qi is strong, all things to this are full, is the strongest medicinal herbs in a year, the Dragon Boat Festival this day to pick herbs to get rid of diseases and prevent epidemics is the most effective, effective.

Because of the pure yang of heaven and earth on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival and the magical properties of herbs on this day, many Dragon Boat Festival customs passed down from ancient times have been to ward off the evil spirits and dispel diseases and prevent epidemics, such as hanging moxa, water at noon, dipping in the water of the Dragon Boat, tying the five-color threads to ward off the evil spirits, as well as washing the water of the herbs, fumigating Cangzhu to dispel diseases and prevent epidemics and other customs.

Origin

The Dragon Boat Festival originated from the taboo against evil days (i.e., the fifth month of the lunar calendar, which was named for the prevalence of the plague in midsummer), and it was also a festival for the sacrifice of dragons, and many of the Dragon Boat Customs that prevailed in the world had the element of repelling the plague and avoiding epidemics.

While the Dragon Boat Festival in China is often regarded as a festival in honor of Qu Yuan, a poet from Chu, and Wu Zixu, a loyal minister from Wu, many of the customs had already been passed down before, and many scholars, such as Wen Yiduo, who testified that the Dragon Boat Festival existed in the area of Wu and Yue before Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, believe that the custom may have originated in the Wu and Yue ethnic groups.

If we look at the time and history of the festival, we can see that it was held in honor of Wu Zixu, and the most direct record of this is the Cao'e Tablet of the Eastern Han Dynasty, which records the activities of the local townspeople in honor of Wu Zixu in the month of May. And according to chapter five of the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue, Wu Zixu was given a sword by Fu Chai and then threw himself into the river with a scops owl (a leather wine vessel), which is particularly consistent with the image of the dumplings.

Wu Zixu was also regarded as the god of Tao in Wu and Yue. The two most important activities of the Dragon Boat Festival, the ferry race and the eating of zongzi, are usually associated with dragons, and may have been a custom of welcoming the Tao god and sacrificing totems.

Legend has it that the Wu-Yue people of ancient southern China (in the area of present-day Jiangsu, Zhejiang and China), who considered themselves to be the heirs of the dragon, held a totem-sacrificing ceremony on the fifth day of the fifth month of every year in order to seek favorable weather conditions and a good harvest in the coming year.

They wrapped food in leaves or put it in bamboo tubes (now known as zongzi) and threw it into the river. Later, they also had the practice of visiting friends and relatives in canoes on this day. When they were happy, they held canoe races, which slowly evolved into the custom of the Dragon Boat Festival today.

The above reference? Baidu Encyclopedia - Dragon Boat Festival