What are the customs and characteristics of the Dragon Boat Festival?

Dragon Boat Festival is a folk festival that integrates offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors, praying for evil spirits, celebrating entertainment and eating. The traditional customs of the Dragon Boat Festival mainly include eating zongzi, dragon boat racing, worshipping ancestors, wearing sachets, wearing colored ropes and hanging mugwort leaves and calamus.

1, eat zongzi

Zongzi is also called "sweet potato" and "tubular Zongzi". According to records, as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, people would wrap millet into trumpet-shaped leaves, which were called "horn potatoes" and bake them in bamboo tubes, which were called "tube zongzi". In the Jin Dynasty, Zongzi was officially designated as a special food for the Dragon Boat Festival.

2. Dragon Boat Race

Dragon boat race is one of the main customs of Dragon Boat Festival. It is said that Chu people who originated in ancient times were reluctant to give up their saint Qu Yuan and threw themselves into the river. Many people rowed boats to catch up with the rescue, scrambling to catch up with each other, and disappeared in Dongting Lake. Since then, they have been rowing dragon boats on May 5th every year to commemorate it.

3. ancestor worship

Tomb-Sweeping Day and Dragon Boat Festival are the main festivals for people to worship their ancestors. People thank their ancestors for their protection by offering sacrifices.

Step 4 wear a sachet

May, commonly known as poison month, is the season when all kinds of insect poisons appear. People grind realgar, wormwood and calamus into powder, put them in sachets and wear them on children to drive away mosquitoes.

Step 5 wear colored ropes

Mixing five kinds of thick silk threads into colorful ropes and tying them around your wrists or ankles can bring health and good luck.

Step 6 hang calamus

As the saying goes, "insert willow in Qingming Festival and wormwood in Dragon Boat Festival." On the Dragon Boat Festival, every family should clean up, insert mugwort leaves and calamus on the lintel, or hang upside down in the yard.