What is the origin of Tomb-Sweeping Day's grave sweeping?

Tomb-Sweeping Day's grave-sweeping, which means "grave-sweeping sacrifice", is a "respect for time and thought" for ancestors. Sacrificing ancestors is a way of remembering ancestors, and its custom has a long history.

According to archaeological excavations, an ancient tomb of 10,000 years ago was found in Qingtang Site, Yingde, Guangdong. According to AMS, it was the earliest burial tomb in China about 13500 years ago, indicating that Lingnan ancestors had a clear sense of burial behavior and customs more than 10000 years ago.

Grave-sweeping is the center of Tomb-Sweeping Day custom. Tomb-Sweeping Day is a cultural tradition of paying homage to his ancestors and pursuing the future with caution, mainly offering sacrifices to his ancestors and expressing his filial piety and yearning for them.

According to the different places of sacrifice, Tomb-Sweeping Day can be divided into tomb sacrifice and ancestral temple sacrifice. Tomb sacrifice is the most common, and the Qingming sacrifice is characterized by tomb sacrifice. The reason why Qingming Festival is called sweeping graves is mainly because of the way of sweeping graves. Another form is ancestral temple sacrifice, also called temple fair sacrifice, which means that people of a clan gather in the ancestral temple to worship their ancestors first, and then have a meeting and dinner after the sacrifice. This kind of sacrifice is a way of ethnic reunion. ?

There are differences around Tomb-Sweeping Day. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, according to the custom, we usually set out to visit the grave in the morning in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

The ways or projects of offering sacrifices to green vary from place to place. The common practice includes two parts: one is to renovate the tomb, and the other is to hang paper money to offer sacrifices. When you sweep the grave, you should repair it first. The main method is to remove weeds, cultivate new soil, and then kowtow.

On the one hand, this kind of behavior can express the filial piety and care for the ancestors. On the other hand, in the belief of the ancients, the graves of ancestors have a great relationship with the rise and fall of future generations, so tomb repair is a commemorative content that cannot be ignored. The sacrifices are mainly food, and the varieties vary from place to place. They are all foods that locals think can be taken out according to the economic ability of sacrifice, or they are seasonal specialties.

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Other customs

Tomb-Sweeping Day's customs are different in scale and manner in southern and northern China. There are also activities such as wearing willow branches, flying kites, collecting firewood, drawing eggs and swinging. The Han Dynasty called the Cold Food Festival a non-smoking festival, including the custom of forbidding fire and cold food and offering sacrifices to sweep graves.

In the Tang dynasty, people often extended the grave sweeping to Qingming. When people visit graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day, they are also accompanied by recreational activities. In the Song Dynasty, Qingming and cold food gradually merged into one. Qingming put the sacrificial customs in the Cold Food Festival under its name, and the festival customs of Shangsi Festival "Shangsi Spring Fun" were also incorporated into Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Qingming custom is also popular among Bai, Miao, Mongolian, Naxi and other ethnic minorities. Tomb-Sweeping Day is also an important festival for Vietnam, Korea and Ryukyu.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Tomb-Sweeping Day