Nuo sacrifice is one of the customs of ancient Chinese New Year. What is Nuo sacrifice?

Nuo Festival is a religious ritual activity carried out by local wizards to exorcise ghosts, worship gods, ward off evil spirits and drive away epidemics. The main forms of expression are Nuo songs, Nuo dances and Nuo operas. Among them, Nuo opera is a combination of Nuo songs and Nuo dances, which is more local. The written records of Nuo sacrifice began in Zhou Li, but its development can be traced back to ancient times in China, with a strong sense of primitive totem worship. In the subsequent historical development process, Nuo sacrificial activities also have different developments.

From the Han Dynasty to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Nuo ceremonies were held with the approval of the imperial court. The time is usually set on the day before New Year's Eve, and an exorcism ceremony is held before New Year's Eve, which means getting rid of the bad luck of the old year and welcoming the expectation of the new year. On Nuo Festival, there will be a group of young and middle-aged men wearing special dresses, mysterious masks with different faces, holding lighted torches, dancing with exaggerated movements and shouting loudly, then jumping to the river and throwing torches into the water, which means throwing all the bad luck of the year into the river.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the content of Nuo sacrifice ceremony developed in different directions and began to increase a lot of entertainment. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, the scale of Nuo opera has developed to a very large scale. Nuo Festival in Tang Dynasty not only ward off evil spirits and epidemics, but also let people wearing masks participate in activities together. They can sing and dance with masks on. Nuo Festival in Song Dynasty is close to the ancient Spring Festival Evening. There are performers, singers, storytellers and drummers, and ordinary people often watch them. At this time, the significance of religious sacrifice has been relatively weak.

However, with the development and progress of society, modern concepts have been popularized, and the exorcism ceremony has gradually disappeared. Only in some remote mountainous areas and literary works can we see a trace. One of the most famous is Border Town, which was selected as a high school textbook. Are there any handsome guys in it? Cui Cui, the heroine's sweetheart, sent a present to her parents. The origin of her name is because she was sent by Nuo God.