What are the activities of ancestor worship at the Spring Festival and what is the cultural significance?

The Spring Festival is also a time to honor one's ancestors and pray for the New Year. Sacrifice is an activity of faith, created by human beings in ancient times in the hope of living in harmony with the nature of heaven and earth.

Everything is based on the sky, people are based on the ancestors, people in the Spring Festival sacrifices to the gods in heaven (ancestors), to revisit the ancestors to build the "unity of man and nature" ecological world based on remembrance and feeling of heaven and earth gods (ancestors) good life of virtue of the sacred and the majesty of the people, do not forget to shoulder the "heavenly order "The responsibility and mission given to present-day people to maintain the goodness of human relationships, with reverence in their hearts, will be far-reaching in their actions.

That's why, during the bustling Spring Festival, the traditional cultural rituals of honoring the ancestors follow the rules of their ancestors, paying tribute to incense, bowing and saluting, solemn and solemn, meticulous. A series of sequential unfolding of the festival ceremony program, representing the festival cultural connotation of the layer by layer display, so that the traditional festival becomes solemn, meaningful.

The significance of ancestor worship is to be cautious of the end of the day, but also to show that it has a long history and hopes for the prosperity of the descendants, so it is done in a serious, solemn, respectful and sincere manner, all from the traditional Chinese ethical thinking.

In China's history, the era of the Yellow Emperor is the beginning of the great creation of Chinese civilization, the Yellow Emperor was honored as the first ancestor of humanity. "The Yellow Emperor collapsed and was buried in Qiaoshan", which is the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Qiaoshan, Huangling County, Shaanxi Province today. The Yellow Emperor Mausoleum is worshiped here every year during the Qingming Festival.

The importance attached to ancestor worship is a distinctive feature of Chinese etiquette. This is because ancestor worship has a good function of social indoctrination, which helps to cultivate the character of the members of the society, strengthens the unity among the members of the society and maintains the stability of the patriarchal society.

The two books of the pre-Qin Taoist school, Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu) and Zhuang Zi, on the other hand, illustrate from the opposite side the possible contradiction between ritual forms and the natural way of heaven, revealing the inadequacy of rituals. Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi criticize the tedious rituals as violating the naturalness of man, and advocate the restoration of the simple and natural nature of the people before whom the rituals did not arise.

The Tao Te Ching (《道德经》) argues that etiquette arose after the abandonment of "morality", and is famous for saying: "Therefore, when one loses the way of morality, then morality comes, when one loses morality, then benevolence comes, when one loses benevolence, then righteousness comes, when one loses righteousness, then etiquette comes. Rites are the thinness of loyalty and the first of chaos". Zhuangzi inherited Laozi's concept of etiquette. According to Zhuangzi, when Laozi died, his good friend Qin Lost came to pay tribute to him, and unlike ordinary people who cry in sorrow, Qin Lost was "out of the three trumpets".

Some people did not understand and asked him. He explained that the birth of a person can be said to be born at the right time; the death of a person can be said to follow the destiny. As long as a person is "at peace with the time and in accordance with the smooth, sadness and happiness can not enter", where will there be grief and emotion? This shows that Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi through the nature of the "Tao of Heaven" of the profound realization, advocating in real life beyond the constraints of the ritual form, and even think that the rituals expressed by the normal feelings are not necessary, all the better to let nature take its course.

The criticism of rituals by Lao and Zhuang is an important reason why the later forms of rituals in China were not completely deified, but retained some rational elements.

Expanded Information

Taiwan: As we move from New Year's Eve to the Spring Festival, the first major event at the third hour of the night is to worship the gods and ancestors. At that time, red candles are lit high, tea, red beans and other offerings are offered, and people are serious and sincere. After worshiping the gods and ancestors, this is called the "Spring Festival". It is also called "Kaiso" to welcome the new year. At the end of the ceremony, it is to burn gold paper and dedicate it to the ancestors.

Ningbo, Zhejiang Province: On the first day of the first month, in front of the statue of the ancestor, incense and candles, offerings Chen Tangduan, cakes, cakes, fruits, family members in turn kneeling worship. There are also ancestral images in the ancestral hall, the family went to the ancestral hall with the rituals of ancestral worship.

DONGGUAN, GUANGDONG: the first day of the first month of the year, most people first in the calendar to choose an auspicious hour, held an ancestor ceremony, offerings are tea, wine, white rice, save the box, fruits, such as dragons (rice cakes), Lukdui and fasting vegetables. Ancestor worship procedures: burn incense, light candles, burn Yuanbao, set off string cannons, and the whole family worships the ancestors according to the order of generation and age. Ancestor worship in upper-middle-class families is characterized by long lights and cigarettes.

Huizhou, Guangdong: Mid-Autumn Tomb Sweeping and Ancestor Sacrifice activities are related to traditional customs around the eastern part of Guangdong. Huizhou City, folk culture research scholar Lin Huiwen said, Huizhou area residents of the worship of spring and autumn sacrifice: the old Huizhou people mostly choose from the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar to the eighth day of the fourth month of the period of time to pay tribute to their ancestors (spring festival), some Hakka people living in Huizhou choose to pay tribute to their ancestors in the Chung Yeung Festival, the mid-autumn festival (autumn festival).

According to related research, a lot of Hakka people had already migrated to Huizhou in the Ming Dynasty. A large number of Hakka people migrated to settle in Huizhou in the early Qing Dynasty, and Hakka people have been settling in Huizhou for about 380 to 400 years. The regions that emphasized the Autumn Festival were mainly the Hakka settlement areas near the east of Huizhou, such as Pingshan in Huidong and Danshui in Huiyang.

The Autumn Festival is generally divided into two periods, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Chongyang Festival. Huiyang Danshui area takes Mid-Autumn Festival as the center of worship time, and Huidong area takes Chongyang as the center of worship time. Although there are differences in time, but both in the concept of meaning is basically the same, are autumn festival. Huizhou Hakka people spring and fall two sacrifices: the spring festival is in the Spring Festival.

Kaifeng, Henan Province: to keep the New Year's Eve to five o'clock, the first wash, wearing a dress hat, set up offerings on the table, incense and candles, firecrackers, the family in accordance with the eldest and youngest generation, kneeling to the ancestors to pay tribute to the worship, worship and wish "years of blessings".

Luotian, Hubei: the first morning of the new first day, to the ancestral hall to pay homage to the New Year, the guardian of the ancestral hall has long been prepared to offer offerings in front of the ancestral shrine, and prepare a long pole hanging firecrackers, such as clansmen to come, they will ignite the fire to indicate that the welcome to come to pay homage to the ancestors, and so on the ancestor rituals are completed, there is a fruit box, refreshments, or a sumptuous breakfast to be entertained.

Shandong, Northeast: the day of the first day of the Zi hours, small and large are changed into new clothes, new hats, new socks, new shoes, ancestor worship, in front of the gods enshrined ancestors, candles, burning incense, burning paper, firecrackers, children and grandchildren kneeling as the rituals, known as the "hair paper inoculation".

Guangdong-Guizhou area: the first day of the morning at five or six o'clock, set up to go - sumptuous food and wine in front of the ancestral hall, the whole family of men, women and children are dressed in new clothes, according to the seniority of the seniority of the row before and after the order, kneeling and bowing to the ancestors.

Yudong area: after breakfast on the first day, the whole family should be sacrificed to the ancestors, according to the seniority of the long time, the first male and then female, to the ancestors God, one by one, kowtow and kneel.

Western Sichuan area: the ancestors of the god in front of the incense burner, light smoke in the long incense, red candles burning brilliant light, copper chime in a sound knocking, filled with a solemn atmosphere. Elders lead men and women, men and women standing neatly on both sides of the left and right, to the ancestor God, burning incense, candles and paper, according to the generation of the long time, to the ancestor kneeling, on the wine, food, incineration of paper money.