Tomb-Sweeping Day custom

Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as the Walking Festival, is a traditional festival at the turn of mid-spring and late spring in China, and it is also one of the most important festivals to worship ancestors and sweep graves. Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional festival of the Chinese nation, which started in the Zhou Dynasty and has a history of more than 2,500 years.

? Qingming custom?

1, sweeping graves to worship ancestors

In the history of China, it has long been a custom to eat cold food, forbid fire and pay homage to ancestors. After the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival gradually declined, so it became a continuous festival tradition for Tomb-Sweeping Day to sweep graves to worship ancestors. Even in today's society, before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, people still have the custom of going to graves to pay homage to their ancestors: uprooting weeds, placing offerings, burning incense and praying in front of graves, burning paper money and gold ingots, or simply offering a bunch of flowers to express their memory of their ancestors.

Step 2 insert willow

Tomb-Sweeping Day is the time when willows sprout and smoke is green. There are folk customs of folding willow, piercing willow and inserting willow. When people go out for an outing, they break off some wicker branches, which can be played with in their hands, woven into hats and worn on their heads, or taken home and inserted on the lintels and eaves. There are proverbs that "a beauty becomes a bright eye without wearing willow in Qingming Festival" and "a dog turns yellow after death without wearing willow in Qingming Festival", which shows that folding willow in Qingming Festival is a very common custom in the old society. It is said that willow branches can ward off evil spirits, so it is not only a fashionable decoration, but also has the effect of praying for evil spirits. It may also be related to the custom of using willow branches to beg for new fire in the past cold food festival. Today, it seems that breaking willow branches at will is a kind of damage to trees and should not be advocated.

The custom of planting trees by inserting willows in Tomb-Sweeping Day is said to commemorate Shennong who invented various agricultural production tools and tasted all kinds of herbs. On the other hand, it is said that the willow tree that meson held when he died came back to life. Jin Wengong named it Qingming Willow and folded it into a circle to wear on her head. This custom was later introduced to people. Although the sources of allusions are different, these customs are still inseparable from the joy of people returning to the earth in spring.

Step 3 eat green balls

Youth League is the most representative food in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Green and oily, waxy and soft, not sweet or greasy, with a faint but long grass fragrance, which is more fragrant and slippery when eaten in the mouth. This custom can be traced back to more than 2000 years ago. Because there is no fire during the Cold Food Festival, people will prepare many cakes in advance to satisfy their hunger. Green meatballs are filled with green wormwood and glutinous rice flour and then with bean paste, which can be preserved for 3~5 days, meeting the needs of people for sacrifice and eating without cooking. Up to now, the function of the Youth League as a sacrifice has gradually weakened, and more is to bring people an early adopter experience.

Step 4 plant trees

Before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, the spring was bright and the spring rain was falling, and the survival rate of planted seedlings was high and the growth was fast. So there is a habit of planting trees in Tomb-Sweeping Day, and some people call Tomb-Sweeping Day Arbor Day. The custom of planting trees has been passed down to this day. The custom of planting trees in Tomb-Sweeping Day is said to have originated from the custom of crossing willows and inserting willows in Qingming Festival. There are three legends about Tomb-Sweeping Day. The first legend is said to commemorate Shennong, the founder of agriculture, and later developed into the meaning of praying for longevity. The second legend is related to meson push. It is said that when Jin Wengong led the minister to climb a mountain to pay homage to Jietui, he found that the old willow tree on which Jietui once lived came back from the dead, so he was given the title of "Qingming Willow". The third legend is that Emperor Taizong gave the minister a willow circle as a blessing to drive away the epidemic.

5. Fly a kite

Flying kites is one of people's favorite activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day. The ancients believed that if someone was sick, they could write down or draw their illness on the kite, tie the kite in the air with a string, let it fly to the sky, cut the cable, and the disease disaster would fly away with the kite. Later, kites gradually developed into a popular outing entertainment.

Step 6 go for an outing

At the time of Qingming, it is spring that returns to the earth. People took advantage of the opportunity of sweeping graves, and the whole family, old and young, enjoyed themselves in Shan Ye. After returning home, they broke some branches and put them on their heads, feeling very happy. During their stay in Tomb-Sweeping Day, some people go hiking in the suburbs to express their stagnant mood since the severe winter, and go to nature to enjoy and appreciate the vibrant spring scenery. This kind of outing is also called spring outing, which was called spring exploration and spring hunting in ancient times. It means stepping on the grass, playing in the country and watching the spring.

Step 7 eat eggs

Tomb-Sweeping Day eats an egg, which keeps him healthy all the year round. This is because there was a custom of banning fire during the pre-Qin period. For a while, there was no hot food to eat. In this period, boiled eggs are the best dry food; Now, because it is warm in spring in bloom before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, everyone likes to go out for a spring outing, so boiled eggs have become a good choice, which is convenient to carry and nutritious.

Tomb-Sweeping Day eats eggs with two beautiful meanings. First, it symbolizes the perfection of the circle and the abundance of children. At this time in ancient times, people would paint boiled eggs in various colors, and throw them into the river when they were in Tomb-Sweeping Day, so that the eggs would flow down the river, and people downstream would salvage them and eat them; The second is to symbolize the meaning of breaking out of the shell and getting ahead. When Tomb-Sweeping Day visits the grave, many places will let children break eggs, which means breaking eggshells and getting ahead.

? The origin of Tomb-Sweeping Day?

Tomb-Sweeping Day was related to Jin Wengong and Zhong Er, the five tyrants in the Spring and Autumn Period. Zhong Er's earlobe is very big, his ribs are connected together, and there are two eyes in one eye. There was civil strife in the state of Jin, and the sons Yiwu and Zhong Er fled outside. The son Yiwu killed Prince Kim and was even more rude to him. Zhong Er had to go with Hu Yan, Jie Zitui and others. On the way, Zhong Er, the son, was dying because he swallowed weeds for days, but where is a doctor in the wild mountains? In order to save my master, meson pushed off a thigh and made a fire to make soup. He gave the broth to Zhong Er, who recovered.

He went to the State of Qin, and with the help of Qin Mugong, he returned to the State of Jin and became an official in A Jin. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Jin Wengong sealed all his active ministers, and someone told him that the broth was pushed by mesons, saying that Zhong Er had forgotten to promote mesons. So he regretted that he had forgotten to give meson an official title, and now that all six ministers have done it, he went to ask meson to push him to be an official. Who knows that Jie Zitui lived in seclusion in Mianshan, and Wen Gong never forgot his roots. He personally went to Mianshan to invite him, but he couldn't find him.

Someone came up with a bad idea: let Yamakaji kick him out. But Jiezitui and his mother just couldn't get out, and then they burned to death with two old willows in their arms. When Wen Gong saw it, he regretted it. He ordered the whole country to mourn Jiexiu, renamed Mianshan as Jiexiu Mountain, and stipulated that no fire was allowed in the whole country on this day every year, and designated April 5 as Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as the Cold Food Festival.

For two thousand years, we in China have always attached great importance to this festival. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, every household doesn't need fire one day, but only eats some vegetables or green dumplings the next day. Recently, our country has designated it as a legal holiday. Let people have time to worship their ancestors, sweep graves and hike.

Tomb-Sweeping Day is both a festival and a solar term. As a festival, we should sacrifice to our ancestors on this day, be cautious and pursue the future, and grieve for the passing of life; As a solar term, we can go out for an outing on this day, sing for spring and rejoice for the recovery of life.