What is the origin of Dragon Boat Festival? What does the dragon dance symbolize? Specific historical materials of dragon dance

Dragons are named after straw. Make a bibcock with a mouth, horns, eyes and a beard with a handful of straw, make a seven-Duan Long body as thick as the neck of the bibcock with a bundle of straw, and then make a fishtail-shaped nine-segment dragon tail with a straw connected in series at intervals, and insert a bamboo pole in each section. The grass and dragon dances are mainly held in Tujia rural cottages. Every year from May to July in the lunar calendar, it is the time to dance grass and dragons. The significance of dragon dance is that entertainment includes expelling plague and preventing fire.

Drive out the plague. During May and June of the lunar calendar, the rice straw seedlings in the field are in a vigorous period, the weather is hot, and there are many pests and diseases, among which the devastating pest is "rice blast". In an era when science and technology are backward and hard to prevent, it has long been a habit for Tujia farmers to dance grass to drive away rice blast and gather people for entertainment. Dancing grass to drive dragons away from the epidemic, starting from the village to the fields, dancing along the road in turn in every paddy field and every mound ridge, with the same dance movements as lantern dragons. The Dragon Dance Team, playing the trumpet, firing three cannons, beating gongs and drums, setting off firecrackers and performing dance skills, is quite spectacular. After dancing in all the fields in their respective villages, the grass will take the dragon to the stream and burn it. This is called sending the dragon back to the sea.

Remove the flame. Around the Dragon Boat Festival in May or July of the lunar calendar, the rice in each village is about to mature. On the day of dragon dance, a basin of water and a sieve of whole grains were placed in the middle of every hall in the village, waiting for the dragon dance team to come. In the dragon dance team, in addition to dancing nine grass dragons, one of them broke a 10-foot-long bamboo into a boat shape with a pot of charcoal fire in the middle, and two people carried it. There are also three archers, archers and toast, and then there are a group of free spectators. The dragon dance team, led by the toast, started from the first village head and entered every room from top to bottom. After that, the faucet nodded three times to the shrine of the room, and then circled the room, dancing all kinds of tricks. At this time, the water shooter uses a water gun (the shape is the same as that in Chapter 3 "Water Gun") to absorb water from the basin, and shoots water to the southeast, northwest and middle five sides (meaning to put out the fire), and even grabs the grains in the sieve and leaves them in the southeast, northwest and middle five sides. When they were left outside the gate of the China Club, the Dragon Dance Team went out to dance in another club. After all the families in the village finished dancing, the grass came to the stream with dragons and flames, burned it and poured it back into the sea. The meaning of dancing the dragon and moving the flame is: ask the dragon to move the flame god out of the village to avoid fire and ensure peace.