Painting a chicken at home is a custom handed down during the Spring Festival. Where did this custom originate?

In the traditional culture of China, "painting a chicken at home" is a custom handed down during the Spring Festival. Where did this custom originate? Chicken is homophonic with auspiciousness, which is a symbol of masculinity. People think that the rise and fall of the sun is related to chickens. The cock crows and the sun dispels the haze.

In the ancient folk customs of China, there has been a special image for a long time, that is, a chicken with its hair cut. In traditional culture, the phoenix is also based on the chicken, and it is also a symbol of life and masculinity.

The Han nationality has the custom of wearing "Spring Chicken" in beginning of spring, which is popular in the northwest mountainous areas and parts of Shandong. Spring chicken, also known as spring chicken, is an ornament sewn by young women with rags at the beginning of spring and hung on children. Spring chicken is wrapped in cotton with paper cloth and looks like water chestnut. The tip of one corner is decorated with pepper grains to make corn, and the other corner is sewn with several pieces of cloth to make a chicken tail. Spring chicken is nailed to the child's left sleeve, which means auspicious new year. Usually throw away the cloth chicken at the temple fair on the 16th day of the first month.

It used to be called the Year of the Rooster on the first day of the first lunar month, and it is popular in Hubei, Hunan and Zhejiang. On that day, people looked at whether the weather was sunny or not, and whether the chicken industry was prosperous in that year. Sunny dominated the breeding and cloudy dominated the disaster. It is forbidden to kill chickens on this day, avoid beating and scolding chickens, and feed them more carefully than usual in order to prosper.

The ancient Han nationality had the custom of "killing chickens", which was popular in Jinhua, Wuyi and other places in Zhejiang. On the seventh day of July every year, the local people will kill the rooster, because the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl will meet at the Magpie Bridge that night. If there is no rooster to announce the dawn, they will never be apart. ?

Some parts of Henan will kill chickens and scare ghosts on October 1 in the summer calendar. Legend has it that Tomb-Sweeping Day will collect the terrible release ghosts in the coming year. People think that ghosts are afraid of chicken blood, which can ward off evil spirits, so they kill chickens on October 1 to scare ghosts, thinking that they can keep children from entering the house. As the saying goes, "October 1st, kill the goose that lays the golden egg." ?

There are countless idioms, proverbs and allusions about chickens, which greatly enrich the expressive force of Chinese. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao used "chicken ribs" as a military code, leaving an allusion for later generations. Up to now, people still think that "chicken ribs" are the most accurate description of things that are not of high value but are not easy to give up.