The seventh month half of the lunar calendar is the "ghost festival", what are the customs and origins of it?

The half of the seventh month is not called the Ghost Festival, it is called the Mid-Yuan Festival, which originates from ancient rituals.

The Mid-Yuan Festival, also known as the Mid-July Festival, July 14th, Ancestor Festival, Bon Festival, Di Guan Festival, festival customs mainly include ancestor worship, river lanterns, sacrifices to the souls of the dead, burning paper ingots, and sacrifices to the land, etc.

The Mid-Yuan Festival is also known as the Ghost Festival. The festival is called "Zhongyuan Festival" in Taoism, and is known as "Half of July" (or "14th of July") in folklore, and its origin can be traced back to the worship of ancestral spirits and the related time sacrifices in the ancient times.

July 15th in the north and July 14th in southern China.

The custom of ancestor worship on the half of the seventh month has been practiced since ancient times, and was originally a folk festival of ancestor worship, not a "ghost festival".

From the historical documents, the activity of sacrificing ancestors in the Autumn Taste has existed in the pre-Qin Dynasty. July half of the ancestral custom is a product of local culture, inclusive of the festival is more complex, both the folk festival of autumn tasting ancestor festival, but also the Taoist festival, the Buddhist Bon Festival, common Taoist monks three streams of unity. Folk have a tradition of caution, so the need to worship ancestors, the ceremony of worship is usually held in mid-July.

As the Qing dynasty's Qianlong "Puning County Records" puts it, "The common saying is that when the soul of the ancestor returns, it is recommended to have divine clothes, wine and food to recommend to the poor, even if they do not dare to be short of them." Among the offerings, kozo clothes are indispensable. Since the summer is over in July, it is necessary to change clothes to protect against the cold, which is similar to the "July fire, September clothing" on earth. In the old days, the Mid-Yuan Festival not only has an important significance in the dimension of faith, but also in the secular level, it is also a high degree of mass participation, with a distinctive entertainment function of the festival.