Tanabata Traditional Customs

The Tanabata Festival, also known as the Festival of Seven Sisters, the Festival of Seven Sisters, the Festival of Daughters, the Beggar's Festival, the Meeting of the Seven Nuns, the Tanabata Festival, the Day of the Ox and the Oxen, and the Festival of Qiao Xi, is a traditional Chinese folk festival. The Tanabata Festival is derived from the worship of the starry hosts and is traditionally known as the Festival of the Seven Sisters, so it is called Tanabata because the worship of the Seven Sisters is held on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Worshipping the Seven Sisters, praying for blessings and making wishes, begging for skill, watching the Altair and Vega stars, praying for marriage, and storing water for Tanabata are all traditional customs of Tanabata. Through historical development, Tanabata has been endowed with the beautiful love legend of "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden", which makes it a festival symbolizing love, and thus is considered the most romantic traditional festival in China, and in contemporary times, it has even generated the cultural meaning of "Chinese Valentine's Day". [1][2][3][4]

The Tanabata Festival is not only a festival of worshipping the Seven Sisters, but also a festival of love, which is a comprehensive festival with the theme of praying for blessings, begging for coincidences, and love, with women as the main body, based on the folk legend of the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden. The "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden" of Tanabata originates from people's worship of natural celestial phenomena. In the ancient times, people corresponded the astronomical star area with the geographic area, and this correspondence was called "star dividing" in terms of astronomy and "field dividing" in terms of geography. This correspondence is known as "the division of stars" for astronomy and "the division of fields" for geography. According to legend, every year on the seventh day of the seventh month, the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden will meet at the Magpie Bridge in the sky. [5][6][4]

The Tanabata Festival began in ancient times, popularized in the Western Han Dynasty, and flourished in the Song Dynasty. In ancient times, Tanabata was an exclusive festival for pretty girls. Among the many folklore of Tanabata, some of them gradually disappeared, but there are still quite a few that have been carried on by people. The Tanabata Festival originated in China, and is also traditionally celebrated in some Asian countries influenced by Chinese culture, such as Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, etc. On May 20, 2006, the Tanabata Festival was inscribed on the list of the first national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council of the People's Republic of China*** and the People's Republic of China.[7] The Tanabata Festival is also celebrated as an important part of the Chinese cultural heritage. [7][8][9][10][11]

Chinese name

The Tanabata Festival

Foreign name

Double Seventh Festival

Alternative name

Seven Sisters' Festival, Seven Coincidences Festival, Seven Sisters' Festival, Begging for Coincidence Festival, Double Seventh

Festival time

Lunar calendar The seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar

Types of festivals

Traditional festivals

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Folk customs

Development through the ages

Foods for the festivals

Literary accounts

Inheritance and preservation

Influence of the festival

Historical origins

Festivals Origins

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Nature Worship

Ancient China's astrological culture has a long and profound history, and the ancients explored the mysteries of the universe from an early age, which resulted in the deduction of a set of comprehensive and profound stargazing culture. The "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden" is a typical example. The legend of "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden" originated from people's worship of natural celestial phenomena. As early as in the ancient times, ancient people in pursuit of order not only planned the sky in a well-organized manner, but also corresponded the stars with the ground area one by one, which was called "star division" in terms of astronomy, and "field division" in terms of the ground. This correspondence is called "division of stars" for astronomy and "division of fields" for the ground. To put it simply, the ancients corresponded each constellation in the sky with the physical geographic area on the ground, and the purpose of the ancient star division and field division was mainly to match the astrological theory of celestial astrology. In the ancient astrological system, the "Bull" consists of six stars, located on the east bank of the Milky Way, like two inverted triangles, one on top of the other, very distinctive, but the top of the triangle is bigger and brighter. The small triangle below is located on the ecliptic, these stars form a head with two horns, but only three feet of the ox, so the ancients called it "Altair". South of this "ox" there are nine small stars, composed of "Tian Tian", it is the place of cultivation, and then look south, near the southern horizon, is the "Nine Kan" nine stars, Kan is the lowland of water storage, used for irrigation. Kan is a lowland for storing water, which is used to irrigate farmland. To the east of the Ox is the 3 stars of "Luoyan," a reservoir-like water conservancy facility. The three stars "Vega" are located in the northern part of the Oxus, of which "Vega I" is the fifth brightest star in the whole day, after "Big Horn", so it is often directly called "Vega". "Vega". People refer to the stars Oxus and Vega together as the "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden. [13] [14]

Cowherd and Weaving Maiden

People's worship of Cowherd and Weaving Maiden's natural celestial phenomena has a long history and can be traced back to ancient times. The Spring and Autumn Annals Preface: "The heavens and the earth were opened up, and everything was muddy and ignorant; the yin and the yang were based on...the sun, the moon and the five wefts were all raised by the ox; forty-five thousand years, the sun, the moon and the five wefts were rotated in a round;...the heavenly image was set, and the earthly ritual was set, and the stem and branch were made to determine the degree of the sun and the moon." Han Shu - Ruling and Calendar Zhi: "refers to the beginning of the Altair, in order to record the sun and the moon, so it is called the Star Chronicle; five-star from its beginning, the sun and the moon from which." Saying Wen: "Things, all things; cattle for the big things; the number of heaven and earth, starting from the draft animals; so from the cattle, do not sound." Corpus Christi: "The left side of the sky is shu, and the right side of the earth is paved with the Bi Pleiades." The Book of Heavenly Officials [Justice]: "Nandou, Altair, and Su Nu are all stars, and Yu Chen is in the Ugly, the dividing field of Yue, and Dou Niu is the dividing field of Wu". The Kaiyuan Chamjing, Volume 61, cites Shi's statement: "Altair was born in the Euphrasia of Lieze, in order to dominate the state of Yue". By the way: Altair is the star that divides the land of Wu and Yue. The initial meaning of "Altair and Wu Nu" is the "star" used by Guangdong as the astronomical star area corresponding to the geographic field. The star of wu nu was later derived into a mythological goddess, folk called the seven sisters, the heavenly fairy niang niang, the seven stars niang niang, seven niang mother, etc., is the weaving clouds, the textile industry, is a couple, women, children's protection god, July 7 is the birth anniversary of her. Legend has it that on the seventh day of the seventh month every year, the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden will meet at the Magpie Bridge in the sky, and later the story was further played out in folklore, giving rise to the beautiful love legend of "The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden". [14] [15] [9] [13] [16]