Folk Culture in Shimen County

To honor the land, the ancestors of Shimen deified the land, worshipped the land, and imagined a variety of land gods, commonly known as "land Bodhisattva", or "land" for short.

In the minds of the Shimen people, the land god's magic power is very great, in addition to controlling the growth of grains, the wind and rain, mainly in charge of people's diseases and misfortunes. Therefore, the Shimen people worship the "land Bodhisattva" in the extreme. Shimen Northwest Township "land Bodhisattva" rarely build land temples, mostly in the village village tail or field corners, with "three rock slabs to set up a house, two yellow paper to do the door. Shimen Nanxiang general formally built a one- or two-meter-high small rock house, especially in Shimen County, the town of Yijiadu land temple built tall and majestic, and well-preserved, it is estimated that there are more than 20. Shimen Northwest Township Land Temple is generally not put in the Land God statue, where there is a small rock house where there is a "land Bodhisattva". Therefore, Shimen "land" is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere to worship. A land temple often becomes the protection god of a family, a village or a village. Shimen "land" according to its different duties there are eight kinds of different. To the ancient tree Shimen has a lot of plant worship heritage. In front of the house if there is a hundred years of history of the tree is called the ancient tree, the ancient tree not only can not cut, even the branches can not go to break, otherwise disturbed the tree God will be inauspicious. Shimen people often build a small stone house at the foot of the root and stem of the ancient tree, on New Year's holidays or from time to time to burn incense to worship the tree.

Ancient Shimen people would often observe the ancient trees magically manifesting the "spirit", omens of something to come. For example, Shimen Qin worship the white flower tree as a sacred tree 3, called "Bodhi She tree". Qin's remembrance of its spirit, behind the tree to build ancestral shrines, set the name of the hall "White Flower Hall", special protection of the tree, the roots of the soil fertilizer, surrounded by stone fences, to prevent jealousy of the destruction of other surnames. Legend has it that whenever Qin's children and grandchildren return to their hometowns to worship the Bodhishek tree, kowtow once, the flower will fall a flower, worship more people, kowtow is also more, the white flowers fall all over the place, until the end of the worship, the Bodhishek tree colorful fall. Qin's children and grandchildren in the sound of firecrackers and drums, in the Bodhi She tree, jumping Bizka dance "Sheba Day". They dance around the tree, jumping out of the single pendulum, double pendulum, rotating pendulum to.

Additionally, the Shimen people on the "biological living fossil" ginkgo tree (commonly known as the white fruit tree) is very worship. Shimen people often make a wish or pray for blessings to the tree.