What are the customs in Shuozhou, Shanxi?

Sending stoves is usually held at dusk. The family went to the kitchen first, set the table, incense the kitchen god in the shrine on the kitchen wall, and present honeydew melons made of caramel and flour. Then tie the bamboo poles into paper horses and make them into animal feed. Sacrificing caramel to Kitchen God is to make his old man's mouth sweet. Some places still wrap sugar on the mouth of the kitchen god, saying, "Say more good things and don't say bad things." This is to block the kitchen god's mouth with sugar and tell him not to speak ill. In the Chronicle of the Old Times in the Tang Dynasty, there was an occasional record that "Siming (Kitchen God) got drunk by applying distiller's grains on the stove". People put sugar on the mouth of the Kitchen God, took off their idols and went to heaven with paper and cigarettes. In some places, sesame stalks and pine branches are piled in the yard at night, and then the statue of the kitchen god, which has been enshrined for a year, is taken out of the shrine and burned on the fire with paper horses and forage. The courtyard was brightly lit, and at this time, the family kowtowed around the fire, burning and praying: It's twenty-third this year, and I'm going to send the kitchen ruler to the Western Heaven. With strong horses and forage, you will arrive safely. Melon is sweet and sweet. Please speak kindly to the Jade Emperor.

When sending the Kitchen God, there are some beggars in some places who dress up, sing and dance to send the Kitchen God door to door, and name it "Send the Kitchen God" in exchange for food.

The custom of sending stoves is common all over China. Mr. Lu Xun once wrote the poem "A boxer sends a stove as a fact": only chicken glue smells, clothes smell and temples shadow. If there is nothing at home, there are only a few antelopes.

He said in the article "The Day of Sending Kitchen Stove": "On the day when the chef went to heaven, there was still a kind of sugar on the street, the size of a citrus, and we also had it there, but it was flat and flat, like a thick pancake. That is the so-called' gum teeth'. " The original intention is to ask the chef to eat it and stick his teeth on it, so that he won't speak ill of the jade emperor. The allusion to "antelope" in Lu Xun's poems comes from the Biography of Yin Shi in the Later Han Dynasty: "When Xuan Di proclaimed himself emperor, Yin Zifang was the most filial and kind. Cooking in the morning of the twelfth day, seeing the kitchen god, the children have to worship and celebrate; There is an antelope at home, so it is worshipped. After the third one, he naturally became extremely rich. "I have known the third generation, and I have made a fortune. Therefore, I often recommend the antelope in the twelfth lunar month to worship the stove. " Yin Zifang met the Kitchen God and sacrificed the antelope. Later, she got lucky. Since then, the custom of killing antelopes to sacrifice stoves has been handed down.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the offerings for offering sacrifices to stoves were quite rich. Fan Chengda, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote a very vivid description of the folk activities of offering sacrifices to stoves at that time: it is said in ancient times that in the twelfth lunar month, the kitchen god spoke to heaven. Clouds, cars and horses linger, and there are cups and plates at home. The pig's head is cooked, the fish is fresh, and the bean paste and Gan Song bait are round. When a man asks his daughter to avoid it, he drinks and burns money. You can't smell your servant's struggle, and your cat and dog don't feel angry when they touch you. Send you to Tianmen to get drunk, and don't repeat the clouds with long spoons and short spoons, begging for points from the market.

The sacrificial furnace on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month is closely related to the New Year in China. Because, a week later, on New Year's Eve, Kitchen God came to the world with the good and bad fortune that the family should get. Kitchen God is considered to guide the gods in the sky. Other gods will go to heaven after the New Year, and only Kitchen God will stay in other people's kitchens for a long time. The ceremony of welcoming God is called "receiving God", and the kitchen god is called "receiving kitchen". Generally, it is New Year's Eve to pick up the kitchen, and the ceremony is much simpler. At that time, just put on a new stove lamp and burn incense in front of the stove niche.