What legends and customs did the Cold Clothes Festival come from?

The first day of the 10th lunar month is one of the traditional festivals in China-Chinese Day. In a sense, Hanyi Festival is a sacrificial festival, also called autumn festival. Han Yijie is very popular in the north. Most northerners will choose this day to worship their dead relatives, which is called sending cold clothes. Together with the annual Tomb-Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, it is called the Three Ghosts' Festivals in China.

The legendary origin of the Cold Clothes Festival

Customs and traditions of Cold Clothes Festival

According to the Chronicle of Jingchu, October is the new moon, commonly known as the first year of Qin Dynasty. Although the Qin Dynasty perished early, the customs in the early Qin Dynasty were still used until the early Han Dynasty. Moreover, China has had the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors since ancient times, to show filial piety and unforgettable memory of children and grandchildren. Therefore, on the first day of the lunar calendar 10, ancient people offered sacrifices to their ancestors, which were divided into tomb sacrifices and family sacrifices. However, the Cold Clothes Festival is widely spread in the north and rare in the south. After the lunar calendar 10 every year, the weather in the north is getting colder and colder. People not only send warm clothes to their dead relatives, but also symbolically do some winter activities for the living. The Cold Clothes Festival is coming, women should take out quilts for good luck, and men should clean up the stoves and chimneys at home. Ensure that the winter can be smooth when it is cold.

The Regional Culture of Cold Clothes Festival

In some areas of Shandong, when the Winter Clothes Festival comes, people will pay attention to sending winter clothes. To make five-color paper into patterns such as clothes, some cotton should be wrapped in five-color paper. It means to send quilts to the dead. In Luoyang, Henan Province, there is a saying that on October 1st, oil sounds. This means that on this day, people have to cook and fry all kinds of food, and at the same time, they have to prepare something to worship their ancestors. Moreover, the newly-married girl should add soil to the old man whose husband's family just died when 10 comes. In Beijing, people will choose to buy paper for cold clothes on the first day of June 1 1, and when they worship, they will wrap the paper money with its meaning and burn it together.