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What are the traditional festivals of the Zhuang people

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Traditional Festivals of China's 56 Ethnic Groups on the 30th Night of the Lunar New Year

"New Year's Eve", known as "the 30th night of the Lunar New Year" in the Zhuang family, is the last day of the Lunar New Year. It is the grandest traditional festival of the year for the Zhuang people in Nanning. At the beginning of the month to do a variety of New Year's preparations, New Year's Eve, each family is busy cleaning the courtyard house, change clothes, kill chickens, fish, fried tofu, dumplings, steamed rice cakes. Before the dinner, each family will make offerings of pork, chicken, wine, rice, etc., to worship the gods and spirits of the ancestors; and then burn paper money and firecrackers. After the sacrifice, the reunion dinner begins. The food is plentiful, and everyone drinks to reward the year's hard work and the joy of the family, and this meal should be left over to show that "there is more than enough for every year".

Spring Festival

The Spring Festival begins in the early morning hours of the first day of the month and continues until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the month, with the first five days of the month being the most lively. When the first morning of the first day of the morning comes, each family competes in setting off fireworks and firecrackers to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. At dawn, the women of each family competed to the river well "grab new water", to be the first to draw new water for good luck. The women use the "new water" to cook ginger-sugar water and soup dumplings, which they use to pay homage to their ancestors, and then the whole family eats and drinks. On the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, there are no visits to each other's homes. After breakfast, young people dressed in costumes, each invited their friends and companions to participate in various recreational activities nearby. In the past, Nanning also held a spring festival ceremony, "Fuzhou County, arranged color pavilion, set up cattle, to welcome the spring in the eastern suburbs"; "ceremonial ceremonies are very prosperous, where from the county within twenty miles, men, women, children, old and young, competing teams to watch, to the lively". The countryside is also popular in the lion dance, dragon dance and the custom of spring bull dance and other activities. The lion dance team walks through the village, drums and gongs, firecrackers; children follow, and have a good time. Every time the lions arrive at a house, the hosts reward them with envelopes and exchange congratulatory messages. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, no one is killed, lunch is vegetarian, and the leftovers from the year before are eaten for dinner. Adults give children New Year's money. From the second day of the year, relatives will begin to interact with each other to pay tribute to the New Year, carrying gifts are mainly rice dumplings, rice cakes, pork and other things, for days on end. Guests brought gifts, the host family only half of each share of the collection, leaving half or change their own New Year's goods to bring back. After the first five days, friends and relatives will gradually reduce the visit to celebrate the New Year, each family began to plan the year's preparation for farming. At the Lantern Festival, each family kills chickens and prepares meat, worships their ancestors, and prays for good weather, good life, and prosperous livestock. The Spring Festival is over.

Chunshe Festival

Also known as "Bao Yang Festival", containing the meaning of "Spring Prayer". On the second day of February, the village or clan joint venture to kill pigs and slaughter sheep, to the social altar or land temple to worship the king of the community or the land, praying for the gods to bless the village peace, good weather, people and animals, there is an ancient custom of "spring social, urban and rural contributions to the gods of the earth, young and old get together to drink and spread the blessing". One person from each family participates in the festival, usually a male (i.e., the head of the family; if the father is deceased, the eldest son participates). After the festival, they gather in front of the altar for a meal, or share the offerings equally among the families to pay homage to their ancestors.

Festival of the Flower King

The Flower King, also known as the Flower Lady, is a goddess devoutly worshipped by the Zhuang. Legend has it that the Goddess of Flowers is in charge of human fertility and is the protector of children, so after the baby is born, there will be a Goddess of Flowers at the head of the bed in the bedroom, with a bouquet of flowers picked from the wild or cut and tied with red paper, and on the first day of the month or the fifteenth day of the month, incense must be burned to worship; the child is sick, worship. On February 29th of the lunar calendar, a big festival is held. On this day, married women worship each other as sisters, kill chickens and offer them to the Goddess of Flowers, praying for the birth of children and the health of children. After the festival, the women make rice noodles for dinner.

The Qingming Festival

Starting from Qingming in March and continuing until the period of the rainy season, each family sweeps the graves of their ancestors, bringing with them five-colored glutinous rice, cooked meat, chickens, wine, paper money, joss sticks and candles, firecrackers, paper, hoes and shovels, and going to their own ancestral graves. If one day's offering is not completed, the next day's offering will follow. After returning home in the evening, they then offer sacrifices to the altar of their ancestors at home.

The temple fair on the third day of March, Na Long, Shuangding townships around the Zhuang have the traditional custom of holding a temple fair, the participants are married women, generally to the village or clan self-organization. On the morning of this day, women bring boiled pig's head, chickens, glutinous rice in five colors and paper cut-outs of people and horses to gather at shrines and temples to pay homage to the gods and pray for blessings. Some also invite Taoist priests or sorcerers to dance and sing, divine, and engage in duets. They return in the evening for another gathering. Temple worship usually lasts for one day, while some take place for two to three days.

March 3 Song Festival

Many places hold song dike activities, song festival, men, women, young and old to the village side of the hill, lawn, sunbathing, under the tree, each other with the mountain song, song after song, lively and extraordinary, the content of the mountain song wide range of songs, there are love songs, songs of praise, agricultural songs, songs of the old, singers according to each other disc song content, with the fabrication of the song, performance of Zhuang family members of the cleverness and wisdom. Participants are mostly unmarried young men and women. Everyone to song endorsement, to song will be friends, to song to choose a spouse, to song to confide in love. Many young people or outstanding singing skills, in the song dike to find a love interest, and finally through the throwing of the embroidered ball to show their love for each other. In some places, this day to worship ancestors, families do five-color glutinous rice, prepared offerings to worship the mountain (i.e., sweep the tomb), in memory of ancestors.

Flower Cannon Festival

Every year on the second day of February, Yongning County, Zhonghe Township around the traditional festival of the Zhuang people, each village sent strong young men to form a team, gathered in the flower cannon field to grab the flower cannon competition, the winning village team, that means for the village to win the good luck, happiness and harvest of the good year.

Duanwu Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Dragon Boat Festival. On this day, each family package cool rice dumplings, set up with animal sweet to sacrifice to the ancestors. People also go to the wilderness back to the mugwort inserted in the portal, drink calamus and rhubarb wine, women make five-color scented pouch, wear to avoid the evil spirits; or pick a hundred medicines decoction bath, in order to prevent disease. Near the river, the place, also held a dragon boat race, still.

Taste the New Festival

The sixth day of the sixth month of June is the birth anniversary of the Land God, so the animal sacrifices to the Land God, in order to seek peace in the village, the wind and rain, a good harvest. On this day, if the sky is clear and sunny, it is a sign of a good year; people also take the clothes to the sun, to prevent moths and mildew. Farmers also set the sixth day of June for the festival of tasting the new, that is, tasting the new rice, then with sacrificial libations, prepared incense and candles, to sacrifice Tianzu, to pray for the year, called Tianzu Tiantou Yagong. Paper flags are inserted all over the field to drive away pests.

Chinese New Year's Day

Chinese New Year's Day is a festival dedicated to the spirits of dead ancestors, also known as the "Ghost Festival". On July 13th and 14th, every family kills ducks, prepares meat, and cuts paper into boats, shoes, clothes, people, horses, money, and other medieval items to honor the spirits of the dead and seek refuge. Married women carry offerings back to their mother's home to perform the ritual. The rituals and customs of the Mid-Yuan Festival remain unchanged to this day, and people do not believe in ghosts and gods, but only in the rituals of sacrifice to show their remembrance of the dead.

Mid-Autumn Festival

On August 15, women from all families were busy grinding rice and making cakes (in the old days, glutinous rice flour was boiled, mixed with yellow sugar, and then put into wooden molds and compacted into cakes; it is now common to go to the market to buy moon cakes). They also buy pork, kill chickens, and have fruits to offer to the moon god at night, so that the whole family can get together. Children burn a handful of incense, stick it on the skin of a pomelo, place a mooncake in the center and hang it on the pole, and then chase the village in groups of three to five, playing to their heart's content to entertain the moon god.

The Chongyang Festival

In the past, the Zhuang in the suburbs had the custom of the Chongyang Festival. On the ninth day of the ninth month, each family set up a case with animals to sacrifice to the gods of the ancestors, and then the whole family gathered to eat, filial piety and respect for the elderly. On this day, some places also have the custom of sweeping ancestral graves, such as the Zhuang in the area of Shuangding Wulian Village, where families go out early in the morning with offerings to the graves.

Celebrating the Harvest FestivalOctober is the season when rice is harvested and put into warehouses. In order to celebrate a good harvest and thank the gods and goddesses, on the 10th day of the 10th month of October (the time varies from place to place, some of them are the 7th day of the 7th month, the 10th day of the 10th month, the 11th day of the 11th month or the 12th month of the 12th day of the 10th month), every family kills chickens, fishes and makes glutinous rice to pay homage to the gods and ancestors.

Winter Solstice Festival

The winter solstice is a festival commonly celebrated in the Zhuang village. On this day, each furniture animal sweet, worship ancestors, the family drink, the name "eat winter" or "small New Year's Day". In some cases, it is a joint sacrifice to the ancestral shrine.

Send Stove Festival

December 23 for the send stove Festival. Legend has it that the Heavenly Emperor sent King Zao to earth to take charge of the smoke and fire in each house and to monitor people's behavior. Every year on this day, King Zaobao would return to Heaven to report on his duties and the situation on earth. In order to please the king of the stove, so that it "up to say good things, down to the sky to send good luck", they will use sacrificial libations to sacrifice, praying for the family's peace, a happy life. At that time, each family must kill a large rooster to sacrifice, so that when the king of the stove to heaven as a ride, to send the king of the stove to heaven. On New Year's Eve, they must also offer sacrifices to welcome Zao Wang back. Therefore, all the Zhuang families take advantage of the departure of the Zaowang to build new stoves and clean up their houses. After the festival, each family starts to prepare for the Spring Festival.