It's another year of Spring Festival, and this year, many netizens have said that the flavor of the New Year is gradually coming back. So, what exactly is the flavor of the New Year? In the final analysis, the flavor of the New Year still needs those traditional customs as the carrier.
Customs, such as setting off fireworks, pasting couplets, etc., are the unique New Year flavor of our Chinese. The Spring Festival has a history of 1,000 years, and many Spring Festival customs have been born from ancient times to the present, many of which have now been lost. Uncle Dong specially took stock of ten important Spring Festival customs, see how many you know?
According to the timing of the Spring Festival, this first custom took place in the month of Wax - winemaking。The custom of making wine in Layue has been popular as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
"The Book of Songs: The Wind" records: "Rice is harvested in October, and this spring wine is used to promote longevity." ”
This wine is called "New Year's wine", at that time, the wax moon was not December but October, and the wine brewed in this wax moon can not be drunk immediately, the ancients used the wax moon to make wine and left it for the Spring Festival to drink.
This drinker is also very particular. Brewed wine often respects the elders first, then the **, and children can't drink it.
Nowadays, this custom has rarely spread, and only in some areas there is still the habit of making wine in Layue. In addition to making wine in the month of Lap, this second custom is still in the month of Wax.
There is also a custom of wine-making in the Central PlainsAs the name suggests, it is the month to make bacon. So this second custom is to hunt and make bacon.
In fact, the reason why December is called the month of wax in the Western Han Dynasty is precisely because people in December concentrate on hunting in order to prepare for the New Year, and then make bacon on a large scale.
You must know that there was no refrigerator in ancient times, so the best way to preserve meat is naturally to make bacon, and the finished bacon can be saved for the Spring Festival.
It is for this reason that this method of making meat is now popular all over China, and many categories have evolved.
There are various patterns such as preserved pork, preserved fish, preserved chicken, preserved duck and so on. It can be said that there is no meat that the Chinese cannot cured. This bacon culture has been handed down thanks to the blessing of the Spring Festival customs.
However, hunting has now disappeared, and only some northern peoples still remain. After all, not all of them are suitable for hunting nowadays, we can buy all kinds of meat, and hunting is not necessary.
Immediately after this third Spring Festival custom, it still takes place in the month of Wax, and many people should be very familiar with it.
The third custom is to eat laba porridge.
Laba refers to the eighth day of the lunar month of Lapa, and this day is called Lapa Day. In fact, the custom of eating laba porridge was later than the previous one, and it gradually became a custom after the Han Dynasty. The birth of this custom is inseparable from the temple.
Originally, people hunted bacon to prepare for the Spring Festival. But at that time, the temples were not allowed to eat meat. Therefore, on the eighth day of the lunar month, the temple often uses various beans and grains to boil porridge as a lunar activity.
Laba porridge These laba porridge is often a symbol of temple relief for the poor and beggars. In the cold winter, many poor people and beggars do not have enough to eat, and the temple uses this method to satisfy their hunger.
Over time, Laba porridge spread among the people, and people followed suit. In a sense, it is also a commemoration of the temple's compassionate heart.
The first three customs are all in the lunar month, which is also the custom of preparing for the Spring Festival. The next custom is the New Year.
The fourth custom is "dusting". This is what we often call cleaning. China's ancestors were very hygienic. Confucius said: "Don't eat unclean." ”The ancients had to take a bath to participate in major events.
In this season of alternating between the old and the new, the ancients paid more attention to hygiene. At that time, it was popular to use a feather duster for cleaning in the Jiangnan area.
A long feather duster "dusts" every angle of the room. Nowadays, this activity continues, but everyone concentrates on the days before the Spring Festival, and the ancients started as early as the alternation of the wax moon and the first month.
After cleaning, the fifth custom is to post New Year's pictures.
I have to say that the life of the ancients is still very interesting. Before the Spring Festival, after the sanitation is done, the ancients will post New Year's pictures.
This activity has a wide range, whether it is poor or rich, people will hang some New Year's pictures in a clean room, most of these New Year's paintings are some auspicious and auspicious words, the poor people's household materials are relatively rough, not so much exquisite, the rich are more exquisite.
However, in the home of the scholarly family, this activity is more important. They will specially collect some paintings and calligraphy of literati, some of which are still famous paintings in the world. Hanging these masterpieces at home can be described as full of face.
Modern New Year's paintingsNowadays, there are many places where this custom is practiced, but the posting of New Year's pictures has gradually been replaced by the usual interior decoration.
After hanging the New Year's painting, the ancients were going to sacrifice to the "Stove God".
This sixth Spring Festival custom is to sacrifice to the "Stove God", also known as "Sending the Stove" and "Sacrificial Stove". According to the records of the "Qing Xia Sui Ji Ji", the Spring Festival custom of "sacrificing stoves" existed as early as the Zhou Dynasty.
In the Han Dynasty, people "sacrificed to the stove" in Layue and used cattle as tributes. "Jing Xia Years Chronicles" also said,The "sacrificial stove" was originally changed to a year after Laba.
Two. Ten. Three, twenty-four, that is, the time of the "little year".
In Henan at that time, the sacrificial stove often used wine and fruit to make offerings, and then pasted the god on the stove, lit candles and burned incense in the middle of the night, and sent the stove god to heaven.
God says good things, and the next peace is a classic couplet of the sacrificial stoveThis stove god is the god of heaven, but in the folk to protect every family, in the New Year should also let the god of the stove go to heaven to "enjoy the blessings", this is the ancestors of the god of the stove of the beautiful idea.
Nowadays, there are still many places where the activities of worshipping the god of the stove are still reserved, and people generally worship the god of the stove when they are young, but the scope of sending the god to heaven has also expanded, and it is not limited to the god of the stove.
After sending the god of the stove, the next custom activity of the ancients is to paste the Spring Festival couplets.
The seventh custom is the pasting of couplets. As early as the Warring States Period, people "inscribed peach charms" on both sides of the house before the Spring Festival. On both sides of this peach symbol, some festive sentences are often written. This is the source of the Spring Festival couplets.
At the beginning, people put peach charms at the door to get rid of demons and ward off evil spirits, and later there were more things to get rid of demons and ward off evil spirits, so people put their good wishes in the couplet.
However, it is not too early for the Spring Festival couplets to become widely popular, and it is not until the Tang and Song dynasties that it is officially regarded as a custom of the Spring Festival.
After pasting the Spring Festival, the ancients were going to "light the fire" on Chinese New Year's Eve.
This "lighting the fire" is the eighth custom of the Spring Festival. "Lighting a fire" means that on Chinese New Year's Eve, the ancients would light a fire in the yard. This activity first originated from the "Ting Liao" in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
"The Book of Poetry, Xiaoya, Tingliao" records: "How is the night, the night is to the morning, and the court is bright." ”
The ancients believed that the yin qi was too heavy at night, and that lighting a fire in the courtyard at the alternation of yin and yang, and the alternation of day and night, was positive yang qi and prosperous people. This event later evolved into a Chinese New Year custom and became a firecracker setting.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, gunpowder had already spread, and people began to use some fire-inducing things to wrap special paper into firecrackers, which were set off on Chinese New Year's Eve, with loud sound and bright fire.
The ancients believed that this would ward off evil spirits, especially to scare away the so-called "Year Beasts".
The "Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Divine Mystery Classic" records that there is a ghost called "臊" in the West Mountain, and people will get sick with fever when they encounter it, but this ghost is very afraid of loud noises, and the firecrackers set off on Chinese New Year's Eve are precisely to scare away "Zhen". This is the prototype of the "Year Beast".
After setting off firecrackers to remove the old and welcome the new, the ancients often put "New Year's money" under the child's bed. This is the ninth Chinese New Year custom.
The ninth Spring Festival custom is to send New Year's money. On Chinese New Year's Eve, the ancients would put money under the bed of children at home to take the meaning of longevity. I hope that all these children will live a long life and be happy every year.
Originally, this New Year's money was only for their own children, and then gradually spread to other relatives in the family, and in the Qing Dynasty, the distribution of New Year's money was wider, in addition to their own relatives, fellow villagers and friends have shared.
The ancients' New Year's money was often some copper coins Nowadays, the custom of New Year's money is well preserved, but there are great differences in various places. For example, there is a five-yuan New Year's money in Guangdong, and everyone has a share; In some areas in the north, there are as few as a few hundred, and as many as thousands, focusing on treating relatives well, which can be regarded as having their own characteristics.
The last Chinese New Year custom is the well-known "New Year's greetings". The custom of greeting the New Year on the first day of the Lunar New Year appeared as early as the Han Dynasty.
"Jing Chu Years Chronicle" records that on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the family must wear new clothes and go to the elders to pay New Year's greetings neatly. At first, the New Year's greetings were mainly for the elders, and not all relatives had to leave.
However, there will be many elders of the ancients, and the elders generally sit on the Taishi chair in the middle hall of the hall, and the younger generations will first kowtow when they see the elders, and then take out gifts to wish the elders a long life and health.
The ancients paid New Year's greetings and often stayed for a morningAt noon, they will also drink "Tusu wine" to celebrate the Spring Festival.
Nowadays, the custom of New Year's greetings has also been passed down, but it is also different. New Year's greetings are not limited to the elders, and the custom of drinking varies from place to place.
The above are the top ten Spring Festival customs from ancient times to the present, I don't know how many you know? In the vast history, many festival customs have long since disappeared, but fortunately, there are still many that we are still inheriting.
We must never forget these Spring Festival customs, not only can not forget, but also carry forward, so that the new era of the New Year is more and more "strong".
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