On February 21, the twelfth day of the first lunar month, the gongs and drums in Yuyao Village, Lidian Street, Yiyi District, Xi'an City, were noisy, crowded with people, and it was very lively. People are solemnly holding the ceremony of "welcoming the city god". The "Welcoming City God" ceremony was spontaneously organized by the villagers, and there were also many folk art performance teams, which added to the festive atmosphere. Inherit folk culture
In the team of "Yingchenghuang", the leader is to report the horse and open the road, and then there are salute cars, colorful flags and honor guards, gongs, drums, Yangge, Danzi dances and other social fire performances, there are all kinds of common celebration items in the countryside, and now modern elements such as robots and Internet celebrity phalanxes have been added. In addition to the residents of the two villages who greeted Chenghuang, the surrounding villagers would come to see the excitement and festivities. It is no exaggeration to say that the "Welcoming City God" is the most solemn ceremony of the year in the northern countryside of Hunyi, and it is also a carnival in the local villages.
The team began to prepare and dress up at about 7 o'clock in the morning, and the team began to set off slowly at about 10 o'clock, stopping and stopping all the way, knocking and beating, and playing while walking. Although it was only two or three miles to the neighboring Beimaying Village, it took almost a whole day to go back and forth, and it was after 4 p.m. to bring the statue of Dachenghuang Jixin back to Yuyao Village.
The highlight of the "welcoming city god" ceremony is the handover sacrifice ceremony, which is carried out by the handover group of the two villages in accordance with the prescribed procedures, kowtowing again and again, offering tea on incense again and again, the VIPs of the two villages respectively give a congratulatory speech, recite the sacrificial text, and give a thank-you speech, and finally give the statue of the city god to clean the dust, and help the city god gold body to drive in a sedan chair in the noisy drum music, and take it back to Yuyao Village to be placed before it is over.
The "Yingchenghuang" ceremony in the northern countryside of Hubei District is an intangible cultural heritage of Shaanxi Province, commonly known as "Jieye" by the locals, and is the most solemn and sacred folk activity in the local area, with a history of more than 600 years. In this area, there are three different city gods, commonly known as the big city god (Ji Xin), the second city god (Han Cheng), and the three city gods (Zhou Cao). These three gods are worshiped in different villages and communities, but the rules and procedures of handover are basically the same. The handover ceremony is generally carried out from the fifth to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and the next village welcomes the Chenghuang from the previous village. Although there are three Chenghuang, there are dozens of villages participating in this ceremony (these three Chenghuang protect 19 villages on the south bank of the Wei River, 21 villages on both sides of the former Xi'an Dao County Zhiguan Road, and 13 villages on both sides of the Lihe River), so each village generally needs to wait for more than ten or even twenty years before it is the turn of the "Chenghuang". Every time they welcome and see off the city god, each village association will do everything possible to make this event grand and enthusiastic, in addition to showing piety, it is more important to use this precious opportunity to show the culture, spiritual outlook and strength of the village.