According to custom, people usually set off in the morning to visit graves. When sweeping graves, people should bring wine, food, fruit, paper money and other items to the cemetery, trim the graves, cultivate new soil, remove weeds, offer food to the graves of ancestors, then burn paper money and kowtow to worship.
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Related customs
1, willow
It is said that the custom of inserting willows is also to commemorate Shennong, the ancestor of farming, who taught the people to cultivate crops. In some places, people put willow branches under the eaves to forecast the weather. There is an old saying that "the willow branches are green and the rain is raining;" The saying that there is another village. During the period of Huang Chao, it was stipulated that "Qingming lasts for a period, and Liu Dai is the number".
After the failure of the uprising, the custom of wearing willow was gradually eliminated, and only willow was popular. Willow has a strong vitality, as the saying goes: "intentional planting of flowers, unintentional planting of willows." Wicker lives when inserted in the soil, lives where it is inserted, and goes down year after year, and it becomes gloomy everywhere.
There is another saying: In ancient China, northerners regarded Qingming, July 30th and the first day of October as the three major ghost festivals, which were the seasons when hundreds of ghosts came and went. In order to prevent the harassment and persecution of ghosts, people put willows and put them on.
Willow has the function of ward off evil spirits in people's minds. Influenced by Buddhism, people think that willows can exorcise ghosts and call them "ghost trees". Guanyin dipped willow branches in water to help all beings. Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty said in the Book of Qi Yao Min: "Take a willow branch and put it on the house, and a hundred ghosts will not enter the house." Tomb-Sweeping Day is a ghost festival. When wicker sprouted, people naturally inserted willows to ward off evil spirits.
2. Custom culture of Cold Food Festival
The customs of the Cold Food Festival include going to the grave, sightseeing, cockfighting, swinging, playing with carpets, pulling hooks (tug of war) and so on. The custom of going to the grave is very old. Where there is a grave, there must be a tomb sacrifice. Later, due to the integration with the custom of evoking souls in March, it was gradually decided to sacrifice on cold food. During the Spring and Autumn Period, a man from the State of Jin (now Jiexiu, Shanxi) in the Zhou Dynasty was born in Hukou Village, Wenxi, and grew up in Pei Street, Xia County. Because of his feat of "cutting shares to serve the king", he lived in a simple life and was missed by the world.
He was buried in Mianshan, Jiexiu after his death. Feeling deeply guilty, Zhong Er, Jin Wengong, changed Mianshan Mountain to Jieshan Mountain and built a temple to offer sacrifices, which resulted in the "Cold Food Festival" (the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day). Poets and scholars of past dynasties left a large number of poems to be read. The book of the Tang Dynasty says: "In the twentieth year of Kaiyuan, cold food went to the tomb, and the rites were silent. According to modern legend, it is advisable to go to the tomb to worship the ceremony. "
Song Yu's "Chicken Ribs" volume: "Cold food is buried, and there is no fragrance. Paper money hangs on the tree. People who go to the countryside climb mountains to watch sacrifices. Breaking in the air is called breaking money. However, due to the fate of Shi Jing, we set up wine (seal, rice) and took our family for a spring outing. "
3. Beijing Customs
There is also a custom in old Beijing, Tomb-Sweeping Day, that is, to burn incense at the Chenghuang Temple, bow down and pray for a sign, and make a wish and ask for a blessing. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China, there were seven or eight Chenghuang temples in old Beijing, and incense was the most prosperous at that time. The "Lord Huang Cheng" enshrined in the Town God Temple is the most popular god besides the Kitchen God and the God of Wealth.
In fact, this "grandpa" is the minister of a city or a county. Every year, when the Ghost Festival is held in Tomb-Sweeping Day, people pray for blessings and wishes, pray for drought and flood (sunny when it rains), go out safely, recover when they are sick, and pray for the dead. At that time, the temple fair was very lively inside and outside, and there were stages and performances in the temple.
According to the memories of the old people at home, in the early years of the Republic of China, there was also a trip to the city. People use eight sedan chairs to carry the "city master" made of rattan around the city, and all kinds of incense will accompany them. After the "Lord of the City", they performed yangko, stilts and five tiger sticks. While walking and performing, if there is a miscellaneous chant with the passing market visitors: "The temple is also divided into inner and outer cities, and the spring is expected to be bright, which is also early autumn and early winter. Men and women burn incense and ask about life and death. " That is the custom in Tomb-Sweeping Day.
4. Tianjin Customs
China culture pays attention to filial piety, and Tianjin folk customs are simple since ancient times. Tianjin people cherish the memory of their deceased family ancestors and attach great importance to sacrificial ceremonies. Among the three "Ghost Festivals" every year, Tomb-Sweeping Day is the most important one (the other two "Ghost Festivals" refer to the Mid-Autumn Festival on July 15 and the Cold Clothes Delivery Day on 10/day in the summer calendar).
Tomb-Sweeping Day, commonly known as "Ghost Order" in Tianjin, worships ancestors around Qingming Festival 10, and the best day is to visit graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day (Tianjin people once called it "adding graves" and later renamed it "going to graves"), which is an important custom handed down in Tianjin.
In wuqing district (formerly Wuqing County), cooked jiaozi was added to the sacrifice, and some grave-sweepers broke pine branches and put them on their chests or heads. Some extended families have the custom of eating Tomb-Sweeping Day.
In contemporary society, cremation is practiced in the whole city, so people go to the crematorium, take out the urn, wipe it respectfully and find a clearing, which is also a memorial service for the above procedures. Many families also buy flowers to offer in front of the urn.
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