Keywords: Gannan Hakka Dragon Boat Festival custom
The fifth day of the fifth lunar month is the Dragon Boat Festival. At first, the fifth day of each month can be called "Dragon Boat Festival". For example, "Taiping Yu Lan" contains: "Midsummer Dragon Boat Festival." Duan and Chu were common in ancient times, so they were called Duan Wu. Hakka people in southern Jiangxi call the Dragon Boat Festival May Festival. According to Hakka customs, married girls should choose zongzi and other food and gifts on this day and go home to visit their parents.
On the first and fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, on holidays, Hakka people in southern Jiangxi go to worship the land god, because "the land god is the patron saint of Hakka people", and the Dragon Boat Festival is no exception. When offering sacrifices to the land god, put pig's head, chicken, fish (fully cooked), 3 bowls of rice, 3 pairs of chopsticks and 3 cups of wine, light incense, kneel on the ground, and pray for the land god to bless the whole family's safety and good production. Nowadays, many Hakka people in southern Jiangxi have simplified this ceremony and lit three sticks of incense at their doorsteps for sacrifice. Or add several pairs of bowls, chopsticks and chairs to the dining table to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, so as to show that the ancestors are spending the holidays with themselves and hope that the ancestors will bless them, which fully embodies the Hakka people's strong concept of ancestor worship.
In addition, Gannan guests have other customs during the Dragon Boat Festival.
(1) Evan and Zongzi
On the Dragon Boat Festival, Hakka people have the custom of cooking Ai rice. On the eve of Dragon Boat Festival, every household should collect all kinds of edible herbs from the wild and make them into Ai Fan. Commonly used herbs are wormwood, hemp leaves, paederia, Pulsatilla, Lycium barbarum leaves and so on. The preparation method comprises cleaning the required medicinal materials, removing stems, cooking, mixing with pre-soaked and filtered glutinous rice (adding appropriate amount of rice), mashing into rice balls, adding brown sugar, mixing well, and steaming into slices. The reason why the Dragon Boat Festival is eaten this way every year is because the fifth month of the lunar calendar is called the bad month by the Hakkas. In traditional society, it is located in the Hakka area in Lingnan Mountain area. Almost all of the above herbs for making Evan have the effects of clearing away dampness and heat and removing all kinds of poisons, and this is the season for producing these herbs. Therefore, according to their own production and life experience, Hakkas have formed such a set of dietary customs.
There is a saying in southern Jiangxi that "after eating May Zongzi, cold clothes will be put in the box", which means that after eating Dragon Boat Festival Zongzi, cold clothes will be put in the box. From spring to summer in southern Jiangxi, the weather will get hotter and hotter. The Dragon Boat Festival is inseparable from Zongzi. Zongzi, called "sweet potato" in ancient times, was originally shaped as "millet in the north and glutinous rice in the south". Zongzi began to show the historical characteristics that the north is more important than the south, which is caused by the continuous migration of the population in the north and the gradual shift of the economic and cultural focus to the south. Zongzi culture originated from "praying for the new year", dragon boat race began from "disaster", and "dragon worship" was a little later than memorial service. Zongzi is a delicious food in the history of China, the most typical artistic food in the history of China, and the food with the richest cultural accumulation. The method of making zongzi by Hakka people in southern Jiangxi is to wrap the soaked glutinous rice with soaked zongzi leaves and steam it for consumption. Deliberate with all kinds of delicious stuffing. Zongzi is a kind of cool rice food, which not only has unique color, fragrance, taste and shape, but also has the function of clearing away heat and reducing fire. This is really a seasonal delicacy.
(2) realgar wine
May 5th is the turn of spring and summer. The temperature in southern Jiangxi is humid and changeable, and all kinds of insects breed. This is the most easy day to get sick, and it is also the most popular season of plague. According to the Chronicle of Jingchu, "May is commonly known as' evil month '(5), especially on May 5th. It turns out that the ancients called May an evil month, and the Dragon Boat Festival was considered the most unlucky day in May. In ancient times, some people even abandoned the child born on this day as a disaster. In fact, the ancients hated May because after May, the "five poisons" such as mosquitoes, flies, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, geckos and spiders, which were rapidly bred by hot weather and plague, began to spread to the world. So the ancients hung wormwood in front of the door and sprinkled realgar wine in the room to drive away mosquitoes, flies and poisonous insects.
The ancients believed that realgar wine had the functions of avoiding or driving away disasters, eliminating diseases and detoxifying. For example, in Bao Puzi, taking realgar wine alone can make "poisonous insects not added, wild animals not committed, evil spirits not committed, and evil spirits coexist", and can also make "all diseases removed" and "Acorus calamus being intelligent". For the needs of life in Hakka areas in southern Jiangxi, realgar is the enemy of snakes, scorpions and poisonous insects because of the humidity and miasma in the guest areas, so it has the effect of self-defense. Therefore, drinking calamus realgar wine during the Dragon Boat Festival in ancient Gannan became one of the main customs.
Regarding the medicinal value of realgar and Acorus calamus, Li Shizhen said in the Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty: "Acorus calamus wine can cure thirty-six wind and twelve arthralgia, dredge blood vessels, treat bone flaccidity, and be effective after long-term administration." He added: "realgar wine is pungent and toxic, and has the effects of detoxifying insects, drying dampness, killing insects and eliminating phlegm." Therefore, it is popular to make calamus realgar wine in Hakka areas during the Dragon Boat Festival, which is used to coat children's forehead and sprinkle it on the ground to avoid poison.
Realgar, also known as "cockscomb stone", is mainly composed of arsenic sulfide (ASS), which is the main raw material for making arsenic. The ancients also used it to make pesticides. According to Compendium of Materia Medica, taking a small amount of realgar can relieve convulsion and diarrhea, and external application can kill bacteria and relieve pain, but taking too much can cause neurotoxicity and even death. With the progress of science and the popularization of medical knowledge, people know that realgar wine is toxic, and drinking it will cause toxic reaction. Therefore, during the Dragon Boat Festival, Hakka people in southern Jiangxi stopped drinking it, but in some places in southern Jiangxi, people still dipped moxa sticks in realgar wine and scattered it on the ground to sterilize and repel insects.
(3) hanging cattail and wormwood
There is a folk proverb that says, "Willows are inserted in Qingming Festival and Ai is inserted in Dragon Boat Festival". According to the Chronicle of Jingchu, "Take Ai as a human being, hang it on the door and use poison gas." Once, during the Dragon Boat Festival, the Hakka people in southern Jiangxi regarded Artemisia argyi and Acorus calamus as one of the important contents. Every family cleans the courtyard, inserts calamus and moxa sticks on the lintel and hangs them in the hall to ward off evil spirits, repel mosquitoes, flies, insects and ants and purify the air.
Hanging kudzu vine on the door of Dragon Boat Festival is a unique custom of Hakka people. Hakka people in Gannan also regard kudzu vine hanging on the lintel as an exorcism, but unlike other places, which regard kudzu vine as a "chain" and a "fairy rope" to bind ghosts, Hakka folk customs associate it with Huang Chao, the leader of the peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty. According to legend, at the end of the Tang Dynasty, farmers revolted and Huang Chao rebelled, and entered Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi regions. Sometimes a woman holds a nephew, Huang Chao and Lu Yu. Huang Chao was surprised to see her with an older child and a younger child, so she came forward to ask why. The woman didn't know it was Huang Chao who asked, so she replied, "I heard that Master Huang Chao rebelled. When he came, all the people ran away. This elder is my nephew, and his parents are dead. It's really pathetic. I was afraid that Huang Chao would catch him and cut off his blood, so I had to endure it. This young man is my son, so he leads the way. " Huang Chao rewarded him for his virtue, so he didn't kill him, and warned the woman, "Sister-in-law, don't be afraid. I'm Chao Huang. We don't kill the poor and the good. Go back quickly and hang kudzu vine on the door as a sign to avoid disaster. " So Huang Chao ordered the army not to kill anyone who hung kudzu vine on the door. After the woman came home, she cut down many kudzu vines and hung them at the intersection of the village pit, so that the men and women in the village would not die. Since then, the news has spread, and many refugees have saved their lives by hanging kudzu vine. It happened to be the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, so every family would hang kudzu vine on the lintel on this day, which not only praised the kind woman, but also commemorated Huang Chao who protected the poor. This is the origin of today's Hakka Dragon Boat Festival hanging kudzu vine.
Write the symbol on the door. On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, every household writes down the "noon symbol" with a bead pen and sticks it on the door or wall. The so-called "noon symbol" refers to the symbol written at noon. On yellow paper, draw a gossip or an idol, and write the word "Ling", which reads "At noon on May 5th, the book broke the official tongue, and rats, ants and mosquitoes were eliminated". This custom uses Taoist incantations to avoid "five poisons", because Taoist Zhang Tianshi is the deity of Hakka Dragon Boat Festival. With the arrival of midsummer, various pests come out one after another, so people use it to drive away mice, ants and mosquitoes.
Both Artemisia argyi and Acorus calamus are midsummer products and have medicinal value. "Ai" is also known as mugwort and mugwort. According to "The Old Story of Jingchu", "On May 5th, when chickens don't crow, try to pick moxa, and if you see it, take it." ⑽ Its stems and leaves all contain volatile aromatic oil, and its unique fragrance can repel mosquitoes, flies, insects and ants and purify the air. Chinese medicine uses mugwort as medicine, which has the functions of regulating qi and blood, warming uterus and eliminating cold and dampness. Artemisia argyi leaves are processed into "moxa wool", which is an important medicinal material for moxibustion to treat diseases. Acorus calamus is a perennial aquatic herb, and its long and narrow leaves also contain volatile fragrance, which is a good medicine for refreshing the brain, inducing resuscitation, strengthening bones, eliminating stagnation, killing insects and sterilizing. It can be seen that Artemisia argyi and Acorus calamus have certain disease prevention effects.
(4) Herbal soup bath
On the Dragon Boat Festival, there is a custom of washing flowers and bathing in some places in Hakka. All men, women and children should take a medicated bath. Hakkas believe that "Aipu washes the body and cures all diseases." ⑾ On this day, herbs are used as medicine, and washing herbal water can dispel dampness, expel phlegm and strengthen the body. On that day, before the sun came out, the male host went out early to collect bare maple leaves, peach branches, honeysuckle, Senecio scandens and Ranunculus ternatus. Wash and tie up, add calamus and mugwort leaves inserted in the door pivot on the first day, boil water in a cauldron, and then take a bath with water.
Herbal decoction, soup bath, to eliminate all diseases. According to Guangxu's "Customs of Zhou Zhili, Jia Ying", "Take herbs to burn soup and take a bath". In midsummer, all kinds of herbs have flourished and have strong medicinal properties, which is a good time to collect herbs. According to "Xia Zheng Xiao": "Store medicine this day to get rid of poisonous gas." Therefore, the custom of collecting herbs on the Dragon Boat Festival is also very popular in Hakka folk areas. The above mugwort, calamus and vanilla are examples.
(5) Ending words
Han nationality has a long history, and folk customs have a long history. Hakka folk customs are mostly brought by Hakka ancestors from their ancestral homes, but in hilly and mountainous Gannan, they cannot but be influenced by the customs of Gannan aborigines. On the basis of inheriting the traditional customs of the Central Plains, the Hakka Dragon Boat Festival in southern Jiangxi has integrated the characteristics of the Tu nationality in southern Jiangxi, and gradually formed its own Dragon Boat Festival customs in the long river of years, but it still basically maintains the characteristics of the Han nationality in the Central Plains during the Han and Tang Dynasties.