2. Traditional folk customs in beginning of winter:
(1) Heating party: The cold weather in first frost is already heavy, so the opening date of furnaces in various places is usually in the early October of the lunar calendar. "Record of Jingchu's Age" contains: "Bailu Cave in Lushan Mountain, where tourists gather together, and every winter, the gold market is paid to keep out the cold, and it is called Black Gold Society. On the day of October, the wine was ordered to be a heater. " Generally, in Peiping, the kang is heated and a furnace is set up on the first day of October, which is called the furnace opening festival, and the heater is not removed until the first day of February of the following year. Heaters are often built with a kind of fire-resistant mineral, which is whiter, lighter, warmer and stronger than ettringite. Later, heaters were made of thin iron. "Miscellaneous Notes on the Year of the Year" said that when people in Beijing drink on the first day of October, they roast large pieces of meat in the furnace and eat it while drinking around the stove, which is called a "heater". The Book of Rites and the Moon Order records that there will be a heater meeting in October. Kunshan, Jiangsu, Taiping, Anhui, Zhongxiang, Hubei and other places also began to use fire to keep out the cold at the beginning of the month. During this period, they sold cakes for food or drank alcohol to hold a heating party.
(2) Mulberry leaf picking: Mulberry leaves are bitter, sweet and cold, which can dispel wind and clear heat, cool blood and improve eyesight. It is better to be old and frosty, and take advantage of their strong qi and strength. At this time, it has been a cold winter, and it has been chilling in autumn. Mulberry leaves can relieve liver and gallbladder depression. Guang Ji Fang says that 120 pieces of mulberry leaves will be picked in winter, and in case of leap year, ten more pieces will be picked, and ten pieces will be used at a time. When you need to wash your eyes, washing your eyes with mulberry leaf decoction can treat all kinds of eye diseases. Others, such as Puji Fang and Jijian Fang, all recorded the methods of using mulberry leaves to treat green blindness, wind eye tears and jealous pain.
(3) Eating mutton: mutton is sweet, hot, and belongs to fire. It can tonify yuan and help yang, treat physical weakness and emaciation, keep out the cold and replenish qi, and have a strong nutritional effect. Mutton after autumn and winter tastes especially delicious. In China, except sleeping outside the Great Wall, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet and other places, mutton is generally eaten in late autumn until beginning of spring. For example, in Changxing, Zhejiang, stores have been set up in August of the lunar calendar to slaughter sheep for sale. There is a folk saying, "On the first day of the month, a sheep will have an operation.". "It didn't stop selling until after New Year's Eve. Along the Taihu Lake basin, sheep are abundant. In winter, mutton is also a seasonal thing.
(4) Fried incense: Vanilla is a kind of fragrant grass. When it is waved on the grass with sleeves, it will smell fragrant and can be sewn into sachets to wear. Burning herbs can cure plague, dispel wind and evil spirits in houses; Wearing sachets can relieve depression; Bathing in soup can dispel wind and cold; Rub it in the hair room to remove filth; Decocting with water and wine and applying it to the face can remove dark spots and nourish the face. Plants such as Lan Hui also belong to vanilla. They are all pungent things, and they have divergent qi, which is enough to eliminate filth, moisten muscles and disperse stagnation.
(5) Repairing farm tools: In the dead of winter, when farming is finished, farmers should check and repair all farm tools in their leisure time. If it is found to be damaged or unusable, it should be repaired immediately or added to avoid delaying the farming season next spring. In the Book of Rites, there is a month in the winter, in which "farmers are ordered to put aside farming, repair and recruit, and have farm equipment". That's exactly what I mean.
(6) Fertilizer production: All kinds of plants, except those growing in swamps, mostly rely on their roots to absorb nutrients from the earthen city to maintain their lives. In Shan Ye, where there is no one all the year round, the trees are particularly lush and vigorous, and it is the litter that depends on grass and trees that accumulates over time to form fertilizer. In winter, the plants and trees are withered, and there are gardens in areas near the mountains or at home, and dead branches and leaves are everywhere, which is the best time for farmers to make compost.
(7) Welcome to Winter: In feudal society, the court held a ceremony to welcome winter in the suburbs, and rewarded the ministers with winter clothes and widows. It is recorded in "Lv Chunqiu Meng Dong": "It's the moon, and it's beginning of winter. Beginning of winter for three days first, the son of Tai Shi thirsty. Say:' One day in beginning of winter, Shengde was in the water.' The son of heaven is Zhai. On the day of beginning of winter, the son of heaven personally led the doctors of San Gong Jiu Qing to welcome winter in the northern suburbs. Still, it is a matter of rewarding death and caring for the lonely. "On that day, the emperor led the doctor to meet the winter at Liuli in the northern suburbs. When you come back, the emperor will give you a big reward, and he will pay for the widows and orphans.
(8) Sacrificing to the Winter Gods: In ancient times, in beginning of winter, the son of heaven wore black clothes, rode iron-colored horses, and took officials from civil and military forces to the northern suburbs to sacrifice to the Winter Gods. The name of Winter God is Yu Qiang, and the word is Xuan Ming. Shan Hai Jing said that he lived on an island in the North Sea. He looked strange: a bird with a human face, two green snakes hanging from his ears and two flying red snakes on his feet. The scene of offering sacrifices to the winter god is very grand. According to Records of the Historian, in the Han Dynasty, there were 70 boys and girls singing the song of Xuan Ming together: "Lingyin, Xuan Ming, covered with stinging insects? When the book is collected, Jia Yi is concealed. " It means that it's cold, so we should collect food well.