Drinking realgar wine during Dragon Boat Festival is not yellow wine, it is white wine or yellow wine brewed by grinding into powder, and realgar has the function of detoxification. Therefore, in order to prevent the epidemic, the ancients drank realgar wine every year on the Dragon Boat Festival. It is said that after drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival, poisonous insects did not dare to approach for a whole year.
Legend of drinking realgar wine on Dragon Boat Festival
Legend has it that after Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, people in Qu Yuan's hometown threw zongzi and salted eggs into the river to prevent the dragon from eating Qu Yuan's body. An old doctor brought an altar of realgar wine and poured it into the river, saying that it could save the dragon and protect Qu Yuan. After a while, a dragon really floated on the water. So, people pulled the dragon ashore, lacing and peeling it, then wrapped the dragon tendon around the children's wrists and necks, and then wiped their seven orifices with realgar wine, thinking that this would protect the children from insects and snakes. It is said that this is the origin of drinking realgar wine on Dragon Boat Festival. Up to now, many places in China have the habit of drinking realgar wine.
How about drinking realgar wine on Dragon Boat Festival?
It has certain toxic and side effects, and it is recommended to drink a small amount.
The main components of realgar wine are realgar and yellow wine. Realgar is mainly composed of arsenic sulfide, which is highly toxic and can be used to extract arsenic. Therefore, realgar itself is toxic to some extent, and improper drinking can easily cause physical harm. So drinking realgar wine is not recommended now. Scientifically speaking, realgar wine needs to be treated with caution, and yellow wine is beneficial to human health. Yellow rice wine is actually a kind of rice wine. Unlike white wine, yellow rice wine has not been distilled, and its alcohol content is less than 20%.
Yellow rice wine contains a lot of protein, B vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, selenium, and a certain amount of sugar, organic acids and amino acids. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that yellow wine can be used as medicine, and drinking it raw is effective for tachycardia, anorexia and irritability. Hot drinks can relieve symptoms such as blood stasis, lack of milk, rheumatoid arthritis, backache, numbness of hands and feet. Drinking yellow wine while it is hot is good for your health. After scalding, some harmful substances in the wine will volatilize.
Other customs of Dragon Boat Festival
1, eat zongzi
People all over the country have the custom of eating zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, which has a history of hundreds of years and has become a part of China's traditional culture. The ancient zongzi was also called corn millet and tube zongzi. Horn millet is named after the angular shape of zongzi and glutinous rice inside; Drum-shaped zongzi is to cook the original zongzi with rice stored in bamboo tubes.
2. Dragon Boat Race
Dragon boat race is the main custom of Dragon Boat Festival. According to legend, people who originated in the ancient State of Chu were reluctant to part with the death of the sage Qu Yuan, and many people rowed boats to save people. They rushed to catch up with each other and disappeared at Dongting Lake. After that, I will row a dragon boat on May 5th every year to commemorate it. Rowing a dragon boat to disperse the fish in the river so as not to eat Qu Yuan's body. The habit of competition prevailed in wuyue and Chu.
3, hanging calamus leaves
There is a folk proverb that says, "Willows are inserted in Qingming Festival, and Ai is inserted in Dragon Boat Festival". On the Dragon Boat Festival, people regard inserting wormwood and calamus as one of the important contents. Every family sweeps the court, puts calamus and moxa sticks between their eyebrows and hangs them in the class. Acorus calamus, Folium Artemisiae Argyi, Liu Hua, Garlic and Dragon Boat Flower are made into human or tiger shapes, which are called Ai Ren and Ai Hu. It is made into garlands and decorations, beautiful and fragrant, and women compete to wear it to ward off evil spirits.
4. hide from the dragon boat festival
The custom during the Dragon Boat Festival refers to the newly married or married daughter going home for the New Year. Short for "hiding in the afternoon", it is also called "hiding out". It is customary to take May and May 5th as evil months and days, and it is necessary to ward off evil spirits in everything, because there is a custom of taking women home to ward off evil spirits during the Dragon Boat Festival. This custom seems to have been formed in the Song Dynasty. There is a line in Lu You's poem "Feng Sui" that "the goat cavity wine bears the burden of welcoming women, and the drum dragon boat is sent to compete with God". "Jiajing Longqing Zhi" also records a cloud: "Marry a woman and call her home for the holidays". Luan Zhou Zhi: "A woman bride welcomes the moon back, which is called" hiding from the Dragon Boat Festival ".
5. Wearing a century-old rope
On the Dragon Boat Festival, children in Yangzhou put on tiger shirts, tiger pockets, tiger shoes and cloth tigers on their backs. The soles are embroidered with "five poisons", and the face is painted with realgar wine. On their foreheads, there is a word "Wang" written by adults dipped in realgar and cinnabar to ward off evil spirits with the help of tiger power. Wearing red, yellow, blue, white and black silk thread on the neck and wrist, it is said that the five-color silk thread representing yin and yang and five elements can also ward off evil spirits. People hang a string of five-color silk sachets on their skirts, and the sachets are generally filled with aromatic Chinese medicines such as Radix Angelicae Dahuricae and Rhizoma Atractylodis.