Tomb Sweeping Day， also called the Qingming Festival.
The history of the Qingming Festival
Qingming Festival is a very traditional festival in China, its history can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. In 656 BC, that is, the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Xian of Jin listened to Li Ji's slander, he killed the prince Shen Sheng and sent someone to arrest Shen Sheng's younger brother Chong'er. In order to avoid persecution, Chong'er was forced to go into exile abroad. On the way to exile, he came to a deserted place one day. Conger had not eaten or rested for several days and nights. He was tired and hungry and fell to the ground unable to get up. The followers around him couldn't find anything to eat, and everyone was extremely anxious.
At this critical moment, minister Jie Zitui walked alone to a secluded place. He took a sharp knife and cut a piece of meat from his leg and boiled it into the broth for Chong'er to eat. After a bowl of hot soup, Chong'er gradually woke up. He found that there was blood on Jie Zitui's leg, and learned that this piece of meat was cut from Jie Zitui's leg. Repay Jie Zitui well.
Nineteen years later, Chong'er became the monarch, one of the "Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period", the famous Duke Wen of Jin. Duke Wen of Jin rewarded the hero who accompanied him in exile, but he forgot Jie Ziti. Many people around Jie Zitui fought against him and asked him to go to Jin Wengong to receive the reward, but Jie Zitui was indifferent to fame and fortune in his life, and he despised those who took credit. So I packed my bags, brought my mother, and quietly set off to Mianshan to live in seclusion.
When Duke Wen of Jin heard about this, he felt remorse. He personally took someone to ask Jie Zi to push out the mountain. However, Mianshan was hundreds of miles in diameter, the mountain was high and the road was long, and the jungle was dense. Besides, Jie Zitui deliberately avoided Duke Wen of Jin. How easy was it to find someone? So someone offered a plan to set fire to the mountain from three sides, leaving only one passage, forcing Jie to push out of the mountain.
Duke Wen of Jin felt that this method could be tried, so he ordered people to set up a raging fire to burn Mianshan, but Jie Zitui still did not see him. After the fire was extinguished, people went up the mountain to search and found that Jie Zitui was carrying his old mother on his back and burned to death under an old willow tree. It turned out that Jie Zitui would rather die than go out to the mountains to accept fame and fortune. When Duke Wen of Jin saw this, he could no longer hold back the grief in his heart, and he burst into tears.
When people were burying Jie Zitui's body, they found a piece of clothes from the hole in the willow tree behind it. It said: "Cut the flesh and serve the king with all his heart. I hope the lord will always be clear and bright." Set as the Cold Food Festival. In the second year, Duke Wen of Jin led a hundred civil and military officials to climb mountains to pay homage to Jie Ziti. They found that the old willow tree that had been burned last year had come back to life. Duke Wen of Jin named the old willow tree "Qingming Liu" and set the second day of the Cold Food Festival as Qingming Festival. Festival.
The customs of the Qingming Festival
The Qingming Festival, which has lasted for thousands of years, naturally has many traditional customs among the people. Which ones are interesting and beneficial to the body and mind?
1. The first is to go out on the green. During the Qingming Festival, when everything springs back to the earth, all things germinate. Many people will take advantage of the opportunity of tomb sweeping to have fun in the mountains. Plug your home into a water bottle to fill your room with life. Many literati and writers also walked to the natural landscape during the Qingming Festival to appreciate a vibrant spring scene, soothe the depressing mood of the dull winter, and write two poems by the way.
2. When it comes to Qingming Festival, how can we not sweep the tomb? As the most important custom of the Qingming Festival, tomb-sweeping first arose in the Qin Dynasty, prevailed in the Tang Dynasty, and has been handed down to this day. Tomb-sweeping during the Qingming Festival is a "respect for the ancestors", which is the biggest ancestor worship day in my country. When sweeping tombs, people will bring drinks, food, and other items to the cemetery, clean up the dust in the cemetery, repair the graves, and offer food in front of the relatives' tombs to express their thoughts for their relatives.
3. Kite flying is also entertainment that people like at Qingming Festival. Different from modern people, the ancients flew kites not only during the day but also at night. It's just that when flying a kite at night, a string of beautiful colored small lanterns will be hung under the kite or on the wind-steady string, which looks like a shining "magic lantern" in the night sky. Some people cut the rope after putting the kite in the sky, and let the kite blow to the ends of the earth, which means that the disease is like a kite, which is blown away by the wind.
4. Since ancient times, people still have the habit of planting trees during the Qingming Festival. Now when people mention Arbor Day, the first thing that comes to mind is March 12, but the ancients used to plant trees around Qingming Festival.
In fact, the ancient custom of planting trees came from funerals. The rulers of the Western Zhou Dynasty first planted trees in front of tombs to show their identity. Ordinary people in this period were not qualified to plant trees in front of tombs. It was not until the Spring and Autumn Period that the people began to imitate the rulers to plant trees in front of the graves. However, before the Han Dynasty, Qingming was not much related to plants. It was Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, who really combined tree planting and Qingming.
Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, fought for years and had no time to return to his hometown. After he became emperor, he remembered to go home to worship his ancestors. pine and cypress as a symbol.
Coincidentally, this day is the Qingming solar term, and he announced Qingming as an ancestor worship festival to the world. Every year during the Qingming Festival, Liu Bang will hold ancestor worship and tree planting activities. The Qingming Festival and ancestor worship are combined in this way. In the Tang Dynasty, when people went out on the Qingming Festival, they often planted willow branches on the graves, and the surviving willow branches also played the role of planting trees.
4. Swinging on the swing is also the custom of the Qingming Festival. Of course, now, whenever you are in the mood, you can swing on the swing, but in the eyes of the ancients, swinging has a symbolic meaning. Swinging on the swing was a game played by girls in ancient times. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, more and more people played it. In the Tang Dynasty, it was popular in the north and south of the river. According to folklore, swinging can get rid of diseases, and the higher the swing, the more happy life will be.
Qingming Festival and Ancient Poems
According to the habits of the ancient Chinese, whenever there is a festival, there must be corresponding poems. Every traditional festival is a competition for poems. Qingming has such a long history, and it is also the season of outing, and poetry is naturally indispensable. We can also spy on how the ancients spent the Qingming Festival from the poetry.
The Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ji's "Change is an event": "The farmer recruits boats to go to the building, the spring grass is green and the fields are green. Try the Women to see the county, and there are new smokes in several places in Qingming." This poem is related to the Qingming Festival. An important custom is to eat cold food. On this day, people do not move the stove and avoid hot food. So what do you eat without hot food? Cold food. Northerners eat pre-made jujube cakes on this day, while southerners eat green balls and sweet-scented lotus root.
The Qing Dynasty poetess Yang Yunhua's "Song of the Mountain and Pond" wrote: "As soon as the Qingming Festival came to the present day, I heard wicker selling along the street; I met my sisters next to each other, and a tree was slanted with green clouds." This reflects that the people of the Qing Dynasty arrived at Qingming. During the festival, every household buys some willow branches from hawkers and sticks them on their lintels. When people go out to sweep graves, they also stick willow branches on their clothes. This habit is much like putting a bouquet of flowers on the grave today.
In the Song Dynasty, Wu Weixin wrote the poem "Sudi Qingming is an event": "The pear blossoms are in the Qingming Festival, and the wanderer is half out of the city in search of spring. When the sun and songs are cleaned up, ten thousand willows belong to the warbler." This poem is vividly written by a family Take advantage of Qingming, goes out for an outing, and returns until the sun goes down.