Historical Records of Zongzi

The worship of ancestors during the Dragon Boat Festival is actually a content bestowed by later generations. The ancients actually had various interpretations of the Dragon Boat Festival.

Historical records about Zongzi can be found in Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen of the Han Dynasty. The character "zongzi" is originally called "gao", with reed leaves wrapped in rice. From the meter, the sound of sound.

During the Western Han Dynasty, some places ate "Owl Soup" during the Dragon Boat Festival. The annotation of "The Annals of Filial Piety and Martial Arts" in the Records of the Grand Historian quotes as Chunyan: "The Han envoy sent the owl to Dongjun, and on May 5th, the owl's soup was given to the officials. It was eaten because of the evil bird.". The custom of eating owl soup did not continue due to the difficulty in capturing owls.

In the Western Jin Dynasty, Zongzi was called "corn millet" in the Zhou Dynasty. In the "Record of Local Conditions", it was said that "in mid summer, the fifth day of the year, the side of the uncle was in harmony with the pole. Enjoy corn millet, and the tortoise scale is Shunde. The north and south call it different. In ancient times, it was called" corn millet "in the north. Because the north produces millet, it uses millet to make zongzi, which is angular, so it is called" corn millet ".

Two hundred years later, Wu Jun, a litterateur of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty, said in his "Continuation of Qixie Ji": "Qu Yuan threw himself into Miluo on May 5 and died. Chu people mourned him, so they stored rice in bamboo tubes and threw water to sacrifice it." According to the "Qixie Ji", Zongzi was created because he was afraid that the rice sacrificed to Qu Yuan would be stolen by Jiaolong. Because Jiaolong is afraid of the leaves and green silk. It is evident that people have a deep affection for loyal and righteous individuals.

Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Zongzi has been popular among the people, which originated from the saying that people held a memorial ceremony for Qu Yuan. After Qu Yuan threw himself into the Miluo River, the people all sighed and mourned. Qu Zi, who had no ambitions, left the state of Chu like this, which was actually a loss for the country. So in order to prevent fish and shrimp from eroding Qu Zi, the people poured rice into the river one after another, hoping that the fish and shrimp would only eat this rice without damaging Qu Zi's body. Later, according to ancient books, it was Qu Yuan who entrusted the common people with a dream that rice and grain thrown into the river were actually eaten by the dragons in the river. If they were wrapped in mugwort leaves and tied with five colored ropes, they could avoid being swallowed by the dragons; Then came the Zongzi. There is also a folk legend: the wrapping of Zongzi actually implies that Qu Yuan was tied and thrown into the water to kill him, rather than committing suicide.

In Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" during the Ming Dynasty, he said: "zòng", commonly known as zongzi. The ancients boiled millet wrapped in wild reed leaves, with sharp edges. It is clearly stated that wrapping millet with wild leaves and cooking it into sharp or palm leaf shaped food is called "Jiaoshu" or "Zongzi". After the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zongzi was mostly made of glutinous rice. At this time, it was not called corns, but Zongzi.