Dragon head up (February 2 of the lunar calendar), also known as spring ploughing Festival, agricultural Festival, Qinglong Festival and spring Dragon Festival, is a traditional Chinese folk festival. "Dragon" refers to the seven constellations of the eastern Canglong among the twenty-eight constellations. At the beginning of the mid spring Mao month (Dou refers to the East), the "dragon horn star" rises from the eastern horizon, so it is called "dragon rise". The dragon looks up at the beginning of Mao month in the middle of spring. The five elements of "Mao" belong to wood, and the divinatory symbol is "earthquake"; In the "lingua mutual earthquake" in 1992, it means that the dragon has left its latent state and has appeared on the earth's surface, emerging as a hair growing elephant. In farming culture, "dragon heads up" indicates that Yang is growing, rain is increasing, and everything is full of vitality. Spring farming begins from here. Since ancient times, people have also regarded dragon rise day as a day to pray for good weather, exorcise evil spirits and disasters, and accept auspicious transportation.
"Dragon rise" originates from the worship of natural phenomena, which is related to people's understanding of the operation of stars and farming culture in ancient times. Although "dragon head up" has a long historical origin, it became a national festival and appeared in the literature after the Yuan Dynasty. There are many activities related to "dragon rise", but in either way, they are carried out around the beautiful Dragon God belief. It is an activity for people to place their hope for survival. As far as the whole country is concerned, due to different regions, local customs are also different.
Dragon is a mythical creature living in the sea. It is often used to symbolize auspiciousness. Since ancient times, people have celebrated the dragon on the day of "dragon rise" in mid spring to pray for disaster elimination and blessing, good weather and bumper crops. "February 2" of the lunar calendar is not only the "dragon rise Festival", but also the "social day" of the birth of the God of land. Due to the overlapping Festival periods, there are both dragon head raising Festival and sacrificial society customs in some parts of the south. For example, in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other regions, "February 2" (the fifth day after the beginning of spring in ancient times) is mainly for sacrificial Society (land God), and dragon sacrificial society is mostly in the Duanyang of "dragon flying to the sky".
LongTaiTou Wiki:
Chinese name | Long Tai Tou |
Foreign name | DragonHeadraisingDay |
alias | Spring Dragon Festival, spring ploughing Festival and farming Festival |
Holiday time | February 2 of the lunar calendar |
Festival type | traditional festival |
Epidemic area | China |
Festival origin | Celestial phenomena and beliefs |
Festival activities | Dragon boat, dragon worship, hair cutting, gun burning |
Holiday diet | Cooking beans, noodles, pancakes, eggs |
Holiday significance | Inherit and carry forward traditional culture |
moral | The image of hair, good luck |
Natural phenology | Spring thunder moves suddenly, rain increases and temperature rises |
Dragon Head Raising Day (Long Tai Tou) Festival source
The saying of "the rise of the dragon" comes from ancient astronomy. In ancient times, people chose 28 groups of stars near the equator of the ecliptic as coordinates as a reference for observing celestial phenomena. According to the track and position of the sun, moon and stars, the ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic into 28 groups, commonly known as "28 constellations". "Su" means living, because they are surrounded by the sun, moon and five stars, much like the place where the sun, moon and five stars live, so they are called "Su". "Twenty eight Nights" is divided into four groups according to the four directions of East, West, North and south, resulting in "four elephants": Oriental Canglong, western white tiger, southern rosefinch and Northern basaltic. The seven places in the East are called "Jiao, Kang, Di, Fang, Xin, Wei and Ji". The seven places form a complete dragon shaped astrology, which is called "Oriental Canglong". Among them, Jiao represents the Dragon horn, Kang represents the dragon's throat, di represents the dragon's claw, Xin represents the dragon's heart, Wei and Ji represent the dragon's tail. In winter, the black dragon disappeared under the northern horizon for seven nights. In the middle of spring (between the awakening of insects and the vernal equinox), spica (spica 1 and Spica 2) appeared on the eastern horizon. At this time, the whole body of the black dragon was still hidden below the horizon, but spica was just emerging, so it was called "dragon rise". The rise of the Dragon refers to the looming change of the stars in the sky. It is not that there is a real animal dragon changing.
The haunting cycle of Canglong Qisu is consistent with the one-year farming period. At the beginning of farming in spring, the green dragon Qisu began to rise slowly on the eastern horizon, and the first thing to show is the bright dragon head Jiaosu; In summer, when crops grow, the black dragon hangs high in the southern night sky; In the autumn, when the crops had a good harvest, the green dragon began to fall in the West; In winter, everything is hidden, and the black dragon is hidden below the northern horizon. The ancients called "seeing the dragon in the field" (i.e. "the rise of the dragon") for the emergence of the Canglong Qisu on the eastern horizon in mid spring, and "flying dragon in the sky" for the rise of the Canglong Qisu to the due south midheaven in mid summer; In addition, there are "the dragon with regret" and "the Dragon without a head", which correspond to the celestial phenomena of each season respectively. The rise of the Dragon indicates in the farming culture that Yang comes out from the bottom of the earth, rain increases, and everything is full of vitality. Therefore, spring farming began. When the Dragon rises, many places south of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have begun to enter the rainy season, and the spring thunder begins to sound. In the Yuan Dynasty, the "February 2" of the lunar calendar was called "dragon rise". From the solar terms, the "second day of February" was between the "rain", "waking insects" and "spring equinox" of the 24 solar terms. There are many activities related to "dragon rise", but in either way, they are carried out around the beautiful Dragon God belief. It is an activity for people to place their hope for survival. As far as the whole country is concerned, due to different regions, local customs are also different.
Dragon Head Raising Day (Long Tai Tou) Historical evolution
Dragon is a mythical creature living in the sea in ancient myths and legends of China and other East Asian regions. It is the master of weather and weathering rain and is often used to symbolize auspiciousness. It originated from the worship of natural phenomena, which is related to the understanding of astronomy on the operation of stars and farming culture in ancient times. The purpose of the ancients' observation of celestial phenomena was to determine the time, so as to provide services for agricultural production. Dragon head raising is the reflection of Chinese ancient farming culture on the season. Although "dragon head raising" has a long historical source, it has been widely spread as a national festival and appeared in the literature. It is recorded after the Yuan Dynasty.
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty is an important period of cultural exchange and integration between North and South China. There are records of the image of the dragon in the documents of the Han Dynasty. Dong Zhongshu of the Western Han Dynasty mentioned the activities of dragon dancing and praying for rain in his spring and autumn fan Lu, which was held directly with the help of the image of the dragon. The dance scene of "playing with the dragon" is also engraved on the portrait stone of the Han Dynasty, which is used as the origin of dragon dance in later generations.
Tang Dynasty
During the Tang Dynasty, there was no record of the rise of the dragon in the literature. People in Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty regarded February new moon as a special day. They said it was a day of "welcoming wealth". On this day, they should eat "fruits of welcoming wealth", that is, eat some snacks. According to the records in the biography of Li mi in the book of Tang Dynasty, before the middle of Tang Dynasty, there were only three festivals in Chang'an spring at that time - the ninth day of the first month, the dark day of the first month (the 30th day of the first month) and the Shangsi Festival in March. There was no festival in February. Li mi wrote a book, abolished the dark day of the first month, and took the first day of February as the Zhonghe Festival (taking the meaning of Zhongzheng and peace) to show the foundation of affairs. Dezong agreed very much and ordered that the ninth day of the first month, the new moon of February and the last day of March be collectively called the three commandments Festival.
During the period of Tang Dezong, Tang Dezong believed that there was "Shangsi Festival" in March and "Double Ninth Festival" in September. In February, when the weather changed from cold to warm, everything recovered and farming began, there was no Festival. It was really unreasonable, so he asked Prime Minister Li Mi for advice. Li mi felt that what Dezong said was quite reasonable. Therefore, he suggested: abolish the old practice of taking the dark day of the first month (the last day of the first month) as the festival, and change February 1 of the fifth year of Zhenyuan (790) as the "Zhonghe Festival"; On this day, the emperor will give a banquet to the ministers, and give them knives and rulers to show their tailoring: all officials should offer agricultural books to show their responsibility; People should use blue bags to hold grains and seeds of melons and fruits and give them to relatives and friends; Village residents should brew Yichun wine to offer sacrifices to God goumang, pray for a good harvest and so on. Dezong was very happy to hear this, fully adopted Li Mi's opinions, and immediately issued an imperial edict to take February 1, the fifth year of Zhenyuan as the festival of neutralization. Poetry, music and dance are always indispensable for banquets in the Tang Dynasty, and so are Zhonghe Festival banquets.
Wei Chishu's Nanfan news recorded: "Li Bi said that February 1 was the Zhonghe Festival, and people used green bags to hold hundreds of Valley fruits, which were more complementary and ingenious. The same is true in the palace, which is called giving birth to children." It can be seen that giving birth to children is the main feature of Zhonghe Festival.
Song Dynasty
In the Song Dynasty, in some parts of China, there was a "pick vegetables" royal banquet on the second day of February, but it had nothing to do with the "dragon". In the Southern Song Dynasty, people of the Song Dynasty carefully described in the old stories of Wulin that there was a royal banquet of "picking vegetables" in the heavenly palace on the second day of February. The "February 2" activities in these places recorded in the documents of the Tang and Song dynasties were not associated with the "dragon rise".
Yuan period
In the Yuan Dynasty, in the literature, February 2 of the lunar calendar was clearly regarded as "the rise of the dragon". When describing the customs of Dadu City, Xiejin Zhi mentioned that "February 2 is the rise of the dragon". On this day, people in northern areas are popular to eat noodles, known as "longxumian"; And pancakes, called "dragon scales"; If you make dumplings, it is called "dragon teeth". In short, the food we eat should be named after the dragon's body.
Ming Dynasty
After the Ming Dynasty, "February 2" also recorded many customs about the rise of the dragon, such as throwing ash to attract the dragon, supporting the dragon, fumigating insects to avoid scorpions, shaving faucets, avoiding acupuncture longan and other festival customs, so it is called the rise of the dragon day. Yuan Fei wrote the book "Sui Hua Ji Li Pu": "on February 2, during the outing Festival, people in Renjun visited and scattered around the suburbs. Wang Hao's "guangqunfangpu tianshipu" quoted "Hanmo Ji": "Luoyang customs take February 2 as the flower Dynasty Festival, scholars and common people play, and it is also the vegetable selection Festival."
In the Ming Dynasty, the activities of "fumigating insects" and "fried beans" were added on February 2. Ming people's "a brief view of the imperial capital" said: "on February 2, the Dragon looked up... Smoked bed Kang, smoked insects, in order to lead the dragon and insects out."
Qing Dynasty
According to the records of Daxing county annals during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, "on February 2, each family is made of meat and vegetable cakes, which are cooked in oil and eaten. It is called fumigating insects." According to the records of Wuding Prefecture by Xianfeng of the Qing Dynasty, "... February 2 is the spring Dragon Festival, and the kitchen ash is taken to enclose the house like a dragon and snake, which is called yinqian dragon and zhaofuxiang. The Yanjing Yearbook at the end of the Qing Dynasty said:" February 2... Today people call the dragon head up. Those who eat bread are called dragon scale cakes, and those who eat noodles are called Dragon Beard noodles. If you stop sewing in the boudoir, you may hurt the dragon's eyes. " At this time, not only eat cakes and noodles, but also women can't do needlework for fear of hurting the dragon's eyes.
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