Chapter 421 Sweeping the Tomb and Worshiping the Ancestors 1

1.

Sunday, April 5th, Qingming Festival.

Qingming Festival is one of the most important traditional festivals in China, it is not only a festival for people to pay tribute to their ancestors and remember the martyrs, but also a link for the Chinese nation to recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors.

The Qingming Festival has a history of more than 2,500 years in China, and in ancient times it was also called the Qingqing Festival, the March Festival, the Ancestor Worship Festival, the Tomb Sweeping Festival, the Tomb Sweeping Festival, the Ghost Festival, etc. It is known as the three famous "ghost festivals" in China, together with the mid-year festival on July 15 and the winter clothes festival on the first day of October. Around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar is the Qingming Festival, which is one of the 24 solar terms. Among the 24 solar terms, only Qingming is both a solar term and a festival.

The origin of the Qingming Festival, it is said that it began in the ancient emperors and generals of the "tomb sacrifice" ceremony, and later the folk also followed suit, on this day to worship the ancestors and sweep the tomb, the successive dynasties have become a fixed custom of the Chinese nation. The custom of worshipping ancestors and sweeping the tombs in front of the tomb originated very early. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, great importance was attached to tombs. In the Warring States Period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, "Mencius Qi People" also mentioned a Qi people who were laughed at and often went to the tomb of Dongguo to beg for sacrifices to the tomb, which shows that the atmosphere of tomb sweeping in the Warring States Period was very popular. When Xuanzong arrived in the Tang Dynasty, he issued an edict to sweep the tomb with cold food as one of the "five rites" at that time, so every time the Qingming Festival came, "the fields and roads are full of scholars and women, and the soap servants and beggars all have the tombs of their parents." (Liu Zongyuan's "Book with Xu Jingzhao") Therefore, sweeping the tomb and worshiping the ancestors on the Qingming Festival has become an important social custom that has been passed down to this day.

Even in today's society, the custom of people going to the grave to sweep the tomb and worship the ancestors before and after the Qingming Festival has continued, but the procedure of sacrificing and sweeping has been deleted a lot, generally eradicating weeds, putting offerings, offering incense and blessings in front of the grave, burning paper money and gold ingots, or simply offering a bouquet of flowers to express the memory of the ancestors.

In our country, the literati and writers in history also have a soft spot for the Qingming Festival, leaving a lot of popular poems.

The great poet Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty wrote the poem "Cold Food and Wild Wangyin": "The black cry magpie is noisy and faint, who cries in the Qingming and cold food? The wind blows the paper money in the wilderness, and the ancient tombs are full of spring grass and green." The pear blossoms reflect the poplar trees, and they are all life and death. The desert heavy spring cried and didn't listen, and Xiao Xiao returned in the twilight. ”

The Song Dynasty poet Gao Juqing also described in the poem "Qingming": "There are many cemeteries on the north and south hills, and the Qingming sacrifice sweeps each other. Paper ashes fly into white butterflies, tears and blood stain red cuckoos. The fox sleeps on the mound at sunset, and returns to the children at night in front of the laughing lamp. If there is wine in life, you must be drunk, and a drop of it has ever been to Jiuquan. ”

There is also the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's widely circulated "Qingming", which almost adults and children will read: "During the Qingming Festival, it rains a lot, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls." By asking where the restaurant is, the shepherd boy pointed to Xinghua Village. ”

From these ancient poems, it is not difficult to see the importance of Qingming Festival in the minds of Chinese. This is a kind of family affection and the transmission and inheritance of history, and it should not be simply equated with "feudal superstition".

2.

In the Toyama area, the Qingming Festival is not regarded as a festival by the mountain people, but as a very important solar term. As soon as Qingming arrives, the temperature gradually rises, and it is a good season for spring plowing and spring planting in the Hushan area, so there are agricultural proverbs such as "before and after Qingming Festival, planting melons and beans", "planting trees and afforestation, no more than Qingming", "Qingming sorghum valley rain valley, Lixia sesame small manchu".

Therefore, before and after the Qingming Festival, the people in the mountains began to put into the busy spring ploughing and spring planting, "people are wrong for a while, and people are wrong for a year", and they missed the opportunity to sow seeds before and after the Qingming Festival, and this year's harvest may be gone, so they can only look at the ground and sigh.

Even though it is the busy farming season, on the day of the Qingming Festival, the Toyama area is still very lively. People in the mountains will consciously give themselves a day off, relatives and friends get together, drink together, worship ancestors and visit tombs together, or go to the village to participate in some folk activities that have been passed down for many years. In ancient times, there were many folk activities during the Qingming Festival, such as walking, willow planting, amusement, kite flying, swinging, hooking, willow shooting, juju, cockfighting and so on. Today, the only folk activities that have been passed down in the Toyama area are kite flying and swinging, which are children's favorite games and have left too many happy memories of the children's childhood.

The games and fun are for the children, and the adults are busy with ancestor worship and tomb sweeping. In the Hushan area, the annual festival ancestor worship is linked to "filial piety", such as the Qingming Festival grave sweeping and other memorial activities, is the living to the deceased to the mourning and remembrance, but also the connotation and etiquette of Chinese filial piety culture, is to the deceased relatives, cautious and distant remembrance, this is the Chinese filial piety culture from generation to generation, from generation to generation to pass on the great characteristics and great connotation, is a kind of eternal filial piety and benevolence of the Chinese.

In Shimengouzi Village, if there are people in the village who do not go to the graves and sweep the tombs of their ancestors during the Qingming Festival, they will be regarded as "unfilial piety" by the villagers, a manifestation of "counting the classics and forgetting their ancestors", and they will be scolded by the old people in the village. Although the people in the mountains are vulgar, they also know that the infamy of "unfilial piety" cannot be recited. Therefore, the mountain people in the Hushan area have always regarded ancestor worship and tomb sweeping as a very important ritual during the Qingming Festival, and they will do it very consciously and religiously.