The fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Lantern Festival. In fact, there were many customs of the Lantern Festival in ancient times. Eating Lantern Festival, admiring lanterns, and guessing lantern riddles are some important folk customs of the Lantern Festival. Do you also celebrate it like this? For my own Lantern Festival, let’s take a look at the origin and customs of the most complete Lantern Festival. Welcome everyone to learn from and refer to.

About the origin of the most complete Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival has a long history and is now generally believed to have originated in the Han Dynasty. Emperors of the Han Dynasty believed in Buddhism, and Buddhism had the habit of viewing relics on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to pray for blessings. When changing places to promote Buddhism, they ordered everyone from the court to the people to light lamps on this day. This gradually formed the embryonic form of the Lantern Festival. Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty also set the activity of offering sacrifices to "Tai Yi" on this day. With the support of activities of offering sacrifices to gods, the Lantern Festival began to be valued by people.

As a festival, the Lantern Festival has grown and expanded with the development of history. It was formed in the Han Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, because of the strong national power, it was popular to hang lanterns in both the capital and the towns. The city was full of fire trees and silver flowers, which was the favorite flower scene of the people of the Tang Dynasty. The Lantern Festival has been greatly developed as a festival of lights. In the Song Dynasty, the Lantern Festival has developed into the most lively carnival, with countless lanterns and fireworks like a rain of stars.

As the continuation of the New Year, the Lantern Festival is the last climax of the New Year celebrations. Watching lanterns, eating Lantern Festival, setting off fireworks, dancing lions, etc., everyone celebrates the rejuvenation of the earth and celebrates the good weather of the year in advance.

Brief about the most complete Lantern Festival customs

1. Eat Lantern Festival

Yuanxiao is eaten on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. As a food, "Yuanxiao" has a long history in our country. In the Song Dynasty, folk was a novel food that was popular during the Lantern Festival. This kind of food was first called "Floating Yuanzi" and later called "Yuanxiao", and businessmen also called it "Yuanbao". Lantern Festival is "tangyuan", which is filled with sugar, rose, sesame, red bean paste, cinnamon, walnut kernel, nuts, jujube paste, etc., and wrapped in glutinous rice flour into a round shape. It can be meat or vegetables, with different flavors. It can be boiled in soup, deep-fried, or steamed, which means a happy reunion. The glutinous rice balls in Shaanxi are not wrapped, but "rolled" in glutinous rice flour, or boiled or deep-fried, and they are hot and round.

2. Festive lanterns

The fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar is the "Lantern Festival". This festival is also called the Lantern Festival because there are customs of hanging, lighting and watching lanterns.

3. Guess lantern riddles

Guessing lantern riddles, also known as playing lantern riddles, is a unique form of traditional folk cultural and entertainment activities with rich ethnic style in China. It is a characteristic activity of the Lantern Festival that has been spread since ancient times. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, traditional folks hang up colored lanterns and set off fireworks. Later, some people write riddles on paper and paste them on colorful lanterns for people to guess. Because riddles can enlighten wisdom and cater to the festive atmosphere, so many people responded, and then guessing riddles gradually became an indispensable program of the Lantern Festival. Lantern riddles add to the festive atmosphere, showing the wisdom of the ancient working people and their yearning for a better life.

4. Playing with dragon lanterns

Playing with dragon lanterns is also called dragon lantern dance or dragon dance. The dragon dance found in written records is Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu" in the Han Dynasty. The author made a vivid description of the dragon dance in the narrative of Baixi. According to "Sui Shu·Music Records", "Yellow Dragon Bian" performed during Emperor Sui Yang's reign, which was similar to the dragon dance in Baixi, was also very exciting. Dragon dance was popular in many places in China. China respects the dragon and regards the dragon as a symbol of auspiciousness.

5. Walking on stilts

Walking on stilts is a popular folk art performance. Stilts belong to one of the ancient Chinese operas and appeared as early as the Spring and Autumn Period.

6. Lion Dance

Lion dance is an excellent folk art in China. Whenever the Lantern Festival or gatherings are celebrated, the folks will come to the lion dance to add to the fun. This custom originated in the Three Kingdoms period and became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and has a history of more than one thousand years.

7. Dry boating

Land boat rowing, also known as dry boat running, is to imitate boat performances on land, and most of the performers are girls. Dry boats are not real boats, they are made of two thin boards, sawn into a boat shape, tied with bamboo and wood, covered with colored cloth, and tied around the girl's waist, as if sitting in a boat, with paddles in hand for rowing. posture, while running, while singing some local ditties, singing and dancing, this is rowing a dry boat. Sometimes there is another man who pretends to be a passenger on a boat and performs as a partner, but most of them pretend to be a clown, entertaining the audience with various funny moves. Land boating is popular in many parts of China.

8. Sacrifice door, sacrificial household

In ancient times, there were "seven sacrifices", these are two of them. The method of offering sacrifices is to insert poplar branches above the door, insert a pair of chopsticks in a bowl containing bean porridge, or put wine and meat directly in front of the door.

9. Chase the mouse

Chasing rats is a traditional folk activity during the Lantern Festival, which began in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. It is mainly for silkworm farmers. Because mice often eat large pieces of silkworms at night, it is said that feeding rice porridge to mice on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month will prevent them from eating silkworms.

10. Give children a lamp

It is referred to as "sending lanterns" for short, also known as "sending flower lanterns", that is, before the Lantern Festival, the mother's family sends lanterns to the newly married daughter's family, or general relatives and friends give them to the newly married infertile family, in order to have a good omen, because "lamps" and "Ding" homonym. This custom exists in many places. In Xi’an, Shaanxi, lanterns are given from the eighth to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. In the first year, a pair of big palace lanterns and a pair of glass lanterns with colored paintings are given, hoping that the daughter will have good luck after marriage and give birth to a son early; If the daughter is pregnant, in addition to the big palace lantern, one or two pairs of small lanterns will also be sent to wish the daughter a safe pregnancy.

11. Welcome Zigu

Zigu is also called Qigu, and in the north it is often called Toilet Gu and Keng Sangu. According to ancient folk customs, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, Zigu, the god of the toilet, will be sacrificed, and the sericulture will be divined, and all things will be accounted for. Legend has it that Zigu was originally a concubine of others, who was jealous of a big woman. She was killed in the toilet on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and became the god of the toilet. Every night on the night of welcoming Zigu, people tie up a life-size portrait of Zigu with straw, cloth, etc., and worship her in the pigsty between the toilets at night. This custom is popular in all parts of the North and South, and it can be seen in records as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

12. Get rid of all kinds of diseases

"Walking all kinds of diseases", also known as traveling all kinds of diseases, dispelling all kinds of diseases, roasting all kinds of diseases, walking bridges, etc., is an activity to eliminate disasters and pray for health. On the night of the Lantern Festival, women go out together and go together, and they must cross every bridge, thinking that this can cure illness and prolong life.