Qixi Festival every family begging for the autumn moon
"The sky is as cool as water at night, lie down and watch the morning glory and Vega." Although the wind blowing by the ears is still warm, but in the middle of summer, on August 4th, the Qixi Festival will come as promised.
Tanabata is a very romantic traditional festival.
In today's people's impression, this festival is always related to love and embodies people's yearning for beautiful emotions.
However, in ancient times, this festival was also based on the theme of begging for skill and blessing, and it was a comprehensive festival with women as the main body.
Begging for tricks under the moon, throwing needles to test tricks, and happy spiders for tricks... If you travel back hundreds of years, you can see that on the night of the Qixi Festival, when the sky is full of stars, the girls in the boudoir are arranging incense tables under the moonlight, Flowers and fruits, lit incense wax around the table, silently promised a congratulatory message that he buried in his heart and wanted to tell the Weaver Girl, or carefully dropped a silver needle in a bowl filled with water.
"Girls in the past can be said to be self-taught without a teacher, relying on the words and deeds of married sisters, which have been passed down for thousands of years." Folklore expert Liu Xiaochang said.
begging for skill under the moon
More begging for marriage
"Qi Qiao Festival can be said to be a very romantic and mysterious festival in traditional festivals." Compared with the "Qi Xi" slogan that merchants in the streets and alleys are currently using, Liu Xiaochang is more willing to call the festival on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month as the festival. "Qi Qiao Festival".
Because this festival not only contains the beautiful legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, but also embodies the good wishes of working women, so the "Qixi Festival" is also called "Qiaoqiao Festival" and "Daughter's Festival".
And "begging for skill" means "begging for skill and wisdom".
"The mystery of the Qiqiao Festival is that the time and participants are specific." Liu Xiaochang said, "The Qiqiao Festival" is a traditional Chinese festival dedicated to women.
On the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, the girls not only begged for a skillful hand from the Weaver Girl, but also begged for a good match for marriage.
Threading a needle for begging for a skill, liking a spider to respond to a skill, throwing a needle to check the skill... Over the thousands of years, the way of begging for skill has also developed a variety of options.
Among them, needle injection should be a relatively well-known method, and many film and television dramas have performed this custom.
"On the Qixi Festival, girls often prepare a large clean bowl. At 12 noon, they scoop up a bowl of water and put it on the small tea table in the courtyard, let the sun light dry the water in the bowl, and wait until the evening moonlight and starry sky. Set aside. In the evening, please bring the bowl of water that has been drying for most of the day to the center of the small table, and then gently place the embroidery needles used to make women's reds on the water in the bowl in turn." Liu Xiaochang introduced, The amazing thing is that the iron needles that are only shining with cold light can actually float on the water.
At this time, under the background of candlelight and moonlight, a flower petal or a strange pattern appeared on the bottom of the bowl, which kept changing. "At this time, the girls laughed and praised each other for their ingenuity."
In the ancient book "Scenery of the Imperial Capital", it is also recorded that the underwater needle shadow "has the shadow of clouds, flowers, heads, birds and beasts, and the shadow of shoes and scissors, water and eggplant. , As straight as a shaft wax, this is a sign of clumsiness."
It means that if the needle shadows appear under the water, if they are in various shapes, it is a "Qiao Qiao";
Chinese Valentine's Day river lanterns
Candlelight waves shine together
Not only the custom of begging for cleverness has been passed down for thousands of years, Liu Xiaochang said that there is a custom that has also gone through the years on the Jiang'an River in the southwest corner of Chengdu, that is, putting river lanterns.
In the impression of ordinary people, it seems that putting river lanterns is the custom of the seventh lunar month, that is, the Zhongyuan Festival.
But Liu Xiaochang said that during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Qixi Festival, you can also see the spectacular scene of candlelight in the Jiang'an River.
"During the Qiqiao Festival, the main people who put up river lanterns are girls and new wives. They are very fond of the custom of making river lanterns and putting river lanterns. As early as a few days before the festival, the girls made various kinds of lanterns with their own hands. Exquisite paper river lanterns, and some even wrote on the river lanterns their deepest congratulations on a beautiful love and a happy life." On the night of the Qixi Festival, they lit the elaborately made river lanterns and used their hands to ignite them. Gently drop into the shimmering water.
Many women put on the river lanterns while silently praying and blessing.
"I saw them looking up at the bright river lanterns, floating on the water and down the river. The river surface was sparkling, the stars twinkled, and the river lanterns flowed from near to far to far, and finally disappeared between the horizons of the night sky. "Liu Xiaochang described that the hundreds of thousands of river lanterns are connected together with the fluctuation of the river, and the candlelight is floating constantly, and the waves of the Jiang'an River are set off, which is very spectacular.
"Let the river lantern, put the river lantern, put it on today and throw it tomorrow. All the bad luck will flow out, and good fortune will come." The most vivid description of a custom.
Cover reporter Li Yuxin