What is Cold Clothes Festival?
The first day of the tenth lunar month, commonly known as the Autumn Festival and the Cold Clothes Festival, is called Ghost Head Festival. Hanyi Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day Festival and Zhongyuan Festival are also called the three ghost festivals in China. In the Book of Songs in July, it was mentioned that "fire flows in July and clothes are given in September", which means that it is getting colder and people should buy warm clothes for their deceased relatives, so the first day of the tenth lunar month is also called the clothes-giving festival.
When is the Cold Clothes Festival? 20 14 Cold Clothes Festival is 2014165438+122 October, the first day of the first lunar month.
What is Cold Clothes Festival? The first day of October is also the first day of winter, and then the climate is getting colder. People are afraid that their ancestors' souls in the underworld are short of clothes and clothes. Therefore, in addition to food, incense sticks, paper money and other general offerings, there is also an indispensable offering-burial clothes. When offering sacrifices, people incinerate ghost clothes to their ancestors, which is called "sending cold clothes". Therefore, the first day of October is also called "Clothing Burning Festival".
Later, the custom of "burning cold clothes" changed in some places. Instead of burning cold clothes, people burned a lot of ghost paper in a paper bag with the names of the recipients and senders and their corresponding names written on it. This is called "baggage". There is a name of cold clothes, but there is no reality of cold clothes. People think that the underworld, like the dead, can buy many things with money.
Different places send cold clothes in different ways. Generally speaking, it is relatively simple to take cold clothes to the grave and burn them, or burn them in front of the door at night. What is more serious is to make a bag and put cold clothes and paper money in it. The name, generation and sender of the recipient of the cold clothes are indicated on the package, just like sending a letter or a parcel.
The origin of the Cold Clothes Festival
Cold clothing festival has existed since ancient times. According to textual research, as early as the Zhou Dynasty, the first day of the tenth lunar month was the wax festival, and a grand ritual activity was held on this day. In the Book of Songs, the wind blows in July, and clothes are given in September, which means that the weather has become cold since September, and people should buy clothes to keep out the cold (so the first day of October is also commonly known as the clothes-giving festival). But the previous generation mostly sent clothes in September in the summer calendar, and the date was uncertain.
In August of the second year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, an imperial edict was issued (Volume 77 of Tang Zhao Ji), which influenced the folk custom of sweeping graves and sending clothes. Since October just entered the winter and September was earlier, this custom was moved to October in the Song Dynasty.
The custom of October New Moon in the Song Dynasty is mainly manifested in three aspects: giving clothes, offering sacrifices and opening a furnace. Song people first used "cotton jerseys" as sacrifices, and later called them "cold clothes". But Song people haven't called it that yet.
In the Ming Dynasty, Liu Dong and Yu Yi recorded the Cold Clothes Festival in detail in "A Brief View of the Imperial Palace": "On October 1st, the paper shop cut out five-color paper for men's and women's clothes, with a long ruler and a thin seal. Knowing their surnames and characters is like sending a book. Every family has a night drink, and when it is called, it burns the door and says to send cold clothes. New mourning, white paper for it, saying that new ghosts dare not dress up. The person who sent the white clothes cried, female voice 19, male voice 11. "
Pan Rongbi's Cold Clothes Festival in Qing Dynasty is recorded in Jingdi's Cold Clothes Festival: "October New Year ..... Literati pay homage to their ancestors and sweep graves, such as the Central Plains instrument. In the evening, seal the book, add five-color silk to crown it with clothes and shoes, burn it outside the door, and say to send cold clothes. "
The legend of the Cold Clothes Festival
There are mainly the following legends about the origin of Hanyi Festival.
1, Meng Jiangnv sent cold clothes thousands of miles away.
The custom of sending clothes to the dead is said to have been initiated by Meng Jiangnv.
According to legend, Meng Jiangnu was newly married, and her husband was taken to the corvee to build the Great Wall of Wan Li. When autumn came and winter came, Meng Jiangnv went through all the hardships to send her husband warm clothes. Who knows that her husband is exhausted on the construction site and buried inside the city wall. Meng Jiangnu was heartbroken, crying at the sky, touching the sky and crying down the Great Wall for forty miles. She bit her finger and "bled to the bone" and finally found her husband's body and reassembled it with the cotton-padded clothes she brought. This produced the "Cold Clothes Festival".
2, Cai Lun sister-in-law promotion means.
There is also a saying that "burning cold clothes on October 1" stems from the promotion tactics of merchants. The shrewd businessman of the Eastern Han Dynasty was the eldest sister-in-law of Cai Lun, the inventor of papermaking.
After Cai Lun became famous in papermaking, his younger brother Cai Mo copied it. Because the quality is not as good as that made in Cai Lun, it is often overstocked. In order to sell the backlog of paper, Cai Mo's wife Hui Niang came up with an idea: one day, she pretended to be dead and lay in a coffin. Cai Mo was heartbroken and cried, "Hui Niang, it's all my fault, because the paper I made can't be sold, which is so bad for you." I want to burn all the paper! " While crying, she held the paper to Hui Niang's coffin and burned it, burning it, crying, crying and shouting.
Suddenly, Hui Niang in the coffin made a sound, which surprised all the onlookers. What is that? When Hui Niang came out of the coffin, she sang in a pretentious way: "The money of the dead can go all over the world, and the money of the dead can do business. My husband won't give me money, who will let me go back to the sun? " After singing many times, he said, "I was a ghost just now, and now I am a human being." I went to the underworld, and the prince made me suffer. My husband sent money to the prince, and the prince sent many kids to help me push the mill. Money really makes the mare go. Three Cao Guan also asked me for money. I gave him all my money, and he opened the back door of hell and asked me to come back. "
Cai Mo pretended to say "I didn't send money to my wife"! Huiniang said, "The paper you burned is the money of the underworld." Hui Niang said these things, and Cai Mo took some bundles of paper to burn at her parents' grave. Everyone present thought that burning paper could make the deceased return to the dead or suffer less in the underworld, so they all came to Cai Mo to buy paper to burn. In this way, the news spread from one person to another, and Cai Mo's paper was sold out, thus changing the predicament. Since Hui Niang's return to Yang happens to be the first day of October, people will burn paper for the dead on the first day of October.
3. Zhu Yuanzhang's Legend of "Giving Clothes"
October is an important month in ancient times. This is the time when rice is harvested and put into storage. "It's the moon, and the son of heaven begins to descend" (Book of Rites, Moon Order). The son of heaven told the people that winter had arrived by wearing winter clothes.
According to legend, in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing. In order to conform to the weather, he held a ceremony of "giving clothes" on the first day of October, and made the freshly harvested red beans and glutinous rice into hot soup for ministers to taste. A folk proverb in Nanjing says, "Wear a cotton-padded jacket in October and eat bean soup to keep out the cold." The "Cold Clothes Festival" came from this. When people put on clothes to keep out the cold, they also send winter clothes to wanderers who are guarding the border, doing business and studying in other places to show their concern and care.