The origin of tanabata
Qixi Qiqiao originated in the Han Dynasty. Ge Hong's Miscellaneous Notes on Xijing in the Eastern Jin Dynasty records that "women in the Han Dynasty often wear seven-hole needles on July 7 in the building, and everyone wears them", which is the earliest record of begging for cleverness in ancient literature we have seen. In this festival, women are very lively. "Customs" contains: "On Tanabata, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl want to cross the river, and there will be a bridge meeting." Romantic story.
In ancient times, people have begun to observe astronomy. Because Altair and Vega are located in the southernmost and northernmost parts of the sky respectively, and they are the brightest two stars separated by a wavy galaxy, the ancients who like to pursue order turned these two stars and galaxies into objects of worship, which is also the original origin of Valentine's Day in China.
The Folk Tale of Cowherd and Weaver Girl
Three or four thousand years ago, with people's understanding of astronomical phenomena and the emergence of textile technology, there were records about Altair Vega.
Cowherd and Weaver Girl is a famous folk love story in ancient China. It's about an orphan cowherd who lives on her aunt. Abused by his brother and sister-in-law, he was forced to leave home and rely on an old cow to plow the fields to support himself. One day, the weaver girl and fairies came to the world to play and bathe in the river. The old cow suddenly spoke, persuaded the cowherd to meet each other, and told him that if the fairies didn't go back before dawn, they would have to stay on earth. So the cowherd stayed by the river to see the seven fairies. He found that the youngest fairy was very beautiful, suddenly fell in love with it, remembered the old cow, and quietly took away the little fairy's clothes. The fairies took a bath and prepared to return to heaven. After a while, they fell in love, and the little fairy married the cowherd and never wanted to go back to heaven. After marriage, they farm and weave, have a son and a daughter, and live a very happy life. Unexpectedly, the Emperor of Heaven discovered this matter and ordered the Queen Mother to escort the Weaver Girl back to heaven for trial. The old cow couldn't bear to see their wife and children separated, so she touched the horn on her head and turned it into a boat for the cowherd to chase with her children. On the verge of catching up with Weaver Girl, the Queen Mother suddenly tore off the golden hairpin on her head and drew a rolling galaxy in the sky. Cowherd can't cross the river, so he can only look at the river and cry with Weaver Girl. Their faithful love touched magpies, and countless magpies flew in and built a colorful bridge on the Tianhe River with their bodies, so that the cowherd and the Weaver Girl could meet on the Tianhe River. The Emperor of Heaven had no choice but to allow the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to meet at the Magpie Bridge once a year on July 7th, and the magpies would be around. Cowherd and Weaver Girl will meet on July 7th every year.
The custom of Qixi
1. Seed search
A few days before Tanabata, first spread a layer of soil on the small board, sow the seeds of millet and let it give birth to green seedlings. Or soak mung beans, red beans, wheat and so on. Put them in a magnetic bowl, and then tie them into a bundle with red and blue silk threads as seeds. All parts of the south are also called "bubble cleverness", and the sprouted bean sprouts are called smart buds. Even the needles are replaced by smart buds and thrown on the water to beg for cleverness. Wax is also used to create various images, such as the characters in the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, or the shapes of animals such as vultures and mandarin ducks, which float on the water, which is called "floating on the water". There are also baby dolls made of wax, which women can buy home and float in the water and soil to show their good luck to their children, which is called "metaplasia".
Spiders should be smart.
The Qixi custom of Qiaoxi Spider is an earlier way of seeking cleverness, which probably began in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Happy spiders should be smart "that is, on the night of the seventh day of July, put the caught happy spider (a little red spider) in a jewelry box or other utensils." The next morning, I opened the box and observed the spider web. If the net is appropriate and dense in Fiona Fang, it shows that beggars are clever.
Needle injection is very skillful
It is one of the traditional activities of Valentine's Day in China, which prevailed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Put the embroidery needle into a container that forms a water film to see if it can float and form a pattern on the bottom of the container, so as to test the ingenuity. It is also called "floating needle to try cleverness" and "throwing clever needle". This is a variation of the custom of needlework on Qixi, which originated from needlework and is different from needlework. This is a popular Valentine's Day custom in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Jojo activity in Jiangsu is to take a bowl of clean water and expose it to the sun, and then spend the night outdoors. It is to pick up thin straw sticks and float in the water, all by their shadows. There are also many young women who use small needles to see the shadow of underwater needles to fulfill their wisdom and stupidity.
Worship the weaver girl
"Worship the Weaver Girl" is purely a matter for girls and young women. Most of them make an appointment with five or six people, at most a dozen people, with friends or neighbors in advance to hold it together. The ceremony is to lay a table in the moonlight, and put tea, wine, fruit, five sons (longan, red dates, hazelnuts, peanuts, melon seeds) and other sacrifices on the table. The girls fasted and bathed the day before the visit, and sat around the table in the moonlight of Tanabata, eating melon seeds and peanuts and meditating on the Weaver Girl.
5. Female shampoo
It is believed that taking spring water and river water on Tanabata Day is as sacred as taking water from the Milky Way. Some places directly call it "the holy water of Tiansun (Weaver Girl)". Therefore, it is of special significance for women to wash their hair on this day, which means that with the holy water of the Milky Way, they will be protected by the goddess Vega.
These are the origins and customs of Valentine's Day in China. The story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl embodies people's pursuit and yearning for a better life, and also leaves us with a beautiful love festival of Tanabata. Compared with Western Valentine's Day, "China Valentine's Day" has more cultural connotation and flavor of the times.