The Dragon Boat Festival is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year. According to the "Jingchu year record" records, because of midsummer climbing, Shunyang on, May is midsummer, its first afternoon is the day of climbing Shunyang good weather, so the fifth day of May is also called "Duanyang Festival". In addition, the Dragon Boat Festival is also called "noon Day Festival, May Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, bath Orchid Festival" and so on. The Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional cultural festival popular in China and other countries in the cultural circle of Chinese characters.
The Dragon Boat Festival originated in China, originally for the ancient Baiyue area (the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the south of the area) worship the dragon totem festival held totem sacrifice, Baiyue land before the spring and Autumn there is in the lunar calendar on the fifth day of the fifth month in the form of dragon boat race tribal totem sacrifice custom. After the Warring States period of Chu (now Hubei) poet Qu Yuan in the day of holding stones to jump into the Miluo River suicide, the ruler to establish a loyal patriotic label as the Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate Qu Yuan; In some areas, there are also statements to commemorate Wu Zixu and Cao E.
The Dragon Boat Festival, together with the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, is known as the four major traditional festivals of the Han Chinese. Since ancient times, there have been dragon boat rowing and zongzi eating festival activities. Since 2008, the Dragon Boat Festival has been listed as a national holiday. In May 2006, The State Council included it in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list; In September 2009, UNESCO officially reviewed and approved the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival to be included in the World intangible Cultural Heritage, becoming the first Chinese festival to be included in the World intangible cultural Heritage.
Origin research
The word "Duanwu" first appeared in the Western Jin Dynasty famous minister Zhou Chu's "Fenglu Ji", this document has become an important reference for modern people to investigate the Dragon Boat Festival and other traditional festival customs. When the Dragon Boat Festival originated - for a long time people have different opinions, different opinions, and debate. There are four main opinions about the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival:
According to the popular view of "commemorating historical figures", according to Wu Jun's "Xuqi Harmony Record" and Zong Lin's "Jingchu Year Record", the Dragon Boat Festival originated from commemorating Qu Yuan. There is also thought to commemorate Wu Zixu, commemorate Cao E and so on.
Mr. Wen Yiduo believed that the Dragon Boat Festival was a festival for the ancient Baiyue people to hold dragon totem worship activities. He demonstrated his views in detail in two papers, "Dragon Boat Festival Examination" and "The Historical Education of the Dragon Boat Festival" (see "Wen Yiduo's Complete Works").
It is believed that the Dragon Boat Festival originated from an evil day (see Zhang Xinqin's Dragon Boat Festival is not due to Qu Yuan's Examination).
It is said that the Dragon Boat Festival originates from the summer solstice (see Liu Deqian's "The beginning of the Dragon Boat Festival").
According to research, the custom of Dragon boat race existed before Qu Yuan. Before the Spring and Autumn period, Wu Yue had the custom of holding tribal totem sacrifices in the form of dragon boat racing on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Even in the poems of Qu Yuan himself, it can also reflect the customs of competing at that time, such as "Chu Ci - River" in: "Take 舲 boat on Yuan Xi, Qi Wu to fight." Ship capacity and not into Xi, flooded back and stagnant. In vain, I will spend the evening in the sun." Qu Yuan's long and light 舲 boat was actually a kind of competitive boat at that time.
A large number of modern unearthed cultural relics and archaeological studies have confirmed that there was a kind of cultural remains characterized by geometric pattern pottery in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the Neolithic age. The remains of the family, according to experts inferred is a dragon worship totem tribe - known as Baiyue nationality. The patterns on the unearthed pottery and historical legends show that they have the custom of breaking hair tattoos, living in the water town, and they are the descendants of the dragon. Their production tools are a large number of stone tools, but also shovel, chisel and other small pieces of bronze, as daily necessities, POTS and pans, cooking food printed pottery tripod is unique to them, is one of the symbols of their ethnic group. On an ancient beach in Yutang Village, Maqiao Commune, Shanghai County, there lived a group of ancient Yue ancestors. Experts speculate that the earliest ancient Yue ancestors drew tribal totems on canoes, and paddled this boat to visit relatives and friends, and sometimes everyone met together, they would take advantage of the competition who rowed fast. As the concept of the dragon God gradually became the common consciousness of the Chinese people, the totem boat also evolved into a variety of dragon boats, and produced a form of ferry racing, and then gradually formed a traditional custom across China.
Mr. Wen Yiduo in the paper "Dragon Boat Festival Examination" and "Dragon Boat Festival History Education" research that: the ancient Baiyue ethnic dragon as a totem, in order to express their "dragon son" identity, so as to consolidate their own right to be protected. The two most important activities of the Dragon Boat Festival are eating zongzi and racing the boat, both related to the dragon. Zongzi are thrown into the river to offer sacrifices to the dragon God, while dragon boats are used to race across the river. [8] They not only have the custom of "breaking the hair tattoo" to "resemble the dragon son", but also hold a grand totem festival on May 5 every year; One of the activities is to draw a dragon shaped canoe in the sound of drums, racing on the water for the game, drawing the spirit, but also for their own fun. This is the origin of the custom of dragon boat racing.
The development of paleoresearch and a large number of excavated cultural relics confirm that Mr. Wen Yiduo's research is scientific. The Yangtze River basin in China, like the Yellow River basin, is the birthplace of the ancient culture of the Chinese nation. From the combination of the excavated primitive cultural remains and historical legends, there once lived a totem group of dragons in the south of the Yangtze River in China, that is, the ancient Baiyue. Until the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were Baiyue people, and the Dragon Boat Festival was created for them to worship the dragon ancestor.
Dragon Boat Festival Dragon boat race custom originated in the south, the lunar May 5th as "evil month evil day" from the north, into the summer season "disease prevention" fashion, attached to commemorate Qu Yuan jumped into the river and finally formed the Dragon Boat Festival traditional custom. The formation of the custom of the Dragon Boat Festival can be said to be the product of the integration of the customs of the north and the south, and with the development of history, it has injected new content.
Memorial theory doubt
About the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, there are many, such as: "In memory of Qu Yuan said, in memory of Wu Zixu said, in memory of Cao E said; From the three generations of the summer solstice said, evil moon evil sun repellent said "and so on. Southern and Northern Dynasties, southern Liang Zong Lin in the "Jingchu year of the record" Chinese recorded the Dragon Boat Festival in memory of Qu Yuan said, Liang Wu Jun "continued Qi harmonic record" also has similar records. It is worth noting that the Dragon Boat Festival boat race, which was held long before the commemoration of Qu Yuan. In the Eastern Wu Dynasty, the commemoration of Wu Zixu has nothing to do with Qu Yuan; The Legend of Yue Land also said that the race originated from Goujian's training of the water army. Obviously, the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival are different because of the different regions.
As for the "memorial of historical figures", most of the academic circles think that it is far-fetched words of later generations, which is hard to believe. In particular, the suspicious "Qu Yuan", Wen Yiduo believes that Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival are tied together, is the Southern Dynasty Liang Wu Jun "continuation Qi Harmony" appeared, and the Dragon Boat Festival has existed long ago. [9] The scholar Hu Shi has long doubted whether there really was such a person as Qu Yuan, because there is no record of Qu Yuan in the historical books before Sima Qian's Biography of Qu Yuan. In the period from Sima Qian to the Warring States Qu Yuan hundred years of this period of the record of Qu Yuan is blank, Qu Yuan is in Sima Qian's biography of Qu Yuan for the first time, if there really is Qu Yuan such a bull, the history books should not be vacant, Sima Qian may have written a "biography of Qu Yuan" by hearsay. Qu Yuan's association with the Dragon Boat Festival is documented in the Southern Dynasty, more than 700 years after Qu Yuan committed suicide by jumping into a river.
In the Annals of Continued Qi, Qu Yuan's time of throwing stones into the Miluo River was around 278 BC, the patriotic place and target was Chu, and Qin was responsible for playing the role of aggressor. And do not discuss whether there is really Qu Yuan in history such a person, if Qu Yuan really patriotic that can go to the front to kill the enemy bravely, ran to the river to carry out "patriotic suicide", this patriotic method is unique. If Qu Yuan is really patriotic, then he loves his Chu state, since then there have been many countries on this land in East Asia, and the motherland has changed again and again. It makes sense for the descendants of the state of Chu to eat zongzi in memory of Qu Yuan, but the descendants of the six foreign states of Qin, Qi, Yan, Zhao, Wei and Han at that time to eat zongzi in memory of Qu Yuan is inexplicable.
Why should Qu Yuan and festivals be tied together, because to set up such a typical Qu Yuan, so that the majority of people learn to understand the implementation of loyalty and patriotism. The ruler from a lofty position, the emperor changed dozens of stubbles, to commemorate Qu Yuan is which dynasty to adhere to. In order to make loyalty and patriotism work, it is necessary to tree archways, and the power of example is infinite. Qu Yuan can write some poetry, easy to arouse the people's good feelings; Secondly, Qu Yuan was a ministerial-level official who could resonate with the bureaucracy. And again, Qu Yuan is a loyal minister, the Lord banished him, he also died to show loyalty, but it is a rare minister. So Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boat Festival was tied up, evolved into a commemoration of Qu Yuan loyal and patriotic festival. Patriotism is packaging, Qu Yuan is the label, loyalty is the essence. Qu Yuan this label symbol, this archway, was successfully erected by the rulers, the ancient rulers used the symbol of Qu Yuan to tell the masses of people: to love the country (in fact, it is loyal to the king), to dedicate (that is, to contribute to the ruler). For more than a thousand years after that, all the rulers gleefully cleaned this patriotic archway, so the symbol of Qu Yuan gradually spread from Chu to China, and has been along ever since.
According to research, many of the Dragon Boat Festival customs that have been passed down to this day have nothing to do with Qu Yuan. For example, zongzi, the earliest written records from Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jie Zi", the custom of eating zongzi earlier than Qu Yuan's death 400 years; Zhou in the Western Jin Dynasty said in the "Fengdong" that "on May 5 and the summer solstice eat it", it can be seen that the ancients also eat zongzi on the summer solstice, not the Dragon Boat Festival patent. According to expert archaeological research and scholar Wen Yiduo's "Dragon Boat Festival Examination", "Dragon Boat Festival history education" listed more than 100 ancient books records, the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, is the ancient south China Wuyue nation held totem festival, earlier than Qu Yuan. To commemorate historical figures, whether it is Wu Zixu, Jie Zitui, or Cao E, Chen Lin, Qu Yuan, etc., the academic community mostly thinks that it is a word invented by later generations.
