Why do children hang purses and tie five-colored threads during the Dragon Boat Festival?
The Dragon Boat Festival is a festival with a long history in China, and therefore various cultural customs have gradually formed over the long history. So why do children hang purses and tie five-colored threads on the Dragon Boat Festival? On the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, we usher in the new year’s Dragon Boat Festival amidst the aroma of rice dumplings. Let’s follow the Fortune Teller website to take a look at the information about the Dragon Boat Festival in 2018!Why do children wear purses during the Dragon Boat Festival?Children should hang purses on their bodies on the night before the Dragon Boat Festival or on the morning of the festival. The purse, also known as the incense bag, has different styles in different places, but it is generally composed of four items: a tiger, colorful rice dumplings, wrapped thread, and a colorful purse. The purses vary in size. The large ones can hold flint, spices, tobacco, etc., while the small ones are about the size of almonds and can be used as a decoration. Most purses are made in the shape of a ruyi. But there are also shapes of longevity peaches, bats, oranges, chickens, insects, and flowers. It is believed that on the Dragon Boat Festival, if a child hangs a purse on his chest, or adds a small hemp broom or dustpan, it can help ward off evil and ensure safety.The custom that became popular at the same time as hanging purses is tying five-colored threads + five-colored threads, which were called "longevity thread", "life-extending thread", "war-avoiding thread", "five-colored silk" and "hundred ropes" in ancient times. In ancient China, people worshipped the five colors and considered them auspicious. On the morning of the festival, the first thing adults do after getting up is to tie five-colored threads on their children’s wrists, ankles, and necks. When tying the thread, children are forbidden to talk and the five-colored thread cannot be broken or discarded at will. It can only be thrown into the river to be washed away by the river during the first heavy rain in summer or the first bath. In this way, children wearing the five-colored thread can avoid being harmed by poisonous snakes, scorpions and other insects; throwing the five-colored thread into the river means letting the river water wash away the plague and disease, so that children can stay healthy. In folk culture, May is known as the evil month, and the fifth day of May is the worst of all evils. At this time, people are extremely vulnerable to various germs, evil spirits and poisonous insects. Compared with adults, children are more vulnerable due to their fragile bodies. To this end, people have come up with a series of ways to avoid this situation. Wearing "five poisonous bags" on children and tying five-colored silk are two very common traditional customs. In addition, wearing pomegranate flowers, amulets, and shoes embroidered with the five poisonous creatures are said to help protect children. Therefore, in the old days, the happiest people on the Dragon Boat Festival were probably the children. Because on this day, they can wear new clothes and some special ornaments on their hands and bodies. Why do children tie five-colored threads on the Dragon Boat Festival?The five-colored thread is also called the "longevity thread", "lifeline", "five silks", and was formerly known as the "five ropes". According to Ying Shao's "Customs and Meanings", "On May 5th, people tie colorful silk on their arms, which is called the long life thread, also known as the extended life thread, the anti-army thread, the five-color thread, and the red rope. It can ward off soldiers and ghosts and prevent people from getting plague." This shows that the custom of tying colorful threads on the Dragon Boat Festival has existed at least since the Han Dynasty, and it has a history of more than 2,000 years. The five-colored thread is made of five colors of silk. These five colors are blue, white, red, black and yellow. According to the theory of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, they represent wood, gold, fire, water and earth respectively. They also symbolize east, west, south, north and center, and contain the divine powers of the five directions. Before the Yuan Dynasty, because there was no cotton, five-colored silk was used instead, so it was called five-colored silk.Later, when cotton became popular, cotton thread was used instead of silk, so it was called five-color thread, but in some places, the name of five-color silk is still retained. There are some rules for tying the colorful thread. You can tie it on your wrist or on your ankle, but men should tie it on the left and women on the right. And it must be tied the day before the Dragon Boat Festival. Children are not allowed to speak when the string is being tied, so adults usually tie the string quietly for children after they fall asleep on the fourth night of May. There are also some tricks to taking off the tied colorful thread. The colorful thread should be taken down on the first rainy day after the Dragon Boat Festival and pressed under a stone. Adults say that the colorful thread will turn into a "holy insect" (snake) under the stone and crawl away, taking away the disasters and diseases. Others say that the taken colorful thread should be put in the rain to be washed away, and good luck will come with it. |
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