Luotian custom:
Luotian has a long history of humanities, orderly four seasons and eight festivals, distinctive local conditions and customs, and rich and colorful folk culture. Luotian four seasons and eight festivals inherit the traditional festivals, with the lunar calendar as the order, mainly agricultural festivals, interspersed with ancestor worship, god reward and other content, combined with local production and life characteristics to hold festival activities, with strong local flavor. The main festivals are Spring Festival (including off-year, New Year and Lantern Festival), followed by Tomb-Sweeping Day, Changxia, July 30th and Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as Spring Society, Flower Dynasty, Dragon Boat Festival, Half Year, Double Ninth Festival and Laba.
Spring Festival: From the 24th of the twelfth lunar month to the 15th of the first month of the following year, it is the time for Chinese New Year. Every year in the twelfth lunar month, every household is busy buying new year's goods, sewing new clothes, killing pigs, making rice cakes, dusting, washing quilts, sawing firewood, tying dragon lanterns and writing Spring Festival couplets in grinding bean curd and Lamian Noodles. During the Spring Festival, people put aside farming, hold some sacrificial activities, receive guests' accounts, visit relatives and friends, watch plays and watch lights, and feel very comfortable. In fact, the Spring Festival is not only a material and spiritual compensation for farmers' hard work for one year, but also a rest for their hard work in the coming year.
Off-year: Luotian's off-year is the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, which is mainly to send the kitchen god and worship ancestors. When sending Kitchen God, light candles to burn incense, set candy and cakes, set off firecrackers and kowtow. Receiving ancestors is a way to worship ancestors. Set a table of dining tables at home, with chicken, fish and meat as the three livestock, light candles and incense, and put a whip to burn paper. Make three rounds of wine and then serve. After the ancestor worship, the whole family sat around the banquet and began to enjoy the New Year's Eve dinner.
New Year's Day: Most families in Luotian celebrate New Year's Day on the first day of the twelfth lunar month, and a few families choose their surnames on the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. On New Year's Day, we eat New Year's Eve early in the morning, paste Spring Festival couplets (also paste the door gods and blessings), eat New Year's Eve to chat and observe the New Year and other projects. In the past, New Year's Eve was always eaten early in the morning. Luo Dong Luo Nan used bowls to hold vegetables and got ten bowls and eight bowls. Rosie and Luobei use hanging pot mats, and there are more than a dozen dishes in the pot. Before the New Year's Eve dinner, you should worship your ancestors, light red candles, incense cigarettes, burn paper money, set off firecrackers, bow down and pray, toast and serve, and be solemn in manners. At the New Year's Eve dinner, the whole family toasted each other, men, women and children, and the atmosphere was harmonious. In order to increase the festive color of the Spring Festival, every household sticks couplets. Some people put up all the doors and windows, while others only put up a pair at the gate. In addition to couplets, there is a door god on the door, the word "Fu" on the head of the door, and a New Year picture of more than one year on the door of the hall. Shousui talked about the New Year's Eve dinner after dinner. At night, every household piles firewood and burns fireworks in front of their own houses. Burning a fire in the fireplace at home means that the days are getting more and more prosperous.
Spring Festival: It is from the first day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month. The main activity is usually visiting relatives and friends. Opening the door on the first day of the first month is called "Chufang", and breakfast is Ciba noodles. After breakfast, the four neighbors exchanged New Year greetings. Since the second day of the first month, friends and relatives have been visiting the New Year in series, and there is an endless stream of New Year visitors wearing red and green on the roads and village roads. According to the priorities of visiting guests, choose the right day to eat "a good start", with rich banquets, which are generally imported. During the Spring Festival, folk performances were widely carried out, including dragon lantern and lion dance, lotus picking boat and clam shell essence, playing with big heads to catch catkins, telling ancient books and singing operas. The golden dragon colorful lions go door to door first, and then perform in the spacious place of Daizi.
Lantern Festival: The 15th day of the first month, also known as the "Reunion Festival". On this day, Luo Tian followed the fashion and watched lanterns, swinging fifteen. During the day, some people gather in the market or watch performances such as dragon lanterns, lion dances and lotus boats. Some people go to the market to hang out or shop. At night, every household lights up and stays up all night. In the evening, go to the ancestral grave to "send light", place offerings, light candles, burn paper money and kowtow. Dinner is full of booze and Yuanxiao.
Spring Society: The day of offering sacrifices to the earth god is generally on the fifth day after beginning of spring, and it is February 2 in the folk, commonly known as "the birthday of the earth god". The villagers, carrying offerings and incense paper cannons, went to the social temples in front of the mountain or halfway up the mountain to offer sacrifices and pray for good weather. On social day, Luotian is popular to eat soft cakes, which are called "social day cakes". The soft leaves are broomcorn millet, the leaves are soft and velvet-like, and can be pulled when tearing. Mix glutinous rice flour into cakes, which are dark green and delicious. There are two kinds of soft cakes: sweet stuffing and salty stuffing. Sweet stuffing is a mixture of black sesame paste and brown sugar, and salty stuffing is a mixture of diced bacon, pickles and chives.
Flower Festival: February 15, the folklore is "Hundred Flowers Birthday". But Luotian is a mountainous area. There are few bloom and no flowers to enjoy at this time. Eating "cotton lump" is popular in southern Luotian, indicating a bumper harvest of cotton. This is a kind of food made of tender Artemisia argyi glutinous rice flour in the shape of cotton fruit. The stuffing is sweet and salty, and it can be eaten after steaming.
Tomb-Sweeping Day: Tomb-Sweeping Day is not only an agricultural festival, but also a festival to sacrifice graves. During the Qingming Festival, Luotian rural area began to plow and prepare for spring ploughing. On this day, people will prepare incense sticks, paper money, flowers, food and wine to pay homage to the graves of their ancestors. Remove weeds and thorns from ancestral graves, clear ditches and drain water, arrange flowers and burn paper in front of graves, bow down and pray for blessings, showing the true colors of filial sons and grandchildren.
The Long Summer Festival is an important agricultural festival. At this time, rice and cotton need to be planted urgently, and wheat and rape are about to be harvested, which is the beginning of the busy farming season. Long summer is especially valued in the west and north of Luotian. Every family cuts meat and drinks, kills chickens and pulls vegetables, and eats a big meal, which is called "over belly".
Dragon Boat Festival: The fifth day of May is called Xiaoduanyang, and the fifteenth day of May is called Daduanyang. There are no rivers and lakes in Luotian, so there are only two customs: "planting wormwood" and "eating zongzi". Luotian wormwood leaves are rich, and the top of the field can be harvested everywhere. People tied mugwort leaves into handfuls and hung them on the eaves of doors and windows. It is said that it can ward off evil spirits, but it is actually for clearing away heat and sterilizing. Luotian people also dried mugwort leaves and preserved them, which are often used to bathe children in water, with excellent health care effect. Luotian's zongzi is actually a kind of glutinous rice dumplings, made of glutinous rice with seasonings such as red bean paste, jujube paste, diced meat, lotus seeds and peanuts, and wrapped with lotus leaves or banana leaves. It's delicious and fragrant.
Half a year: Luotian people take June 6 as half a year and have the custom of "tasting the new". Cooking new rice, eating fresh vegetables in season and picking precocious fruits and vegetables are both rewarding and fresh. In Luotian, it is popular to give gifts for half a year, that is, a gift from a fiance to his fiancee for half a year. In addition to fish and vegetables, clothes, shoes and socks, a cattail leaf fan is essential to show the husband's family's concern for the future daughter-in-law and want to have a good summer.
July 30th: The real name is Mid-Autumn Festival. Luotian is commonly known as "July 30th", and Rossi and Luobei value it most. In ancient times, people held an orchid festival on this day to entertain the dead. Luotian's custom is to "burn buns" and "splash rice". Burning a bundle is burning paper money. Pack the printed paper money into small square bags, and the number of bags is determined by the host family, generally there are a dozen to dozens. On the surface of the package is written the title of the person who receives the paper money, commonly known as "no." Baggage. " Set up a bundle with firewood, put a whip to toast and light it. There are two kinds of baggage, one is to worship ancestors, and the other is to give alms to wander around, with the original intention of seeking peace and avoiding disasters.
Mid-Autumn Festival: August 15th, also known as "Reunion Festival". Take "reunion" as the theme, drink chrysanthemum tea, drink reunion wine, eat moon cakes and enjoy the bright moon. It is very polite to give fruits and moon cakes to relatives and teachers. In ancient times, there was a habit of "touching autumn", and no one accused me of stealing melons and fruits from other people's fields in the moonlight as a game.
Double Ninth Festival: On the ninth day of September, there has been a custom of climbing mountains and enjoying chrysanthemums since ancient times. It's fun to get together with friends and relatives, or to climb high and look far, or to enjoy chrysanthemums and tea. Today is the festival for the elderly, and there are many activities.
Laba porridge: Eat Laba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. In the past, it was mainly whole grains. Cooking a pot of porridge made people taste delicious. At present, it is usually boiled with raw materials such as indica rice, glutinous rice, red beans, peanuts, lotus seeds, red dates, chestnut rice and diced meat, also known as "eight-treasure porridge", which has excellent taste and rich nutrition. Legend has it that in ancient times, a rich boy lost his family. In the twelfth lunar month, he was hungry and cold, so he made a porridge with a little food in the warehouse, lived his own life and made a fortune. Later, he cooked porridge with whole grains on Laba every year, warning future generations to be thrifty and get rich. Since then, eating Laba porridge has become a folk custom.
In the past, there were various custom celebrations such as temple fairs and family sacrifices in Luotian, which tended to disappear because of the changes of the times.