Dragon Boat Festival

China's folk Dragon Boat Festival is more grand, the celebration of activities are also a variety of activities, the more common activity is the dragon boat race. Dragon boat originated from totem worship, and with the change of people's ideas and the development of society, its cultural connotation has also evolved.

Dragon boats originate from totem worship

Dragon boats originated from the ancient Yue people on the southeast coast. The Ancient Yue people were a mysterious tribe. According to textual research, there were many large and small tribes distributed in the south of our country, most of them had some common cultural characteristics, and they were collectively referred to as the ancient Yue people. The ancient Yue people were good at driving canoes, and they believed in the flood dragon as their totem.

According to the first excavation report of Hemudu Site, as early as 7,000 years ago, ancient ancestors had used a single wooden router to form a wooden boat, and added a wooden paddle.

"Huainan Zi Qi Common Training" recorded: "Hu people are convenient for horses, more people are convenient for boats." In ancient China, people in the southern water network area often use boats as a means of production and transportation. People in the labor of catching fish and shrimp, than the harvest of aquatic products; Recreational boating compared with speed, entertainment in labor production and leisure, which is the prototype of ancient competition.

The ancient Wuyue nationality took dragon as its totem. "Shuoyuan · Fengzheng" and so on said: the people of Wu Yue have the custom of "disconnecting the body" and "acting like a dragon son". In order to show that they are the descendants of "dragon" and respect for the dragon ancestor, the people of Wu Yue in successive dynasties prayed to the dragon God to protect their lives and avoid the harm of snakes and insects, and held a grand dragon sacrifice on the fifth day of May every year.

Wu Yue people will be dragon decoration on the body, the wooden boat to carve the shape of a dragon, the dragon head is high, the dragon tail is turned up, painted with various colors, called dragon boat. Colorful flags flying, young and middle-aged people "colorful clothes, dragon head", in the sudden sound of drums to do dragon boat race.

The earliest record of dragon boat in China can be found in the Biography of Mu Tianzi: "The Son of Heaven rides a bird boat on a dragon boat, floating in the marsh." In the festival of offering sacrifices to the dragon totem, people compete with canoes decorated with dragons to worship the god of pleasure, Minglong. During the dragon boat race, people throw various kinds of food packed in bamboo tubes or wrapped in leaves to the dragon God to eat.

In this primitive religious and cultural activity full of mystery, the surface lively scene of chasing each other hides people's trembling appeal for life security. This is the original meaning of dragon boat culture.