（Source: "Guangming Daily" 2025-05-30)

"Duanyang Story Picture" - "Shooting Powder Balls" (Part)(Qing Dynasty) Xu Yang/painting

"Duanyang Story Picture" - "Tie and Pick Silk" (Part)(Qing Dynasty) Xu Yang/painting

"Giving Owl Soup" (detail) (Qing Dynasty) of "Duanyang Story Picture" by Xu Yang/painted

The ancients attached great importance to "three festivals and two longevity". The so-called "three festivals" are the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Eve. Among the many festivals in ancient times, these three festivals were the most important, and the Dragon Boat Festival was the first of the "three festivals". Therefore, the ancients formed many rituals around the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival customs we are familiar with now are mainly eating rice dumplings and rowing dragon boats. There were many other customs in ancient times.

Xu Yang in the Qing Dynasty painted a set of "Duanyang Story Pictures", which basically summarized the customs of this festival.

The first picture is "Shooting Powder Balls". The custom of "shooting powder balls" has been around since the Tang Dynasty. "Kaiyuan Tianbao Legacy" records that every Dragon Boat Festival in the palace, glutinous rice is used to make rice dumplings or rice dumplings, which are placed on gold plates. Then the people in the palace shoot them with bows and arrows to compete, and whoever hits the target can eat them. The dough is slippery and difficult to hit. This is not so much a Dragon Boat Festival custom as it is an entertainment game, similar to today's circling, ballooning, etc. in temple fairs.

The second picture is "Giving Owl Soup", which is the earliest Dragon Boat Festival food. Owl is an owl (now a national second-level protected animal). In ancient times, the custom of eating owl soup did exist, and it continued from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. Why eat owl soup? In the pre-Qin period, the owl was still a "good bird", as evidenced by the many owl-shaped bronze vessels unearthed, but after the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was regarded as an "unfilial bird". Ancient people misunderstood that owls eat their mothers. In fact, the mother owl raises its young and then leaves naturally. The Han Dynasty placed great emphasis on filial piety. The posthumous titles of emperors often included the word "filial piety", and a system of "promoting filial piety and integrity" was implemented. Therefore, the so-called "unfilial bird" owl has become the target of public criticism. There is a saying called "showing the owl's head to the public", which is actually a manifestation of people's view of owl as evil. In order to punish unfilial birds, the Han Dynasty ordered various places to pay tribute to owl on May 5th. The palace made owl soup and gave it to ministers. The emperor used this to warn ministers not to be unfilial birds. The court's intention was to serve as a warning, but for the ministers, it was an honor to drink the soup given by the emperor. After Su Shi in the Song Dynasty was given owl soup, he wrote a poem to express his gratitude: "The outer court has paid tribute to the owl soup, so I should help my king to avoid unkindness." Thank the court for giving me owl soup. Eating unfilial birds means getting rid of evil birds. I will also help the emperor eradicate those bad people!

The third picture is "Collecting Herbs". "Sui Sui Guang Ji" quotes the lost article from "Jingchu Sui Sui Ji": "On May 5th, we compete to collect miscellaneous medicines, which can cure all kinds of diseases." The ancients believed that the yang energy was strongest at noon on the Dragon Boat Festival, which was the time of year when the medicinal properties of plants and herbs were strongest. It is said that the medicines picked on this day are more effective in curing diseases than those picked on ordinary days. There are two reasons for the formation of the custom of collecting herbs during the Dragon Boat Festival: First, herbs are needed to avoid the "five poisons" (scorpions, snakes, centipedes, geckos, and toads) during the Dragon Boat Festival. "Mengliang Lu" of the Song Dynasty records: "In five days, we collect hundreds of herbs and prepare medicines to ward off plague and other diseases." Secondly, the medicinal herbs are mature at this time. Farmers' proverb says: "Before the Dragon Boat Festival, it is all grass, and by the Dragon Boat Festival, it will be made into medicine."

The fourth picture is "Raising the Bird", which means training the starlings. The ancients believed that the myna would become smarter on the Dragon Boat Festival, and it would be easier to teach it to speak at this time.

The fifth painting is "Hang moxa man". Ancient people made moxa grass into "moxa sticks" or cut it into "moxa tiger" and hung them to use the smell of moxa grass to repel mosquitoes and drive away the five poisons. The Records of the Age of Jingchu in the Southern and Northern Dynasties recorded that "Acai was picked as a human being and hung on the door to ward off the poisonous gas." Aihu takes the meaning of tiger as the king of beasts, which can suppress evil, and "tiger" is homophonic to "blessing". To this day, during the Dragon Boat Festival in some places, parents will dip their fingers in realgar wine and draw the word "王" on their children's foreheads so that the children bear the mark of the tiger. This is also to use the tiger to ward off evil and seek blessings. Judging from this festival custom, the ancients also loved playing with homophones. During the Dragon Boat Festival, people will also wear gourds and paste red gourds on their windows, because gourds are homophonic to "Fu Lu".

The sixth picture is "Wearing Silk", which means wearing five-colored threads (green, red, white, black, yellow ropes), also known as "Colorful Threads of Longevity". The ancients believed that it can ward off evil spirits. This custom is related to the belief in the five elements and the five directions. The five colors symbolize the five elements and the five directions of east, west, south, north and center. Since the Han Dynasty, they have been given the meaning of exorcism and auspiciousness. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, wars were frequent, plagues and famines continued, and people's lives were turbulent. People pinned their desire for peace on colorful amulets, braided five-colored silk into ropes, and tied them on the arms of women and children to pray for exorcism, avoid disasters, cure diseases and prolong life. During the Song Dynasty, this custom was still widely popular among the people. The wearers expanded from women and children to men, and it was once introduced to the court. Every time before the Dragon Boat Festival, the emperor would give colorful threads to his ministers and officials to ward off evil and seek good fortune. In ancient times, people usually tied rice dumplings with five-colored threads. Wu Jun of the Southern Dynasties recorded in "Xu Qi Xie Ji" that Qu Yuan entrusted a dream to a man named Ou Qu, saying that rice in bamboo tubes was always eaten by dragons and had to be wrapped in neem (liàn) leaves and wrapped with colorful threads, which became a custom thereafter. This is the scene of "Five-Colored New Silk Corned Rice Dumplings" in "The Proud Fisherman" by Ouyang Xiu of the Song Dynasty. Zhou Zizhi's "Song of the Race" of the Song Dynasty said: "The corner of the rice tube is wrapped with five colors, and Chu customs have not changed to this day." In "A Dream of Red Mansions", Jia Baoyu "has a gold jade necklace on his neck, and a five-color silk ribbon, tied with a piece of beautiful jade", which also reflects the influence of the multi-colored thread culture. The popular colorful braided ropes today also evolved from the ancient colorful threads.

The seventh picture is "Wrapping Corn Millet", which means making rice dumplings. Zongzi was called "corner millet" in ancient times. In the north, it was made of millet and wild rice (gū) leaves (and later reed leaves) wrapped into a horn shape, so it was called "corner millet". In the south, glutinous rice is wrapped in rice dumpling leaves, shaped like the center of a brown leaf, and is called "Zongzi" (Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica"). The taste of rice dumplings has been diverse since ancient times: before the Tang Dynasty, there were sweet rice dumplings with red dates and chestnuts, and salty rice dumplings with meat and eggs; after the Tang and Song Dynasties, health rice dumplings (wrapped with various herbs) and spice rice dumplings (stuffed with ginger and musk) appeared. In addition to commemorating Qu Yuan, zongzi also sounds homophonic to "neutron". The ancients believed that eating zongzi can have more children. Zongzi also sounds homophonic to "Zong", which means honoring one's ancestors. In ancient times, before the results of the imperial examination were released, candidates would place rice cakes and rice dumplings on the table, which symbolized the high w88 casino entrance examination.

The eighth painting is "Viewing the Race Crossing". According to Wen Yiduo's research, dragon boat racing and eating rice dumplings were originally the customs of worshiping the totem dragon in the Wuyue area, and were later combined with the commemoration of Qu Yuan. The "Dragon Boat Festival" article in "The Chronicles of Jingchu" states: "It was a day of racing." It also explained that after Qu Yuan threw himself into the water, people rowed boats to symbolize saving him. Before the Tang Dynasty, everyone rowed dragon boats to compete with others. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were rules for the competition, and it was necessary to "win the championship". The words "winning" and "championship" actually come from dragon boat racing. The "championship" with brocade and colorful decorations is placed on the water surface, and the first one to win it wins. In ancient Dragon Boat Festival dragon boat races, not only men participated, but also women's dragon boat teams. For example, "Dragon Boat Race" by Li Zhaodao of the Tang Dynasty, "Dragon Boat Race" by Yuan Wang Zhenpeng, and "Dragon Boat" by Qiu Ying of the Ming Dynasty all feature women's dragon boat teams.

In addition to the above customs, in ancient times, people also had these customs during the Dragon Boat Festival: hanging Zhongkui, Zhu Fu, cattail grass, and kudzu vine (cattail grass resembles a sword, and kudzu vine resembles a rope, replacing mugwort to ward off evil spirits). Women in the Qing Dynasty sewed human-shaped and tiger-shaped sachets during the Dragon Boat Festival and wore them to ward off evil spirits. This was developed from "Ai Ren" and "Ai Hu". It was popular in old Beijing to eat five-poison cakes during the Dragon Boat Festival. Five-poison cakes are snacks printed with patterns of snakes, centipedes, scorpions, spiders, toads and other five poisons. Eating them, like eating owl soup, is also intended to eliminate evil. In addition, during the Dragon Boat Festival, there are also customs such as catching toads, fighting with grass, pomegranate flowers, drinking realgar wine and calamus wine, sprinkling wine for disinfection, and married girls returning to their parents' homes to visit relatives.

The ancient Dragon Boat Festival paintings are divided into two categories. One is the paintings to ward off evil spirits. For example, if you draw the five poisons and nail them on, the ancients believed that you will not be harmed by them, or you can draw a gourd with the five poisons in the gourd's belly, and then stick the gourd upside down, which means to pour out all the disasters caused by the five poisons. The second is auspicious paintings. Yuan Shangtong of the Ming Dynasty painted "The Picture of Joy in Heaven", which was an auspicious painting during the Dragon Boat Festival. During the Dragon Boat Festival, also called Duanyang or Tianzhong, there are two magpies in the painting, one holding several loquats in its mouth. Magpies mean "happiness". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, loquat was an important tribute and was endowed with the meaning of good luck and wealth. It was called the "auspicious fruit". The combination of magpie and loquat means wishing you a "happy and prosperous" Dragon Boat Festival. Therefore, we can say that the Dragon Boat Festival can be said to be both healthy and happy, because it originally embodies the two aspects of the ancients' demands: it has the aspect of exorcising evil spirits for health, and the aspect of praying for blessings for a better life.

(Author: Zhao Yuntao, associate professor at the w88 casino of Literature and International Communication, w88 casino)

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