In the 7th day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, the traditional festival ", this is the Qixi Festival" the legendary Cowherd Queqiao meet once a year. When you see a web site to download news client, the Chinese love to send Jissbon advertising, may be in the heart of a smile, thinking about China's Valentine's day it naturally like this. However, a large number of votes in the custom of the experts are not puzzled to shout: Valentine's Day is not Valentine's day, the seventh lunar month is the daughter's day"!
What's going on here?
Double Seventh Festival was originally a woman's holiday
There is no doubt that the Tanabata Festival is associated with the legend of the Cowherd and the girl weaver, the value of their love story is also the festival where one of the. But the origin of the seventh lunar month is not "love"". The festival is a special time of life, it is a concept of time, originally from the ancients on the timing of the transformation of the feelings of. Tanabata Festival is located in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the xiaxiaozheng said "at the beginning of the faint, weaver of the East", this time of the evening, looked up and can saw the night sky Galaxy runs through the north and south, Vega exudes a beautiful sheen, toward the eastern shore of the Galaxy Altair -- this is the sky. And in the world, "July Liuhuo September grant vests" and summer late that autumn is approaching, the women to start shaking the wheel, weaving garment. In this way, the stars are to become a human woman of God and sustenance of desire. Weaver's image in the welcome to the fall time of solidification down, about her imagination, that her artful Hui trait, and the story with the Cowherd and mutual interdependence also unfolded.
Worship of the weaver finally landed in July seven, this time has a special significance for the old women. "Peacock Flying Southeast" cloud: "the seventh and nine play, Mo forget". The seventh is the women's day to play together. And in accordance with the operation of yin and Yang said, singular belongs to Yang, July 7 this Yue Yang Yang, the day was that the ancients is Yang Sheng, Yin Qi to reconcile supplement. This gave the women in the July 7 in recreation, religious, social and other social activities of it. So a women belonging to the specific point in time, and entrusted with the female "artifice" thought Weaver image combination, the Tanabata Festival custom activity derived therefrom.
The Qixi Festival Night Worship Vega custom is a good embodiment. This is a similar to today's sister Amoy small party, the participants are young women, there is no male to participate in. They were called "seven sister" weaver in the moon and make a wish, then burn incense to worship, eat fruits, talk talk. In the Tanabata Festival of festivals, Weaver is the core image; and the short break out of the daily life, enjoying the daughters of the isotropic small groups of private space, the absolute protagonist of the festival. So, the Chinese called "daughter's Day", is not too much.
The Qixi Festival is women's festival, the festival activities are key words, is "Qi Qiao", namely for ingenuity.
So this holiday not skilled commonly used "needle woman on weekdays". "Needle Qiqiao" is the earliest Qiqiao, began in the Han, only later. Xijing Zaji have "Choi Han female often in July 7, wear seven needle on the cardigan building" records, also is the seventh evening of the seventh moon moon race with silk needle, this "cardigan building" is specifically for the seventh evening of the seventh moon worship fairy, Gregorian calendar to build the tower, decorated with colorful. In order to use seven hole needle threading difficulty is more difficult, the nine tail needle and later development.
"Daddy longlegs should be clever" common later pinning Qiqiao, roughly in the northern and southern dynasties. During the northern and Southern Dynasties, such as "Jingchu age in mind," said: "is the evening... Chen fruits in court to Qiqiao, pregnant subnet on the melon thought fit." The "Hi" here is a little spider. Tang Dynasty, palace is also very popular this custom, a slightly different approach, according to the records of the Kaiyuan Tianbao ". At the time of the Tanabata night, the ladies to" catch spiders closed in the box, to Xiao open as spider density, that clever when. The secret is more than words, the rare person is less, and the folk is also effective ".