Forms of celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival by ethnic minorities

Not only the Han people celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, but also more than 20 ethnic minorities such as Dong, Miao, She, Zhuang, Dai, Li, Manchu, Korean and Gaoshan.

On Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhuang people are used to using rice cakes and Yue Bai on bamboo rafts by the river. Girls put lanterns on the water to measure their happiness in life and sing the beautiful folk song "Please take care of the moon".

She people sing with their guests every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. She people regard this day as a good day to visit relatives and friends, and singing with guests is a unique custom of She people. Mid-Autumn Festival should not only accompany guests to sing, but also concentrate on singing in the county. When singing, men and women stand on one side, and women especially like to squeeze together. Women who don't participate in singing should also be crowded with singers to show their powerful momentum.

Koreans "explore the moon" Koreans set up a "lunar exploration frame" with wooden poles and pine branches. First, invite the old man to explore the moon on the shelf, then light the moon-looking shelf, play the long drum and flute, and dance the "peasant dance" together.

Li people call Mid-Autumn Festival "August Meeting" or "Adjustment". At that time, each market town will hold a song and dance party, and each village will be led by a "U-turn" (that is, the leader). After the staff arrived, everyone gave each other moon cakes, sweet cake, color fans and vests, and swarmed in. In the evening, they gather around the fire, roast game, drink rice wine and have a grand duet. Unmarried young people take the opportunity to find future partners.

Every Mid-Autumn Festival night, the bright moonlight fills Miao's hut. After the reunion of Miao men and women, they all went to the glade to sing and dance, and held a "jumping on the moon" activity.

According to an ancient Miao legend, Moon is a loyal, honest, hardworking and brave young man. There is a beautiful young girl named Shuiqing. She turned down 99 young men who proposed to her in Jiujiuzhou and fell in love with the moon. Finally, she also experienced all kinds of hardships made by the sun, and finally happily combined with the moon.

In order to commemorate their happy love, Miao parents have danced Miao songs and dances in the Mid-Autumn Festival night for generations, bathed in the glory of the moon, and called this custom "jumping on the moon". Young men and women look for each other's sweetheart in the "jumping on the moon" and pour out their feelings, saying that they should be as pure and bright as water and the moon and have a good relationship forever. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Miao people bathed in moonlight, played melodious lusheng and danced Miao songs and dances. In the "moon-making" activity, young people seek each other's Mr. Right, and declare to each other that they should be as pure and bright as the moon and clear water, and get along well for a hundred years.

Gaoshan's "Autumn Dance" Taiwan Province Gaoshan compatriots wear beautiful national costumes every Mid-Autumn Festival night and gather at the Sun Moon Lake. In the moonlight of Yin Hui, men and women are playing "Autumn Dance".

According to legend, in ancient times, there was a young couple by the Daqingxi River. The man named Dajian Ge and the woman named Huashui Jie made a living by fishing. One day, the sun and the moon suddenly disappeared, the sky was dark, the seedlings withered, the flowers and fruits were not long, and insects and birds cried. Big tip and splash decided to get the sun and moon back. Under the guidance of the white-haired old woman, they killed the male dragon that devoured the sun in the deep pool with a golden axe; Killed the mother dragon that ate the moon with golden scissors. They also hold palm branches and hold the sun and the moon up to the sky. In order to conquer the dragon, they stayed by the pool forever and became two mountains: the big tip and the splash. This big pool is called "Sun Moon Lake".

Therefore, every Mid-Autumn Festival, Gaoshan compatriots miss the dedication of Dajian and Huashui, and all go to Sun Moon Lake to imitate the couple holding colored balls of the sun and the moon, so as not to let the colored balls fall to the ground, in order to make the sun and the moon bright, the weather good and the crops abundant.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, Mongolians like to play the game of "Chasing the Moon". People are riding horses and galloping on the grassland in the silver moonlight. They galloped west, and the moon rose in the east and set in the west. Persistent Mongolian riders, until the moon goes down, "chasing the moon" is more than that.

The custom of Tibetan compatriots in some parts of Tibet to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival is "searching for the moon". That night, young men, women and dolls, along the river, followed the bright moon reflected in the water, took pictures of the moon shadows in the surrounding ponds, and then went home to eat moon cakes.

Hezhe "Yue Bai" in Hezhe inhabited areas in Northeast China. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, people will pick grapes, Yue Bai. According to legend, it is to commemorate a clever and hardworking Hezhe daughter-in-law. She couldn't stand her mother-in-law's abuse and ran to the river to ask the moon for help. Finally ran to the moon.

Ewenki people celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with family gatherings and moon festivals as the main content. During the festival, they will also visit relatives and friends and entertain each other. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, people gather around the campfire, singing and dancing until late at night.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, Song Lusheng and the dance teams from various cottages walked all the way to the nearby cottages, and spent a long night enjoying the moon, singing and dancing with the villagers.

Deang "string the moon" Young men and women of Deang nationality in Luxi, Yunnan, hang the full moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. When the sky is particularly bright, the hills are blocked, and melodious cucurbit silk comes from time to time. Young men and women "string the moon" together and pour out their hearts. Some also set an engagement through "string of moons", sending betel nuts and tea.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dai people in Yunnan are popular with the custom of "Yue Bai".

According to Dai's legend, the moon was changed by the emperor's third son. In short, he is a brave and strong young man. He led the Dai people to defeat the enemy and won the love of the Dai people. Later, after his unfortunate death, he became the moon, rose to the sky, and continued to emit soft moonlight, bringing light to the Dai people in the dark.

In the Mid-Autumn Festival, young people go to the mountains early in the morning with gunpowder guns to shoot fire finches and pheasants to hunt holiday game. Girls and daughters-in-law are busy catching fish in lakes and ponds. They are all busy preparing holiday dinner. The old lady is busy frying glutinous rice and cooking different sizes of food. Put a glutinous rice round cake on each corner of the four tables, and insert a wick of Leng Xiang into each cake. As soon as the moon rises above the mountains, Leng Xiang will be lit, and the whole family will begin to "Yue Bai". Then, put a gunpowder gun in the air to show respect for the hero's rock tip. Finally, the family happily sat around the small square table, enjoying delicious food and enjoying the moon.

Guangxi Dong people "walk on the moon" Guangxi Dong people celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival by walking on the moon. When the moon rises, Song Lusheng and the dance team, who are fully prepared, come to the neighboring hut and sing and dance in the moonlight. The music was deafening and dancing, and the happy crowd was immersed in the moonlight like water.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dong people in Hunan will steal moon dishes. An interesting custom is "stealing moon dishes".

According to legend, in ancient times, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, fairies in the Moon Palace came to the underworld, and they spilled nectar all over the world. Fairy nectar is selfless, so people can enjoy fruits and vegetables sprinkled with nectar together on this night. Dong Jia named this custom "stealing moon dishes".

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, Dong girls use umbrellas to pick melons and vegetables from their beloved garden, which is not considered as "stealing". They also deliberately shouted: "Hey! I stripped all your fruits and vegetables. Come to my house to eat camellia oleifera! " It turns out that they passed the red line with the help of the Moon Palace Fairy. If you can pick a melon and fruit, it means that they can have a happy love. So the beans that grow in pairs become the objects of their picking. Sister-in-law also went to other gardens to "steal moon dishes" that night, but they hoped to get the fattest melon or a handful of fresh green edamame, because it symbolized the child's fatness and the health of the hairy head (the homonym of edamame refers to the child). Boys also have the custom of "stealing moon dishes" because they also want the moon fairy to give them happiness. However, they can only cook and eat in the wild and can't take them home. Stealing Moon Dishes adds infinite joy and magical brilliance to the Mid-Autumn Festival night in Dong Village.

Yue Bai's Mid-Autumn Festival and Zhuang's rice cakes have existed since ancient times, but with the change of historical environment and the evolution of cultural customs, this ceremony gradually faded out of people's sight, while this ancient tradition was preserved in Zhuang. On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Zhuang people set up a sacrificial platform in the open air at the end of the village for offering sacrifices and incense burners. On the right side of the table is a branch or bamboo branch about a foot high, which symbolizes the community tree and is also a ladder for the moon god to descend to earth. There are ancient moon myth factors preserved here. The whole activity is divided into: inviting the moon god to descend to earth, with one or two women as the spokespersons of the moon god; God and man sing to each other; Luna divination fortune-telling; The singer sings a mantra song and sends the moon god back to heaven. There are four stages.

Buyi people steal old melons and cook glutinous rice. Buyi people have the custom of stealing old melons and cooking glutinous rice on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival. They wrapped the stolen old melons in red cloth and photographed them all the way to families without children. The host of this family will treat them to drinks and supper. It is said that this will bring children to this family. And the person who was stolen will not blame the person who stole the melon, but think that it will bring better harvest to himself.

On the first day of the festival, all the people, old and young, put on new clothes and gathered on the terrace of the stockade. Several young people brought a yellow ox with a big red flower, and the oldest person in the village, the clan elders, began to pray for a bumper harvest. The band played the Eight Immortals and set off gunpowder and firecrackers at the same time. Then kill the cow and cut off the heart of the cow, one for each household, indicating that the whole family is United as one. Later, the "clan elders" also led the people to hold pigs, old chickens and old geese to sacrifice under the bodhisattva tree. After the ceremony, the whole family got together for dinner until dark. The next day, after the family dinner, the women took their children back to their parents' home to give gifts. Men make friends, sing and chat in the street. It is said that the singing and dancing activities of young men and women continued until the last day of the festival.

In the primitive religious beliefs of the Tu people, the relationship between human beings and the moon is inseparable. The Turks call the moon and the sun "two auspicious days" and think that they are both part of the sky. It can be seen that the Tu people have deep religious feelings for the moon.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, a basin of clear water will be put in every yard. When the reflection of the full moon appeared in the basin, people kept hitting it with pebbles until the full moon was "smashed to pieces".

The special customs of Achang people The Achang people in lianghe county never forget to feed their dogs during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

According to legend, in the past, rice was grown by itself, as tall as a banana tree. As a result, people have developed the habit of being lazy and wasted all the rice they can't eat. One day, Guanyin Bodhisattva saw that people didn't value food so much. In a rage, a gust of wind blew and swept away all the millet. Soon, people shouted with hunger. When Guanyin heard the dog barking, she thought it was people who did evil, not dogs, so she threw handfuls of millet at the place where the dog barked, and people drove the dog away to grab the seeds to eat. An old man dissuaded everyone and planted some grains in the fields by the river. Generation after generation, people not only learned to grow millet, but also learned to live by hard work. In order not to forget the lessons of the past, but also to repay the kindness of dogs to get food seeds, on the morning of August 15, every household will cook rice with newly harvested rice and feed it to dogs, and then visit relatives and friends, which is very enjoyable.

A Xi person "jumps on the moon". The traditional habit of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival is "jumping on the moon". On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, people from various villages gather in the open space of the mountain village. The girl in gauze jumped up, and so did the big three-stringed boy. However, what is particularly provocative is the duet of young men and women expressing their love, as if the moon was moved by Li.

Folklore experts said that although there are many customs and forms of Mid-Autumn Festival in different ethnic groups, they all have people's infinite love and yearning for life, and they all have a good wish of "I hope people can live together for a long time". (China Ethnic and Religious Network Comprehensive)