Folk taboo

Folk taboos are people's self-restraint on their behavior orientation and behavior pattern based on some experience, ideas and emotions out of fear of some mysterious force. Spring Festival taboo, also known as "Chinese New Year taboo", refers to a month-long taboo from1February 16 to the first month 15.

The Spring Festival was originally out of the taboo of "Year". Deng Yunxiang's On the Customs of the Red Chamber (Zhonghua Book Company, 1987 edition) mentioned the word "nian", which is a pictographic character with a head and a tail, and its feet spread out in all directions, like a big gecko. It is said that it is a terrible reptile. People are not satisfied at the age of one. At best, they survived safely. Therefore, they make a fire and get something good to celebrate with. This is called "Chinese New Year". Later, celebrating the beginning of the year to go to the old and welcome the new became the current "Chinese New Year" and "Chinese New Year". In the process of inheritance, the fear and superstition contained in the taboo of the Spring Festival are gradually taken away by the feelings of mutual love and love between people. As the saying goes, "avoid too much in the new year." The Spring Festival taboos pursued by Hakkas include: not beating and scolding children; It is forbidden to break utensils; Don't swear. Zhang Zuji's "Hakka Old Customs" records: "On the New Year's Day, we are cautious, dare not swear, and few people go out. If something good happens on the first morning of the first year and I hear good news, it will be a good omen for the year and will be beneficial to the market this year. So when you meet people, you congratulate each other and say all kinds of good things. " Avoid using unlucky words, such as disease, death, pain, poverty, disaster, chaos, famine, killing, etc. Don't go out to visit relatives and friends on the third day. On the third day, every family used to sweep out the garbage and send it to the open space outside the house or by the river, shouting to send it to the poor. So few people go out on this day; Avoid sewing, especially in the lobby. There is a saying among the Hakkas that "On June 6th, the shrike sent his aunt away". They think that children born on June 6 will harm their parents, so they are taboo. There is an old saying in China called "May is forbidden". "Biography of Historical Records and Meng Changjun" said: "It is not good for parents to be together for a long time in May"; The Biography of Wang Zhene in the History of Song Dynasty also recorded: "The town evil was born on May 5, and the family was jealous of vulgarity. Therefore, as the heir of the clan, the fierce (grandfather) monster said:' This is very unusual. In the past, Meng Changjun was born in a bad month, so it will also make our door prosperous! Therefore, it is called wicked city. "The Hakka people's' Don't mention June' may be derived from' Don't mention May'.

In the old days, there was also the saying of "fetal god". In the "General Book" fabricated by Luo surname in Xingning, Guangdong, "the fetal god lives somewhere every day". Some taboos of pregnant women in Hakka folk are related to the theory of "fetal god", while others are beneficial experiences. The taboos of Hakka folk pregnant women are: fasting sheep liver, carp, dog meat, rabbit meat, sparrow meat, goat meat, frog, oriole and so on. It is said that this kind of food will cause disaster, and the reasons include disfigurement such as "rabbit lips". Avoid crossing the reins of cattle and horses. It is said that cows and horses are pregnant and give birth in February, and pregnant women crossing the reins of cows and horses will cause dystocia. Don't ride the "wooden horse", which is a wooden frame commonly used by carpenters when they work. It is said that pregnant women sit on wooden frames, and the houses built by carpenters are unlucky. There is a concept of "impurity" that belittles women. Avoid pregnant women sitting side by side, it is said that this will affect fetal gas. Don't wear reverse clothes. Wearing the wrong clothes, such as mourning, is mourning at home. It is forbidden to knock on the plate with chopsticks when eating food. Knocking on the plate with chopsticks is a way for beggars to beg for food, and it is also a signal to tease dogs, cats and other animals to eat. At the same time, avoid inserting chopsticks vertically in the dish bowl, which is the way to sacrifice to the dead. The bed in the house should not face the roof beam. It is easy to have nightmares if you think that Liang Ding is preemptive. Don't sleep with your bed facing the door or your feet facing the door. This is a symbol of the funeral. When going out to do business, don't encounter "three evil days" and "death". When a child is born, it is neither called "giving" nor "light" or "living". Old people should not call themselves "old" when they are old. "Old" is synonymous with death, so it is appropriate to call you old or old. Visiting hours are prohibited in the afternoon, evening and the first and fifteenth day of the lunar calendar. The afternoon is the past day, and the evening is the sunset in the west. The first and fifteenth days of the first lunar month are the days for offering sacrifices to gods and ghosts. When asking patients, avoid calling the sick word directly, but ask, "Were you not feeling well?" "It's unnatural there?" Calling a child sick is called "misbehavior". The deceased avoided the first, eleventh and twenty-first days of the lunar calendar. Seven days after death, every seven days is called "killing", thinking that there will be "wind evil" at home. Every seventh day, the whole family and neighbors of the * * * family have to go out early in the morning to "ward off evil spirits", and come back in the afternoon to avoid pigs and cats and give them to relatives and friends for free. Hakka proverb says that "pigs come to be poor, dogs come to be rich, and cats come to bring hemp", so it is unlucky to wear mourning clothes. Even if the other party receives a dog or cat, it is lucky to return the gift. Young and middle-aged women who don't know each other in Lu Yu You Yue should not be called "big sister", "aunt", "aunt" or "uncle", but "big sister" or "sister". Otherwise, it is easy to be wrongly called a sinner. The "afterbirth" is confidential. In the Hakka area of Meizhou, people cherish their "traces of afterbirth" (the place where the afterbirth is buried), and there has always been a custom of keeping the afterbirth secret. Whenever a baby is born, only the grandmother has the right to dispose of the afterbirth (if the grandmother is absent, the father will handle it). Generally, the placenta is buried in the area of his ancestral home, and the place where the placenta is buried will always be kept secret.

In the old days, Zijin people were taboo: crows bark, crows are ghost horses, and barking will kill people. Avoid crowing at dusk. There is a good saying, there is a fire (fire) and a thief (theft). Avoid hens crowing. It is said that the hen crowing is the inversion of yin and yang, yin flourishes and yang declines, which is the main disaster and unlucky at home. Avoid ear fever. There is a saying that "burning money in the left ear (wasting money)", "burning things in the right ear (disaster)" and "burning nothing in both ears". When someone burns his ear, he tears a piece of paper, hollows it out in the middle and sticks it on the ear with fever, which is called "wearing a paper cangue" to ward off evil spirits. Avoid eyelid jump, saying that it is "eyelid jump, there is a way to run" (meaning something to run). Avoid corpse entering the house, thinking that "cold corpse entering the house is defeated at the bottom", so those who die in different places can only die under the eaves. Pregnant women should avoid looking at strange faces and listening to strange voices. Seeing strange faces and hearing strange voices will give birth to strange babies. There is a saying that "watching monkeys give birth to monkeys, watching uncles give birth to uncles" (referring to clay bodhisattva). Avoid saying the word "blood", because "blood" and "black" are homophonic, so pig blood is called pig red. Don't say "fish begins to stink at the head" when building a house. In Hakka dialect, "Liang Shang and mourning" are homophonic, so Liang Shang is called "Liang Shang". Don't be a guest on the third day of New Year's Eve, which is called "Poor People's Day". If a guest comes to the door on this day, the guest is "poor" and the host will have a hard year.

Although Hakkas in Fogang have lived with vernacular people for a long time, they still maintain many traditional taboos: don't call people "X your mother"! When we often quarrel, we scold "X your mother", which leads to a fight, because this sentence insults others' mothers, which is unbearable. Don't sit on the cross head as a guest (that is, the row of seats near the table at the end of the house), because that row of seats is for parents. Avoid the names of newborns with the same names as their elders, especially those of immediate elders.

In Jiexi Hakka area, pregnant women will be wrapped around their waist when buried if their loved ones die. Don't meet pregnant women when you are doing all kinds of happy events or other jobs. You think it will be unlucky to be met or seen by pregnant women. Children can't be held by pregnant women because they think they will get sick. Brew and sprinkle all kinds of cakes, steam dry rice, and make dry rice food (dry rice is steamed with glutinous rice, dried in the sun, fried, and added with sugar and malt, etc.). And made into glutinous rice candy: called dried rice. Hepo, Wuyun, Shangsha, Xiasha and other towns have the custom of making dried rice candy every Spring Festival. Pregnant women should not be allowed to be present, thinking that if she sees it, the dried rice candy will be scattered. Sows and cows can't be seen by pregnant women when they give birth for less than a month or cry, otherwise both pigs and cows will get sick. On the edge of the bride's bed or the edge of the baby's bed, pregnant women should not sit idle, which will cause discord between husband and wife or disaster for their children. Pregnant women sleep on bedding, pillowcases, mosquito nets, etc. Don't use boiling water when washing, for fear of burning the "fetal god".

Some surnames of Jiexi are homophonic with the name of an animal. People with this surname will give this animal another name to avoid taboos. Although the surnames in Jiexi Hepo area are not all people, they are not less than 70 or 80 surnames. There are also surnames that are taboo with certain animals or words. For example, people surnamed Yang call sheep "young hair", slaughter sheep "young hair" and goat "Huang Jing". Yellow people call yellow cattle red cattle or sand cattle; People surnamed Ma describe horses as "four legs"; Zhu people call pigs "fat goods" ... besides, Wen doesn't say "swine fever" or "chicken plague"; People surnamed Xie don't like others to say "thank you" to them, but should say "thank you" because Hakka dialect is homophonic with "emotion" and "subtraction"; People surnamed Liu don't say "cutting tumors"; People surnamed Gu don't say "playing drums"; People surnamed Zhuang don't like the word "playing dead"; People surnamed Luo also don't like to listen to names like "rotten basket" or "bad basket", so if you don't understand these taboos when interacting with Jiexi people, it will cause misunderstanding and bring unhappiness.