Did people in Shang Dynasty celebrate festivals? What festival do you celebrate?

In fact, the concept of festivals existed as early as 4,000 years ago in Shang Dynasty, which had many commemorative days, such as New Year's Day, Winter Solstice and Spring Festival.

The winter solstice is the oldest festival. In Shang Dynasty, it was a festival rather than the Spring Festival. The others are all evolved by later generations. The origin and date of New Year's Day in China are different in different dynasties. Xia Dynasty is January 1st, Shang Dynasty is December 1st, Zhou Dynasty is November 1st and Qin Dynasty is October 1st. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty (BC 104), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty accepted the suggestions of Sima Qian and others, used the taichu calendar to restore the summer calendar, that is, the lunar calendar, and put the 24 solar terms into the calendar with the first month as a year.

The time of the Spring Festival is different in different periods. Xia dynasty is the beginning of a year; Shang Dynasty is the winter festival of the four seasons. It is also said that the so-called "Spring Festival" in ancient times is the festival sequence of spring. It used to refer to beginning of spring in the twenty-four solar terms, and sometimes to the whole spring. In the lunar calendar of Shang Dynasty, the twelfth lunar month (December) was the first month.

The custom of keeping dogs in Shang Dynasty is particularly vivid in archaeological materials. A large number of domestic dog bones were found in Shang cultural sites represented by Erligang culture in Zhengzhou and Yinxu culture in Anyang. In the tombs of Shang Dynasty (especially in the late tombs), the custom of using dogs as sacrificial animals was very popular. In the tombs of Yin Dynasty excavated in Yin ruins over the years, no matter the tombs of nobles or civilians, most of them saw the phenomenon of sacrificing domestic dogs at the bottom of the coffin (waist pit) or on the coffin surface (second floor platform), and more dogs were also found in the remains of social sacrifices excavated in Qiuwan, Tongshan, Jiangsu Province. These phenomena show that the custom of keeping dogs in Shang Dynasty was popular. There are also many records of dogs being sacrificed in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Such as "its peaceful wind, three sheep, three dogs and three tapirs"; Five dogs, five sheep and five tapirs in eastern Henan; "Ding Sibu, in addition to his father Ding Baiquan, has a hundred cows." This shows that domestic dogs have very important material and spiritual values in the eyes of Shang people.

Ghosts and gods are descendants of ancestors. What about "God"? In Confucius' thought, the position of "God" was not deliberately highlighted. In the Analects of Confucius, there is only one single mention of "God": "Sacrifice is like this, sacrifice to God is like this. Confucius said, "If I don't sacrifice, I won't sacrifice. The gods here are equivalent to sacrifices, which actually originated from the customs of Shang Dynasty. In Shang Dynasty, gods, common things, people and ghosts were sacrificed, and people and ghosts were particularly important. If "offering sacrifices as in" refers to ancestors, then "offering sacrifices as in" refers to the existence different from ancestors: the hundred gods.

The ancestors of Shang and Zhou Dynasties can be traced back to the Yellow Emperor. This is the first ancestor who confessed to the Sect. Secondly, Dayu was buried in Huiji after his death. Shao Kang established his illegitimate child Yu Yue in Huiji to show his respect for Yu's sacrifice. This is the earliest cultural custom of ancestor worship. In Shang dynasty, the king went to the ancestral temple to offer sacrifices every year. The Zhou Dynasty continued this tradition. Until now. Businessmen are still white, and white is the noblest and most auspicious color, so the king's robe worn by the Shang king is also white, and all happy events are white. Businessmen are soldiers, and red is the color of blood, symbolizing death. They think it is glorious to die in battle and hold a funeral in the color of blood.

The Shang dynasty also had the custom of robbing marriage. It is recorded in the Book of Changes. The ballad Yi Ci (4 songs) is found in the hexagrams of Zhouyi, and some ancient ballads are preserved. I ching? Ben * * *: Ben Confucianism, Bai Confucianism, bandit and bandit, married. This is a poem about robbing a marriage. Rob the bride dressed very lightly, all white, riding a white horse pure and innocent; Claiming not to be a strong coach, only to be a good object of marriage proposal. I ching? Swallow: Swallow, such as, such as, Banmaru. Bandits, marriage. This song is about approaching a woman's home: I am afraid of disturbing each other and I am very careful all the way. Horsemen came one after another, but not to get married. I ching? Tunshang VI: Riding on a horse, like a class, like weeping blood. This is the scene of returning home: riding a horse slowly in circles, because the woman did not want to follow, so she cried blood and tears.

* * * was not allowed in the Shang Dynasty, and the moral concepts that existed in the early commercial period, such as brother and sister * * *, were forbidden. In the early Shang dynasty, it was also popular to get married. Also known as adoption marriage, promotion marriage, transfer marriage, uncle marriage. Generally speaking, remarriage means that a son marries his stepmother after his father dies, or his brother marries his sister-in-law after his brother dies, or his brother marries his sister-in-law after his brother dies. It is more common for sisters and aunts and nephews to get married. "Mencius? ; "Zhang Wan" contains: Ersao makes me live.

The mainstream of the marriage system in Shang Dynasty was monogamy, but in specific social life, it also showed complex connotations of the times. The so-called monogamy is just one wife, but it is common for men to marry more than one wife, especially for aristocratic men. It's not speculation. Guo Moruo, Wu Han, Li Yanong and other famous historians all agree with this view. From the perspective of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, businessmen have a tradition of doing business with the whole nation. Long before the Shang Dynasty was established, Xiangtu, the ancestor of the merchants, rode horses, and Wang Hai served cows and domesticated them for long-distance business. "Is it easy? ; The copula is recorded as follows: "Serve cattle and horses, attract attention to the distant future and benefit the world." Later Shang kings respected Wang Hai very much. When he offered sacrifices, they used 300 cows at a time.

Among a series of shocking national treasures unearthed in Anyang, there are tortoise shells in the South China Sea, Hetian jade in Xinjiang, shells in Malaysia and copper mines in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. These unearthed cultural relics are quite far from the place of origin, which is a strong evidence that businessmen are good at doing business. Archaeologists found a pile of shells in the tombs of men and women in the famous Yin ruins, totaling nearly 7,000. According to textual research, shells were the currency of Shang ancestors. In the past hundred years, tens of thousands of shells have been unearthed in the excavation of Yin Ruins. The Book of Songs? ; Shang song? ; "Xuanniao" said that during the Wuding period of Shang Dynasty, "the country was a thousand miles away", and the activities of the ancestors of Yin Shang started from Haiyang in Shandong in the west, went to central Shaanxi in the west, went to Ningxiang, Changning and Qingjiang in Jiangxi in the south, and went to Hebei, Shanxi and even Inner Mongolia in the north.

At that time, merchants drove ox carts, brought tools, daily necessities and agricultural products, and exchanged local specialties and needed commodities through roads extending in all directions. Tortoise shells and other things used for divination in Shang Dynasty were shipped from the far south. The early form of exchange was barter. Later, shells became money, and merchants' business activities became more frequent. The capital of Shang State 3,300 years ago became the only metropolis in the East with a population of 300,000. After the demise of Shang dynasty, the merchants' adherents scattered all over the country, and at the same time brought the tradition of doing business to all parts of the country. Businessmen lived among the people in the predicament of "exile" or even "coming down with a blackbird", which laid the commercial tradition of the Chinese nation.