What do you know about the Dragon Boat Festival?

(Baonghean.vn) - What is the Duanwu Festival? Where did the Duanwu Festival originate from? Why is it called the Duanwu Festival?... these are certainly questions that many people are interested in. Let's learn about the origin and meaning of our people's traditional New Year.

1. Meaning and origin of the Duanwu Festival

Tet Doan Ngo or Tet Doan Duong, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, is a traditional Tet holiday in Vietnam. Tet Doan Ngo has existed for a long time in Eastern folk culture and has influenced cultural activities.

The 5th day of the 5th lunar month is called Doan Ngo. Because the word “Doan” means right, straight, beginning. Sometimes it is called Doan Ngu because it has two number 5s. People also call it Doan Duong or Trung Ngu. It is called Doan Duong because the number 5 is yang.

The weather on the 5th of May is very hot. In Southeast Asia, this is the time when the climate is very hot, insects and pests hatch a lot, farmers need to find ways to destroy them to protect their cultivation and crops. Perhaps because of this event, people also consider the Duanwu Festival as "insect killing day".

The Duanwu Festival in Vietnam is also known as “insect killing day” which is the day to launch the catching of insects, to destroy harmful species to crops in the fields, many of which are edible and considered nutritious. It is believed that when people eat the first dish of this day, all insects and worms in their bodies will die.

The Vietnamese Duanwu Festival does not originate from Chinese culture at all.

One day after the harvest, the farmers were celebrating a good harvest, but that year the insects were thick and ate away the fruit and food that had been harvested.

The people were having a headache not knowing how to get rid of this pest problem, suddenly an old man from afar came and called himself Doi Truan. He instructed the people to each house make a simple offering consisting of rice cakes and fruits, then go out in front of their house to exercise.

The people did as they were told, and shortly after, the insects fell down in droves. The old man added: Every year on this day, the insects are very aggressive. Every year on this day, if you do as I have told you, you will be able to control them. The grateful people were about to thank him, but the old man had already disappeared.

To commemorate this, people named this day "Insect Extermination Festival", some people call it "Doan Ngo Festival", because the offering time is usually at noon.

2. How to get rid of insects on the Dragon Boat Festival

According to ancient beliefs, on this day we must kill insects as soon as we wake up in the early morning and kill insects with food, especially with sticky rice wine, ash cakes and fruits...

For children: Early in the morning, when the child is still in bed, wake him up and feed him fruit, a little rice wine, boiled eggs, apply red marigold on the fontanel, chest, and navel to kill insects. Then wash his face, hands, feet, and brush his teeth.

For adults: When you wake up in the morning, do not put your feet on the ground, but rinse your mouth three times to clean out the worms, then eat a boiled duck egg. Then get out of bed and drink some wine (or eat a bowl of rice wine) to get the worms drunk, then eat fruit to kill the worms.

3. Offering tray for the Dragon Boat Festival

The offering tray for ancestors on the occasion of the Doan Ngo Festival includes: Incense, flowers, votive paper; Water; Sticky rice wine; Fruits including summer fruits such as plums, sapodilla, watermelon, lychee, bananas... However, plums and lychees are two indispensable fruits on the offering tray for the Doan Ngo Festival; Sticky rice, sweet soup; Ash cake (also known as ash cake or gio cake).

In our country, Doan Ngo Festival is considered important, ranked second after Tet Nguyen Dan. According to ancient customs, people often worship early in the morning, but in fact, Doan Ngo Festival is held at noon (12:00 noon) on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. Doan means beginning, Ngo is the period from 11:00 to 13:00.

4. Some customs on the Dragon Boat Festival

According to custom, at noon (12 noon), people in the countryside gather to pick leaves. This is the time with the best yang energy, the time when the sun shines the best in the year. Leaves picked at this time have very good medicinal effects such as itchy skin diseases, especially intestinal diseases or when catching a cold, these medicinal leaves are boiled in water to steam to relieve the cold very well.

Sticky rice wine is also a popular dish to kill insects.

In the past, on this day, people also had the custom of dyeing their fingernails and toenails, of picking fruits from trees, of hanging mugwort to ward off evil spirits... Babies who could not walk yet were given a little lime to rub on their fontanelles, chests and navels to prevent stomachaches and headaches. However, most of these customs have now been abolished, only the custom of bathing in herbal water and the custom of picking medicinal leaves remain.

In the streets and cities, there are not many gardens and trees, so people have the custom of buying medicinal leaves on the 5th. On this occasion, traders from the countryside bring all kinds of leaves to sell. The leaves are chopped into small pieces, classified into separate types, and people who go to the market choose the leaves with their favorite flavors to buy. At noon on the 5th, they are dried and wrapped in bags to put in the family medicine cabinet, to use when someone in the family is sick.

Kim Ngoc

(Synthetic)