Qixi Festival: China's Most Romantic Day? You Won't Believe Why!
The upcoming Qixi Festival, also known as the Double Seventh Festival, is one of the most romantic traditional festivals in China. Its origins lie in the ancient people's worship of celestial phenomena, later incorporating the love legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, gradually evolving into a comprehensive festival with the themes of prayer, skill-begging, and love.
A Glimpse into the Past: Art and Mythology
Looking at ancient paintings from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty, the women leading threads under the moon and the immortals facing each other across the Milky Way seem to whisper across thousands of years. The thirst for wisdom and skill, the perseverance of love, and the prayer for good fortune have always been the enduring foundation of Chinese civilization.
From Celestial Worship to Love Legend: The Artistic Sublimation of a Star God's Love
The origin of Qixi can be traced back to the star worship of ancient times. The Book of Songs · Xiaoya · Dadong already contains anthropomorphic descriptions of the Altair and Vega stars: "The Weaver Girl stands tall, weaving seven times a day... The Cowherd shines brightly, not using a cart." At this time, the stars were not yet associated with love but were observed as astronomical symbols. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl began to be personified. Ying Shao's Customs Tongyi records: "The Weaver Girl crosses the river on the seventh night of the seventh month, using magpies as a bridge." The legend of the Magpie Bridge meeting has since become the core theme of artistic creation.
The Eastern Han Dynasty portrait stone Cowherd and Weaver Girl (unearthed in Nanyang, Henan) vividly depicts this myth in the form of a combination of stars and figures: the Cowherd leads the cow and looks up, and the Weaver Girl sits beside the loom. The two face each other across the Milky Way, symbolized by cloud patterns, reflecting the artistic conception of "separated by a stream of water, unable to speak.". This composition pattern laid the foundation for later paintings—a dual narrative of the heavenly Milky Way and the earthly skill-begging.
Qixi Customs: Begging for Skills and Praying for Love
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the festival customs of "Qixi" became richer. Begging for skills was already the core custom of Qixi at that time, not only inheriting the seven-hole needle threading and "sun-drying clothes" of the Han Dynasty but also offering melons and fruits to the Cowherd and Weaver Girl. Zong Lin of the Southern Dynasty recorded in his Jingchu Chronicle on July 7th: "On this evening, women build colorful buildings, thread seven-hole needles, or use gold, silver, or stone as needles, and display melons and fruits in the courtyard to beg for skills. If there is a happy spider web on the melon, it will be regarded as a sign.".
The happy spider is a kind of red long-legged spider. If it weaves a web on melons and fruits, it will be considered to be favored by the Weaver Girl and will surely beg for a clever mind and skillful hands, and everything will go smoothly.