QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA
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the first day or days. But before we continue to discuss such social messages as may have been conveyed by way of the grave ritual, I wish to draw some further attention to the distribution in time of grave worship. Consider the following cases:
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In Baling, it is recorded, all families cut paper, 'climb the mounds' £*, and repair the graves on the third day of the third moon.23 Grave offerings were considered at Gold Food or Hanshi in Wuling.24 From Zhongxiang #the chronicler reports that on the same date sons and daughters pay respect with cattle meat as ji offerings on the graves of the deceased. Paper streamers were hung up and the graves were worshiped #. Loud lamenting was to be heard.25 In Jiangxia the graves were swept at Cold Food.26 Cold Food is an occasion of one to three days, celebrated 105 days after the winter solstice. This means that it coincides with the opening days of the Qingming solar period. There is good reason to return to this calendar event in the following discussion. In Baling the grave worship had crossed from the solar calendar to the lunar almanac; the third day of the third moon will be a varying solar date in the spring.
Some other data are more interesting--and puzzling. We find, widely dispersed in time, grave worship of a form which strongly resembles the accounts presented above. Consider the following notes: The chronicler of Baling tells us:
the people during the leisure of the first moon pay respect # to and sweep the graves. It is named 'to pay respect to the year on the grave' Moreover, matters of death resemble the way of life 車死如生之道也.27
The last phrase may be taken to mean that the paying of respect at or on the graves in the festive season of the first moon followed an order which resembled the conventions of paying respect between living relatives at the lunar New Year.
We have noted already that grave worship occurred in Yuanjiang on Earth God Day in the second moon,28 before the spring equinox. A further record from Wuchang states that in that ‘county", in the second moon, on Earth God Day people si je offered fresh things on the graves.29 On the same day the graves in Chongyang were decorated with 'top branches' and were given ji offerings. In the same locality it was customary to make ji offerings on the graves on the sixth day of the sixth moon to the shen † spirit(s?) of the