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in brief that kite flying may have been an iconic expression for the reaching of Heaven. People strove on that day for affinity with what was celestial by climbing hills and mountains. The upwards direction was a characteristic feature of this festival associated with the male cosmic principle of yang. So here in Zhongxiang people were also devoted kite flyers, but on the fifteenth day of the second lunary, a day followed by a full moon night, which like all full moons had female implications. Furthermore, it was a day associated with betrothals, awakening of flowers and also the re-appearance of butterflies.
Perhaps it is in this 'awakening' aspect of spring that we might find a clue to the flying of kites at Flower Dawn. In the second moon two categories of beings woke up after hibernating all through the winter—insects and dragons. We are on loose ground here. In Tongshan the solar day and period of ‘Arousal from Hibernation' was a time for forecasting the seasonal weather. Jing Zhi is, however, not only a name for the solar period corresponding to the fifth to the twentieth of March, and often also for the first day of that duration; it is at times used as a name for the second day of the second moon. That particular day is sometimes and in some places also known as 'the dragon raises his head'.43 This designation does not occur in our present corpus ethnography, nor have we found any explicit references to dragons in the material. Even so, it could be that the notion of risin-striving upwards—referring to flowers and insects, and perhaps also dragons, was alive in this area. At least in the magistracy of Zhongxiang the idea was dramatized in the rising kites. This is nothing more than a suggestion.
of
The second moon in the year was one inspired by spring and the release of vernal generative forces. There were two festive celebrations at this time which were both connected with the theme of growth and remuneration, and there were many concerns about the coming agricultural season. It was a time for the plowing of the fallow fields and the sowing of rice in the seedbeds was soon to follow. It was also a period when farmers wished for rain and there was customary divination, both about weather and coming crops, the latter of course dependant on the former. The two festivals which have been described
42 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1927: 176; Tun 1987: 25.
43 Bodde 1975: 56. 252; see also ch’ü 1972: 31.