[VOL IV] FESTIVAL OF THE DRAGON-BOAT, ON THE FIFTH DAY OF THE FIFTH MOON

FESTIVAL OF THE DRAGON-BOAT, ON THE FIFTH DAY OF THE FIFTH MOON

Cover Image: Festival of the Dragon Boat, 5th day of 5th Moon Duanwu Festival / China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by R.Brandard – ALAMY Image ID:2X55NDC

*The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Festival, is one of the traditional and important festivals in China, typically celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar. Dragon boat racing is a traditional activity associated with the Dragon Boat Festival and has a long history.

There are various legends and explanations regarding the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival. One of the most famous legends is related to Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan was a patriotic poet during China’s Warring States period, and his concerns and dissatisfaction with the state of the country led him to take his own life. According to legend, people dropped rice into the river and set off firecrackers to prevent fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. Another explanation is that the Dragon Boat Festival is a day for ancient worship of dragon gods and water deities, with dragon boat racing originating from these worship activities, aimed at praying for good harvests and safety.

Dragon boat racing is a traditional activity to commemorate and honor Qu Yuan, remembering his sacrifice and the spirit of protecting the people. This activity involves dragon boat races, where teams paddle in unison on a long boat with a dragon-shaped head as a symbol of the divine dragon’s presence. Dragon boat racing can also have regional variations, with different ways of celebration in various places.

They gripe their oars, and ev’ry panting breast
Is raised by turns with hope, by turns with fear depress’d.

DRYDEN.

IT is not a little remarkable that the very form which the enemy of mankind is represented, in the sacred writings, as having assumed, to effect the fall of our first parents, should be held in the highest veneration by the Chinese. Such a devotion cannot arise from either reason or revelation, for its victims do not possess the one, and do not sufficiently exercise the other; yet, let not Christians be so uncharitable as to say, that the roaring lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour, still holds dominion over Chinamen. An old and learned author writes,“In China there is nothing so familiar as apparitions, inspirations, oracles, false prodigies, counterfeit miracles, whence follow storms, tempests, plagues, wars, and seditions, driving them to despair; terrors of mind, intolerable pains.” Again,-“by promises, rewards, benefits, and fair means, he (Satan) creates such an opinion of his deity and greatness, that they dare not do otherwise than adore him, they darenot offend him.”(*Ricius, lib. i. cap. x.) That the grossest idolatry and most slavish superstition predominate in China, is undeniable; the effect is obvious, although the cause may be somewhat latent.

The destinies of the empire are said to be under the tutelage of four supernatural animals—the stag, tortoise, phoenix, and dragon. The first presides over literature, and is visible at the birth of sages; the second over virtue, and appears at periods of widespread morality, or perhaps on occasions of general peace, when Janus closed the gates of his temple at Rome; the third controlled divination; and the dragon represented authority. This last extraordinary monster is the national ensign of China; it is painted on their standards, attached to precepts, edicts, documents, books, and all imperial instruments or insignia. Besides his possession of authority, the dragon influences the seasons, and exerts a decided mastery over the heavenly bodies. Eclipses have always hitherto yielded to his ravenous propensity, which leads him occasionally to swallow the sun and moon, leaving the empire in total darkness. To appease his wrath, to divert his attention from these serious pursuits, the festival of the Dragon Boat is instituted, and held on the fifth day of the fifth moon, which generally falls in June. A boat of trifling width, but long enough to accommodate from forty to sixty paddles, is built for the occasion, having a figure-head representing the Chinese imperial emblem.

As it cuts through the water with a rapidity which so great an impulse necessarily communicates, the shouts of spectators, sounds of wind-instruments, and rolling of drums, lend increased vigour to the boatmen, whose sacred vessel not unfrequently comes into collision with lesser bodies, over which it passes almost imperceptibly, to all but the sufferers. A monster drum, with a well-stretched ox-hide for its head, placed amidships, is beaten heroically by three stout players; these strike simultaneously, whilst a professional, at their side, continues, with increasing activity, to make grimaces, rise on his toes, sink on his haunches, sneer, snarl, look up towards the sky, and wind his arms about, to the cadences of the great drum.

On the little deck at the boat’s head, two men are stationed, armed with long sharp-pointed halberts; and their peculiar duty is to shout, and brandish their weapons in the most menacing manner. The Dragon, although fervently adored as being capable of good, is also servilely feared as the author of evil, and it is for this purpose that he is believed to conceal himself at certain periods in the little creeks, and under the shelving banks of the river. Although Mother-Carey’s chickens present a more serious apprehension of danger to the mariner than the hiding dragon, the Chinese sailor lives in constant fear of being overturned by the malice of the latter, who darts out suddenly from his ambush upon the unsuspecting victim. The inconsistency of superstition is strongly marked in this national festival; for, the very deity to whom they ascribe the possession of authority at all other times, in the month of June they undertake to put down, or frighten away. Who could imagine any system of idolatry so infatuated as to prompt the inscription of “The flying dragon is in heaven,” in letters of gold on the chief national emblem of a people, and the next moment to advise the pursuit of the same imaginary being amongst the laden boats that loiter in the Canton river?