Under spring willows a village elder leads a boy and a girl in offering bowls at a small earth-god shrine beside a festival drum, with rapeseed in bloom and a riverside village and stone bridge beyond.
She Day (Earth God Festival)
Pray in spring, give thanks in autumn
Introduction
In spring the village prays to the earth god for grain, and in autumn gives thanks for the harvest
She Day is the traditional festival of the she, the god of the soil (the earth god). The spring she falls on the fifth wu day after the Beginning of Spring, around the spring equinox, and the autumn she on the fifth wu day after the Beginning of Autumn. The Monthly Ordinances of the Liji tell the ruler in mid-spring to 'choose an auspicious day and order the people to sacrifice to the she'; the autumn she began in the Han, so that people prayed for grain in spring and thanked the god in autumn. The festival flourished in the Tang and Song, when neighbours formed she associations, made offerings and shared the sacrificial meat and she wine, and Wang Jia wrote of mulberry shadows lengthening as the spring she broke up and every family helped its drunkards home. It declined after the Ming and Qing, but people in western Hunan still eat she rice to 'pass the she', and Anren in Hunan holds its Ganfenshe fair at the spring equinox.
Timeline
- 250 BCEOriginThe Monthly Ordinances of the Liji prescribe for mid-spring 'choose an auspicious day and order the people to sacrifice to the she', and for early winter a great sacrifice at the public she altar, an early reliable record of the she sacrifice as a seasonal rite (the text shares its source with the late Warring States Lüshi chunqiu).
- 195EvolutionBefore the Han there was only the spring she; the autumn she began in the Han. Ying Shao's Fengsu tongyi (Eastern Han) explains that the she is lord of the soil, and since the land is too vast to honour everywhere, a mound is raised as the she and worshipped to repay its merit.
- 550EvolutionZong Lin's Jingchu suishi ji (Liang) records that on She Day neighbours formed she associations, slaughtered victims, built a shelter under a tree, sacrificed to the god first and then feasted on the offerings.
- 890EvolutionWang Jia's late Tang poem 'She Day' ends with mulberry shadows lengthening as the spring she breaks up and every family helping its drunkards home; later painters illustrated the lines as 'Returning Drunk from the Spring She'.
- 1147EvolutionMeng Yuanlao's Dongjing meng Hua lu (book 8) records that at the autumn she in Northern Song Kaifeng people exchanged she cakes and she wine, palace households served 'she rice', married women visited their parents, and schools held she gatherings, 'and so too at the spring she, the Double Fifth and the Double Ninth'.
- 2014EvolutionAnren's Ganfenshe in Hunan, held at the spring-equinox she (honouring Shennong, praying for grain and holding a herb market), entered the 4th national ICH list in 2014; Tujia and Miao communities in western Hunan still eat she rice to 'pass the she'.
Heritage Listings
- 2014National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage4th batch · Twenty-Four Solar Terms: Anren Ganfenshe · Anren County · Hunan