Gourd worship in Chinese folk paper-cut art

In folk paper-cut works, gourds have always been used in various forms to express the connotation of fertility worship. For example, in "Chinese Folk Paper-cutting" compiled by Lu Shengzhong, we can see the patterns "Gourd Gives Child" and "Gourd with Scissors" from the Chifeng area of ??Inner Mongolia; in "Chinese Folk Paper-cutting Atlas" compiled by Pan Lusheng, we can see paper-cutting works from Shaanxi Province "A gourd with many seeds".

The worship of gourds originates from our nation’s ancient mythical story of the creation of humans by flood survivors. The core of our nation’s story of creation of humans by floods is the gourd. After the flood receded, human beings became extinct, leaving only the brother and sister Fuxi and Nuwa in the gourd. They got married and recreated humankind. The first ancestors of man and woman came from the gourd, and the gourd became the mother chaos of the universe and the source of prosperity for the descendants of the Chinese nation. "Poetry·Daya·Mian" said that "continuous melons are the beginning of the people, and the soil is Juqi" means that the ancestors of the Zhou Dynasty were like melons year after year, and it was not until King Tai that the foundation of the kings industry was laid. Pu is the small melon. Zhu Xis "Ji Zhuan" says: "Xiao is called Pu, and melons that are close to the original are often small." Therefore, it is said that "the continuous melons are the beginning of the people." The gourd was endowed with the divinity of protecting life in ancient mythology and became a belief of the Chinese nation. Gourd worship has been preserved in the wedding customs of ethnic minorities in my country. For example, in the wedding customs of the Yi people in Ailao Mountain, Yunnan, there is still a custom that the wizard breaks the gourd into two scoops and the newlyweds exchange the scoops for drinking. In Han wedding ceremonies, the custom evolved into the custom of hanging gourds and using "bowl-button" paper-cuts to symbolize the gourds. During the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th, it is popular to touch melons to ask for children, or give melons to ask for children, which is a manifestation of the gourd symbol in the festival. This is also the worship of Nuwa as a melon, but in the form of witchcraft. Because Nuwa is a melon, people come from melons and send melons to ask for children, which is evidence that Nuwa controls fertility. Wen Yiduo pointed out: "Nuwas Wa, "Dahuang Xi Jing Annotation", "Hanshu·Annotation on Ancient and Modern Renminbi", "Liezi·Huangdi Chapter Commentary", "Guangyun" and "Jiyun" all sound melon. "In ancient rituals, the early people would eat melons in order to turn the many seeds of the melons into their own vigorousReproductive ability, multiplying the population, like melons and melons. Because melons have many seeds, ancient ancestors regarded melons as a symbol of the female uterus and practiced fertility worship. Melon worship is actually an image symbol that uses cut gourds, gourds and pumpkins to symbolize the female mothers body in the reproduction of life. The center is the female vagina, and the surrounding dots are decorated to symbolize the reproduction of offspring. (Related paper-cut gourd reading: Window grill paper-cut auspicious gourd pattern and window grill tutorial)

Folk proverb says: "The more you pull peonies on a gourd, the more you like them." In traditional folk paper-cutting, gourds, gourds, and pumpkins are often used as happy flowers, and they are pasted in the bridal chamber or on the kiln window to pray for continuous peonies. The witchcraft and prayer mentality of Descendants Changxu is obvious. The gourd-like flower paper-cut from Fenyang, Shanxi, uses a gourd with two mouths reaching to the sky to symbolize the union of yin and yang. Inside is a doll with the upright creator Pangu, Fuxi and Nuwa in a bun. The neck is decorated with the masculine and yang symbol downwards, and the belly is decorated with the lotus and yin symbol. It is the god of life and reproduction that combines yin and yang. The paper-cut "Gourd Gives a Child" by Yijun in northern Shaanxi shows a pair of yin and yang gods in the gourd, and the one holding the gourd is the folk image of the god of chaos in the universe. In the wedding custom of Jiaocheng, Shanxi, eight gourds are pasted in the center of the window grille of a cave dwelling with a large group of flowers in the center, symbolizing the endless supply of melons and the longevity of descendants.