In Fanzhuang Town, in the eastern pear-growing area of Zhao County, a grand dragon worship event – the Dragon Tablet Festival – is held every year on the second day of the second lunar month. Journalists learned from local authorities that this year’s event will start on the 28th and the ancestral dragon worship ceremony will be held on the 1st (the second day of the second lunar month).
The “Fanzhuang Dragon Tablet Society” has a long history. According to local residents, it dates back to the beginning of time and is believed to have originated from ancient dragon worship, ancestral reverence, social sacrifices, and the observation of natural phenomena. The “Rites of Zhou – The Book of Rites: The Book of Sacrifices” states, “When Gonggong dominated the nine provinces, his son was Hou Tu, who could level the nine provinces. Therefore, he was worshipped as the Earth God.”
The “Zuo Zhuan” records, “Gonggong had a son named Gou Long, who was Hou Tu. Hou Tu was the Earth God.” The “Zhaozhou Annals” of the Ming and Qing Dynasties state, “According to the Zhou system: there was a national Earth God, and a state Earth God was established. For prefectures, counties, and districts, there were local Earth Gods. The Earth God was paired with Gou Long, and the Grain God was paired with Zhou Qi.”
During the Western Han Dynasty, the area around Fanzhuang was Jingwu County, and the worship of the Earth God must have been very grand. The people of Fanzhuang consider themselves descendants of Gou Long, revere him as their ancestor, and Fanzhuang is regarded as Gou Long’s hometown. Here, folk tales such as “Gou Long Tames the Flood”, “Gou Long Levels the Sandy Wasteland”, and “Gou Long Transforms the White Moth” are widely circulated.
Over time, the ancient dragon worship and Earth God sacrifices gradually evolved into a large-scale sacrificial ceremony on the second day of the second lunar month. It was summarized as a tablet inscribed with “The Divine Seat of the Dragon, the True Lord of the Three Realms and the Ten Directions” for worship. Gradually, a unique and well-organized folk belief society with a long history of inheritance, the “Fanzhuang Dragon Tablet Society”, was formed.
Since the large-scale dragon worship ceremony was resumed in Fan Zhuang in 1991, the “Dragon Plate Festival” has attracted the interest and attention of experts and scholars in the fields of folklore and sociology.
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