Cold Food, Fire and Ancestral Production: Mid-spring Celebrations in Central China

Abstract

AbstractThis article seeks to explain the traditional celebration of Cold Food and some other springtime customs in the mid-Yangzi basin in central China. In these rituals the ancestors and their influence in the production of new rice were highlighted while, at the same time, social reproduction through women was temporarily suspended. Female generative energy was not allowed to compete with the creative force of the ancestors in the fields. Cold Food is seen as a trope on seasonal agricultural tasks. The myth of moral constancy, which accompanied the festival, was on another deeper level an iconic exploration of the preparation of the agricultural fields. Death was seen to propel life, ancestral energy being transferred to the living through rice.