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Celebrating Little New Year: Busy Preparations
Little New Year, which falls about a week before the lunar New Year, is also
known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity who oversees the moral
character of each household. In one of the most distinctive traditions of Spring
Festival, a paper
image of the Kitchen God is burnt on Little New Year, dispatching the god's
spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year. The
Kitchen God is then welcomed back by pasting a new paper image of him beside the
stove. From this vantage point, the Kitchen God will oversee and protect the
household for another year. The close association of the Kitchen God with the
Lunar New Year has resulted in Kitchen God Festival being called Little New
Year. Although very few families still make offerings to the Kitchen God on this
day, many traditional holiday activities are still very popular.
2-1 Story
2-1-1 Origins and legends about the Kitchen God
Studies of popular Chinese religion indicate that the Kitchen God did not
appear until after the invention of the brick cooking stove. The cooking stove
was a fairly late development in the history of human civilization. Ancient
writings indicate that the Fire God, the earliest form of the Kitchen God, was
worshipped long before the stove was invented. Zhu Rong, China's ancient Fire
God was a popular folk deity and had many temples
built in his honor. Stone lined firepits, an early form of the brick stove, are
still commonly used among China's ethnic minorities. People in these regions
make offerings to the Firepit God. The Firepit God appeared between the Kitchen
God and the Fire God in the history of Chinese folk deities. The Kitchen God
appeared soon after the invention of the brick stove. The Kitchen God was
originally believed to reside in the stove, and only later took on human form.
Legend has it that during the Later Han
Dynasty, a poor farmer named Yin Zifang was making breakfast one day shortly
before the Lunar New Year, when the Kitchen God appeared to him. Although all
Yin Zifang had was one yellow sheep, he sacrificed it to the Kitchen God. Yin
Zifang soon became rich. To show his gratitude, Yin Zifang started sacrificing a
yellow goat to the Kitchen God every winter on the day of the divine visitation,
rather than during the summer as had been customary. This is the origin of the
Kitchen God Festival, or Little New Year.
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