Grand Millennium Middle Kingdom Ancestor Worship Scene in Zhejiang Xinye

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Xinye Village is located in Daci Rock Town, southwest of Jiande, Zhejiang, as well as a long history with honest Middle Kingdom. It was called Baixiaye because there were three of surnames – white (Bai“白”), summer (Xia“夏”), leaves （Ye“叶”）here, and in 1951 officially changed its name for the Xinye, take the “ everything is fresh again” meaning. Xinye Village was built in the Southern Song Dynasty Jiading years (1219), and so far well preserved more than 10 ancient ancestral halls, ancient halls, pagodas, temples, and more than two hundred buildings of ancient residential buildings, and got the fame as “open-air museum of the Ming and Qing architecture” by the ancient architectural experts at home and abroad.

The annual March 3 of the Lunar New Year, Xinye Village will hold a grand ceremony of temple ancestor worship, which is even much important than the traditional festival such as the “Mid-Autumn Day” and "Spring Festival" in the eyes of the Ye tribe.

The Tuanyun tower which stands in the entrance of the village and built in the Ming Dynasty is also known as the Wenfeng Tower by the Xinye villagers. Next is the Wenchang Pavilion, which was built in the Qing Tongzhi years, reflecting the ideals and the pursuit of the Ye family in the agricultural age.

Mountains in the distant of the village is full of green trees, near into a piece of golden rape, green paddy field dotted with white walls and black tiles of the Ming and Qing architectural, quiet rural scenery.

The village has many reservoirs, which are used for the villagers washing clothes, etc., and also the effectiveness of fire prevention.

Couplets in the village are also different from the ones in other places.

7:00 am, the ancestral hall in front of the gong sound up to remind every member of this large clan: the shrine festival prelude has been opened.

A group of children in the ancestral hall were waiting in line.

Serbs who participate in the ritual instrument team started to change cloth.

Groups of children were holding flags, just waiting for an hour to departure.

Dragon head furnace

Everything was ready.

The sound of gongs and drums became louder, indicating that the sacrifice immediately started.

Chinese Academy of Art teacher of the Chinese Calligraphers Association Mr. Ye and his couplet behind him

Ready to go

Half past seven, worship teams started from the ancestral temple, the team consist of more than 300 Ye family members lined up.

All the way, “Silence”, “evasive” brands were hold high, the villagers armed with all kinds of “weapons”, the children danced with flags and followed the gong team, heading for the Yuquan Temple outside the village.

At the Yuquan Temple, the worship team lined up in the road in front of the temple. The chief mourner and “Eight Immortals” played by the villagers walked into the hall, the deacon announced the ceremony opened, and then the “Eight Immortals” formed in a circle before the altar, singing together in harmony, which mainly pray for the bumper grain harvest, and other good bless.

Worship team back to the ancestral temple, the “Eight Immortals”, “Kuixing”, and the “God of Wealth” appeared in sequence, repeating the temple ceremony, which symbolically expressed the wealth and official luck back to the village. Then villagers rushed to the altar with their own offerings to the worship, the whole hall was packed.

Various offerings, villagers worshiped one by one like this, then take away after the worship.

The whole ritual is grand, complex, harmony and an air of mystery, and seems to strongly convey the people on earth given to man for all things to growth and reproduction of gratitude, reverence for ancestors. After the curtain call of a solemn ritual ceremony, Xinye will enter three consecutive carnival-like days.