Why do we wear dogwood on Double Ninth Festival? Dogwood is also called "Evil-avoiding Weng"

Why do we put dogwood on Double Ninth Festival? During the Double Ninth Festival, men, women, young and old, will wear dogwood on their hair or when climbing mountains on the Double Ninth Festival. Next, let’s take a look at the meaning of inserting dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival.

Why do we wear dogwood on Double Ninth Festival?

Evacuate and avoid disasters

People believe that September 9th is an unlucky day with many disasters, so people like to wear dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival to ward off evil and seek good luck. Therefore, Cornus officinalis is also called "the evil-repellent". On the Double Ninth Festival, people pick its branches and leaves, sew them together with the fruits into a small bag with cloth, and wear it on their body to ward off evil spirits.

Missing loved ones

On the Double Ninth Festival, scholars go out together to climb mountains and appreciate the dogwood. Inserting dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival also implies missing relatives. Especially in the Tang Dynasty, dozens of poets including Bai Juyi, Du Fu, and Hanshan all chanted poems about climbing mountains and inserting dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival. The most popular one is Wang Wei's "Remembering My Brothers in Shandong on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month", which says: "I know my brothers are climbing high places, but there is one less person wearing dogwood branches."

Records of Inserting Dogwood on Double Ninth Festival

Wearing dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival was recorded in Ge Hong's "Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Classics" in the Jin Dynasty. Some people wear it on their arms, some make a sachet and put the dogwood inside it and wear it, and some wear it on their heads. Most of them are worn by women and children, and in some places, men also wear them. The custom of wearing dogwood on the Double Ninth Festival was very common in the Tang Dynasty, but after the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the custom of wearing dogwood gradually became rare. Because the emphasis of Chongyang Festival in the early people's practical life was on warding off evil and eliminating disasters, as people's living conditions improved, people not only paid attention to their current real life, but also had more expectations for their future life, praying for longevity and longevity. Therefore, the status of "longevity guest" (chrysanthemum) eventually overshadowed that of "evil-avoiding old man" (dogwood).