Dragon Boat Festival

The story behind the day

The Dragon Boat Festival, Duanwu, falls on the fifth lunar month's fifth day. It is best known for dragon boat races and for zongzi, sticky rice parcels wrapped in leaves, and it is popularly linked to the poet Qu Yuan. Behind the story lies a seasonal and protective purpose: the fifth month was feared as a poisonous month of epidemics, and people guard against illness and bad spirits with wine and coloured threads. Koreans keep the same date as Dano.^[1–8]

Origins

The story most often told is that of Qu Yuan, a poet and statesman who drowned himself after his lord ignored his counsel; the Smithsonian dates his death to 278 BCE. It is a tradition, not a record: the races are popularly said to reenact the search for his body, and dragon boat racing is said to come from villagers who hurried onto the water to save him. A reference work likewise says only that the festival is said to have started as a commemoration of the poet.^{[2, 10]}

What it marks

The fifth day of the fifth month is called Duanwu, the double fifth. The fifth month sits where spring turns to summer, and since it was linked with the onset of epidemics it earned the name of the poisonous month. The double fifth falls near the summer solstice, when the ascendancy of yang begins to give way to yin, which probably explains the prominence of the festival. Taiwan's Executive Yuan adds that the characters of the day's alternative name, Duanyang, both carry the sense of rising yang energy, a force said to help people through the barrier and to ward off evil. Many of its customs aim to rid people of misfortune.^{[5, 9, 11–12]}

How it is kept

race on a Hong Kong harbour — Race on a Hong Kong harbourIllustration · AI-generated

The great event of the day, at least in the south, is the dragon boat race, and the boats have a raised bow shaped like a dragon's head. People make parcels of sweet filled rice in bamboo leaves, the zongzi. Precautions against disease-bearing spirits include drinking strong yellow wine; realgar wine is taken against illness, snakes and malign spirits, and UNESCO lists ruby sulphur wine among the festival's feasts. Children are given coloured silk threads in five colours, tied at the wrist, to ward off harm.^{[3–4, 6–7]}

Across traditions

In Korea the same date is Dano, the fifth day of the lunar calendar's fifth month. At Gangneung, on Korea's east coast, the Danoje festival has a shamanistic rite on the Daegwallyeong Ridge that pays tribute to the mountain deity and to a pair of village deities, an offering ceremony honouring three deities, and the Gwanno mask drama.^{[8, 13–14]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.