traditional folk festival of the Gelao people. Popular in Longlin, Guangxi and other places. At noon on the 14th day of the first lunar month, each family forms a group of two people, bringing rice wine, pork, and glutinous rice to go out to worship the tree. Choose a tall tree and hold a work stoppage from near to far. First, light four firecrackers in front of the tree, and one person cuts the tree three times to form a mouth shape. After each cut, ask and answer a question. Then put the offering into the "tree mouth" and seal it with red paper to show that the tree is full and strong. Then weed, cultivate the soil, and plant trees. The origin of the tree worship festival The Gelao people do not worship all trees, but only Qinggang trees. Because Qinggang trees are the ancestral trees of the Gelao people, it is related to the migration activities of this ethnic group in history. The Gelao people have a folk song that goes: A river comes down from Yunnan, flowing here and falling there. The Gelao people had no address in ancient times, and moved from Guizhou to Guangxi. It is said that in ancient times, the Gelao people living in Anshun, Guizhou and other places once migrated to Longlin, Guangxi. The "Dafang" (the one with the highest seniority, the same below) of the Gelao people went first with the incense burner and spirit tablet of the ancestors and grandparents. The roads they passed were marked with leaves to serve as road signs for the people of the tribe who came later. "Dafang" observed the mountains and rivers in various places while walking, always wanting to find a good place to settle down, build a home, reproduce, and revitalize the Gelao. He walked from mountain to mountain, passed through village to village, and finally fell in love with a place. I saw that the place was surrounded by green mountains and trees, "the grass was nine bismuths long (bismuth, the length of two hands stretched horizontally), the trees were nine bismuths high, burning sedge could be used to grow crops, digging ridges could be used to make fields, there was water and grass for livestock, and forestry was given priority". It was indeed a good place for development. After asking around, Dafang found out that he had come to Xiachongtun, Moji Village, De'e Township, Longlin County, so he decided to settle down here. The people living in Xiachongtun warmly welcomed the Gelao developers. Since they didn't have a house, they vacated half of their own room for the Gelao guests to live in. This made Dafang very grateful. However, when he saw that the main room had been decorated with the ancestral tablets of the host family, he couldn't help but worry: where to put the ancestral tablets he brought! If his ancestral tablets were placed together with the host family's, it would be against the customs. Dafang couldn't make a decision for a while, so he had to walk out of the village in a depressed mood. When he was about to leave the village, he saw two vigorous and upright Qinggang trees pointing straight to the blue sky, and Dafang couldn't help but stop and observe. These two trees have hard and thick trunks that can't be blown down by storms; their dense branches and leaves can't be penetrated by the scorching sun in summer. Their majestic, resolute and indomitable spirit made the "big wife" love them more and more, and was moved more and more. She couldn't help singing loudly: Qinggang trees are green and strong, with deep roots and lush leaves, and they are cool and shady. They can block the sun and rain, and there is a place for the Gelao spirit tablet! As soon as the folk song was sung, her heart was brightened. "Big wife" immediately found a knife and an axe, and cut a hole in each of the two Qinggang trees, and placed the spirit tablets of the ancestors in the tree holes. From then on, from generation to generation, the Gelao people in Longlin worshipped the Qinggang tree as their ancestral tree.