How did the custom of recognizing "godparents" come about?

Praying for good luck - worship godparents "worship godparents" is to recognize the rightful father, rightful mother, is a popular nationwide conservation practices. In the north, it is called "recognizing godfather, godmother"; in the south, it is called "recognizing foster father, foster mother", commonly known as "worshipping over the room master, over the room mother". Infancy to recognize the godfathers may be permanent, lifelong relations, may also be temporary, more than three or five years, less than a hasty meeting, and from now on do not relate to each other. "Worship godparents" object is a person, there are also things. The purpose of the child is afraid of the delicate, bad birth, or before the birth of a child died, afraid of their own life without children, borrow "worship relatives" to eliminate disasters, keep the child; second is the child's fate is not good, grams of the father and mother, borrowing "worship relatives" to transfer the fate of the top and bottom of the harmony, the family's prosperity. The family is prosperous. In order to make the child well-fed, "worship godparents" generally like to recognize more children or poor family as a godparent, because more children of the family, the child is like a flock of small animals, easy to grow up; in addition, the poor family, the child is generally more, and not delicate, but easy to feed, grow up. Of course, there are also two families in order to enhance mutual affection, would like to recognize each other's children as a righteous son, righteous daughter of things. As for those who are rich and famous to recognize the Kun Rong, dancer as goddaughter, that is the ulterior motive, has not been in our discussion. "Worship relatives" of the custom, due to geographical, ethnic and cultural backgrounds of different, in the rituals and customs there are also large differences. In Beijing, people generally believe that recognize godfather, godmother will be for the father, godmother of their own children adverse, so not close friends, people generally do not dare to seek as their children's godfather, in the mother's; and to worship godparents, the two sides to send each other gifts, and set up a banquet, and then every year, three sections of the two birthday, godchildren, godchildren's family should be to godparents, godparents to send a gift to godparents to do godparents, to return the gifts, so, not the rich family is difficult to respond to. So, it is not a rich family is also difficult to honor. Since we have to "worship godparents", we have to choose an auspicious day to hold the ceremony. At that time, in addition to preparing a sumptuous banquet, parents should also prepare gifts for their children to honor their godfather and godmother. The most important of these gifts are a hat for the godfather and shoes for the godmother, in addition to clothing and other items. Of course, the godfather and godmother don't just come and go. Godfather, godmother to godson, goddaughter things must have rice bowls, chopsticks and a long life lock, in addition, there is a small set of clothes, shoes, socks, hats, bibs and bibs and so on. In the past, in order to these gifts, the rich family is to the jewelry store to order silver bowls and chopsticks, or to the Protectorate Temple, White Pagoda Temple Lama to buy wooden bowls, so as not to break the children due to a mistake. It is considered very unlucky if the bowl is broken in case of accident. In some places in Henan and Shaanxi, "paying respect to one's godparents" is accomplished by "touching". In Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, Henan Province, on the morning of the first day of a baby's life, the baby's father will go out to "touch" the family name. "Touch" to the first person, no matter whether it is a man or a woman, is old or young, the baby's father should kneel down and kowtow, and then explain to the family gave birth to a child, and ask the other side of the child's name. In the past, most of the rural early for the old man picking up feces, some thoughtless, but in the way of custom, not easy to push back, had to make up a story. Thus, "dung basket", "bucket head", "dog", "cat" and other names came out. These names, although a little indecent, but the good thing is just a little name, is the people of the child's name, just called when I was a child, it does not matter much. In some places, was "touched" to the people in addition to the baby's name, but also to give the baby a gift, and be recognized as a godparent. In some places in Shaanxi, "recognize godparents" is generally in the child "full moon" day, by his grandmother or grandfather to carry out, out of the first adult that meets the godmother or godfather. Of course, this "touch" in addition to a certain degree of randomness, most of the occasions are often pre-arranged, "touch" to see the first person, either with his family relations, or have the status of people. In Hangzhou, the children "to pay respect to the godparents" but there is another set of customs. The godparents they worship are not living people, but the "impermanent ghosts" often mentioned in Mr. Lu Xun's articles. There, "parents are afraid that their children will not live long, and also afraid of the cost of worshipping godparents, so they do not send to people, but to the impermanent ghosts", commonly known as "worship Hu Ganji". According to local legend, the impermanent ghost is the king of Yama specifically sent to detain the soul of the dead ghost, the children will be sent to the impermanent ghost, is the hope that it does not detain the soul of the child sent to protect the meaning of longevity. In the past, the world did not know the name of the Uncommon Ghost, but instead misrepresented it as Hu, which gave rise to the name "Hu Gan Shi" (胡干爷). The way to worship Master Hu Gan is that the parents of a child first make a brand new white shirt, then bring it to the temple and exchange it for the old clothes of the Master Hu Gan idol, and burn it with burnt wine, burnt cakes, incense and silver ingots. Finally, the monk in the temple named the child. Later, every year in July, the child's parents have to hold its to the temple to congratulate Hu Gan master's birthday, until the child reaches 16 years old. In addition to the Han Chinese, some of China's ethnic minorities also have "worship relatives" custom, such as the Tujia is very representative. Tujia children in addition to worship to other people as a "godson", "goddaughter" in addition to some people will also be children to trees, rocks, wells, and pigs, dogs, chickens and other things, and to send the worship of the things for the child's name. If it is a boy, it is usually called "Rock Bao", "Water Bao", "Pig Bao", "Chicken Bao", etc.; if it is a girl, it is usually called "Rock Bao", "Water Bao", "Pig Bao", "Chicken Bao", etc. If it is a girl, it is generally named "rock sister", "water sister", "dog sister", "chicken sister" and so on. Because in the view of the Tujia people, only by sending a child to another person or thing, can they eliminate calamities and let the child grow up smoothly. However, ordinary "recognize godparents" ceremony, as long as the child formally to the godparents, godmother kowtowed to three, and change the name of the godparents, godmother that is considered complete. If the child is young and particularly delicate, when recognizing the godmother, the godmother will wear a pair of particularly fat red pants, sit on the kang, and have a bystander hold the child out of the crotch of the pants to show that the child is her own. The godmother then puts a long-life lock on him/her and gives him/her a nickname, which will be used later to eat with the bowls and chopsticks presented by the father and godmother. This means that the child will be their child from now on, eating their family's food, and will not be related to his/her biological parents. From then on, the child will be able to take advantage of the blessings of the godparents to grow up smoothly and live a long and healthy life. "Worship godparents" this kind of conservation practices, although in different areas, different ethnic groups have different forms of expression, but we can still find some **** the same place, that is: (1) the same purpose, are in order to let the children to raise and grow up smoothly; (2) the cause is similar, with a relatively strong superstitious color; (3) The same emotion, are rich in extremely strong human flavor. ■ ■ Recognize the godfamily Recognize the godfamily, is the old Shanxi countryside is more popular in a folk ritual. Recognition of kinship after the interaction, most of the more frequent, and are modeled on the way of interaction, the formation of a more fixed kinship. Recognize godfamily, in the countryside, although there is no fixed program, roughly is to recognize godfather, godmother, godbrother, god sister and so on godfamily. The reason for the formation of recognized godfathers, roughly, the two families are friends, interaction is very good, in order to make this kind of interaction is relatively fixed, the next generation will be used to recognize the godfathers of the approach to deepen the interaction. Such as recognize the father, mother and so on. Some of them are because one side of the other side of the family has a great kindness, a party to repay the kindness of the other side, to recognize the godfathers, when the way of righteousness, with a relatively fixed program to form a long-term relationship, in order to achieve the purpose of knowing the kindness of repayment. Others, because the child is delicate, for fear of dying in the middle of the day, they will adopt the method of recognizing the godfathers, godbrothers, god-sisters to keep the child, so that it can avoid the misfortune, grow up to adulthood. There are also some families that let their children recognize rich people as godfathers in order to climb up the ladder of wealth or to get benefits from them in the future. In some cases, the child is sent to the nanny's house to breastfeed, so that the child and the nanny to form a new relationship, the countryside called nanny, nanny, nanny father, nanny brother, in fact, this is also a kind of godfamily relationship. Recognize the godfamily for various reasons, but the emergence of this godfamily, so that the relationship between the two families naturally into a sequence of kinship interactions. Recognize the godfamily in Shanxi all over the country, to Yanbei, Xinzhou, Jinzhong, Jinnan more common. Countryside customs, once recognized godfathers, all things must be in accordance with the general procedures of the countryside interactions, where recognized godparents after the child, New Year's Eve, festivals, birthdays, birthdays, according to the countryside rituals and customs procedures to do. Do godchildren, usually to take care of on the age of the godfather, godmother, to do certain obligations as godchildren, from the economy to give some support; and godparents, for the son's wife, son, cover the house and other major activities should be asked, and to give the necessary support and funding. Shanxi countryside to recognize the godfathers, with the development of society, has become less and less, but still exists in the countryside, which is a kind of social existence of special kinship, become a side of the social relationship network.