"Double-Seventh Day" Culture in Ancient Pictures

This series of pictures are about the activities of women praying for intelligence and dexterity.

And this one is about the ingenuity test by floating needle. Usually, they put some water in a vessel and leave it in the open air until it is covered by a film of dust, then cast a needle or thin straw on it to see the pattern of the shadow at the bottom. If you see that the feature at the bottom of the vessel is like a cloud, flower, birds or some straight thing, it means the woman is dexterous. Otherwise, she is not.

This picture indicates that women gather together in the yard to beg for dexterity. They place some fruit and food on table in the yard and wait. If there is a cobweb left by a spider, it means that the woman is intelligent.

By Jia Jia

Editor: Liu Fang