Where did the Duanwu Festival, or Dragon Boat Festival, originate from? The answer varies.  

Among the many versions of the legend, the most widely accepted version is that Duanwu is celebrated to commemorate the great poet Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC), who threw himself into a river after the Qin defeated his Chu state. The Chu people were so moved by Qu Yuan’s patriotism that they threw zongzi, glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, into the river and used boats to drive off fish and stop them from eating Qu's body. 

However, the first written record associating Qu Yuan with the Duanwu Festival was only found in a novel from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386-589), some 750 years after Qu Yuan's death.

As more relics were unearthed over time, evidence shows that the Duanwu Festival likely originated from the sacrificial rituals of the Baiyuan people who lived in the coastal areas of east and south China before the Xia Dynasty (c.2100- c.1600 BC). Dragon patterns on works of pottery discovered in the area prove that the dragon was the emblem of the Baiyue people. They held sacrificial rituals on May 5 each year according to the traditional Chinese calendar, and dragon boat races and the practice of throwing zongzi into the water were both parts of these rituals.