What are the customs of the Yi people?

1. Festivals: Festivals are the concentrated expression of the lifestyle and customs of Yi people in various places. The two most solemn festivals are as follows:

(1) Year of the Yi people: The Year of the Yi people is a grand traditional festival of the Yi people in Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, and it is called "Kush" in Yi language. October to the middle and late November of the lunar calendar is a good day to celebrate the China New Year.

(2) Torch Festival: a traditional festival of the Yi people, which is held every year on June 24th of the lunar calendar for three days. During the festival, people dressed in costumes gather on the flat dam or gentle slope near the village, singing, dancing, horse racing, bullfighting, sheep shooting, wrestling, beauty contests and so on. The activities are colorful and lively.

2. Marriage and love: The characteristics of Yi marriage are: internal marriage within the same family, external marriage supported by the family, hierarchical internal marriage, preferential marriage between uncles and aunts, and forbidden marriage between uncles and aunts. This feature is most prominent in Liangshan Yi area. Before the founding of New China, if people of different races married, they would be executed or expelled from the family according to the common law.

Intermarriage within the family is prohibited. Marriage with the same family name is regarded as incest, and offenders are sentenced to death. Strictly implement hierarchical marriage, between Mozi and Noh of the ruling class and Qu Nuo, Aga and Xia Xi of the ruled class, intermarriage and extramarital sex are prohibited, and offenders will be put to death.

3. Funeral: Yi people are buried in most areas, and Yi people in Liangshan are cremated. After burial, they dig up the ground and cover the stones tightly, or bag the ashes and hide them in caves with horses. After that, an "Anling" ceremony will be held for the deceased. White wool will be wrapped in an inch of bamboo, wrapped with red silk thread, put into a wooden stick with a groove five inches long, wrapped with hemp skin, sharpened at both ends of the wooden stick, and hung on a bamboo basket to make a spirit tablet, which is called "Madu" in Yi language.

"Madu" is placed on the throne below and above the indoor beam. The shrine is the most sacred place in the family and cannot be defiled.

Extended data:

The staple foods of the Yi people are potatoes, corn, buckwheat and rice. Non-staple foods include meat, beans, vegetables, spices and drinks. Carnivores are mainly cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens, and they kill animals when entertaining guests. Killing cattle is the most expensive, followed by sheep and pigs. Beans are mostly soybeans, beans, peas and so on. There is a way to eat soybeans, which the Yi people call "Dulaba", that is, grinding soybeans into pulp and cooking them with sauerkraut.

Generally speaking, Yi villages live in groups, and most of them are located on the hillside near the mountains and rivers, sheltered from the wind and sun, with lush trees, fertile land and open terrain, which is conducive to farming, grazing and military defense. Scattered in high mountains, concentrated in mid-levels and river valleys. A blood clan lives together to form a natural village, ranging from a few households to dozens of households, with closely related branches scattered and adjacent.

In Yi society, monogamy adapted to patriarchal clan system is the dominant form of marriage. In Liangshan before, except for some children of Xia Xi and Aga, when men and women were children or young, it was their fathers who chose objects for them, sought matchmakers' words, predicted marriage and engaged them. The wedding will be held after a certain time.

References:

Yi nationality-Baidu encyclopedia