Festivals of Yi New Year

The Year of the Yi is usually celebrated in October of the lunar calendar, when the crops are harvested. According to the research of relevant experts and scholars, it is due to the Yi solar calendar of October (see Chen Jiujing Lu Yang Liu Yao Han "History of Yi Astronomy" Yunnan People's Publishing House 1991). The October solar calendar is a special calendar created by the Yi ancestors. According to this calendar, there are ten months in a year, thirty-six days in a month, 360 days in a year, and five to six days for the New Year. This calendar is not divided into small and large months, each month is thirty-six days, easy for people to remember. October solar calendar to choose the winter evening observation of the Big Dipper (Yi said "Sha Nie") of the tail (bucket handle) points down for the big cold for the lunar month, summer evening observation of the Big Dipper (Yi said "Sha Nie") of the tail (bucket handle) points up for the big summer lunar June. With the big cold and summer for the first day, accurately reflecting the law of seasonal changes. The two winter and summer festivals, namely the Yi New Year and the Yi Torch Festival, are scheduled on December 16th and June 24th of the lunar calendar respectively. According to the calculation, the time for a round trip between summer and winter is 365.33 days. Neat structure, scientific simplicity and ease of use are the characteristics of the solar calendar. The research of some experts and scholars shows that the two festivals of Torch Festival and Yi Year, which are popular in the Yi area now, were originally formulated according to the solar calendar. The Torch Festival is held when the handle of the Big Dipper, which is the star of the Big Dipper, points to the summer heat. And when the handle of the Big Dipper is pointing down for the Great Cold, it is the Year of the Yi.

Yi year, Liangshan Yi language called "Ku Shi" that is, "New Year". "Year" in Yi called it "library", its meaning is: turn, back, turn, return, return, cycle. The Yi concept of space and time generally take the northernmost endpoint as the starting point, the sun in winter after the sunset point south to the southernmost point, no longer south, stay here for a few days and then move north. This endpoint is called "Bugu", which means "the point where the sun turns back". Then, in summer, the sun's setting point moves to the northernmost point, where it stops moving north and returns to the south, which is called "Bugu", meaning "the point of solar return". Thereafter, the sun moves southward to the southernmost endpoint. From the northernmost endpoint to the southernmost endpoint is a round trip cycle of one year. This time is around the winter solstice -------- summer solstice ------- winter solstice. The Yi year is usually celebrated at the time of the winter solstice "Bujiu".

On the question of when exactly to celebrate the Yi New Year, the Liangshan Yi region generally celebrates it at the time of "Bujiu". According to relevant scholars (see Wang Changfu "Liangshan Yi rituals and customs" Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House in 1994; Luo Ziqiang "Liangshan style" Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House in 2002.) According to scholars (see Wang Changfu, Liangshan Yi Rites and Customs, Sichuan Ethnic Publishing House, 1994; Luo Ziqiang, Liangshan Customs, Sichuan Ethnic Publishing House, 2002), some alpine areas such as Yuexi, Zhaojue, Hanyuan, etc., used to be celebrated in the month of October. And some areas such as Xichang, Xide, Coronation, Huili, Miyi, Yanbian, Yanyuan, Muli and Yunnan Ninglang, Yongsheng, Huaping, Yongren and other counties take the sixteenth day of the Lunar New Year as the first day of the New Year.

The Torch Festival is a traditional festival unique to the Yi people and has been practiced for more than a thousand years since the Han and Tang dynasties. The festival is usually held on the 24th day of the lunar calendar every year and lasts for three days. There are dozens of records and legends about the origin of the Torch Festival, which are rich in content and beautiful. The more common ones are:

One, it is said that the heavenly Ntiguzi (the god of the sky in Yi mythology) sent his minions to the mortal world to harm the living beings and crops, and the people led by Zhiguaru (the hero of the Yi mythology) were not afraid to use torches to burn down the pests on the 24th of June in the lunar calendar, and overcame the god of the sky, and the people of the Yi ethnic group designated the day as the torch festival, which was passed down from one generation to another.

Second, the book Lun wrote and repaired "Xichang County" in: ...... Tang Kaiyuan, there is Deng Gengzhao, one of the six edicts. Nanzhao want and five edicts, because the star back to the festival called five edicts to drink in the Songming building. Deng Geng wife charity, fear difficult to stop the husband do not line, do not listen, is to iron bracelet about husband, back and leave. Than to Nanzhao, fire its building, the edicts to find the husband's remains unrecognizable, only charity to bracelet will be his remains to return. Nanzhao is different from his favor, to hire the coin, good to husband not buried as a resignation, both buried is in the cherry city of self-defense. Nanzhao to soldiers surrounded by, March food, good full dress end sitting hungry to die, Nanzhao seek regret, flagging its city said Deyuan. Today, Dian custom June 24, than the House of Pine. The prairie is more than ten feet long, into the night to burn first, used to illuminate the field to pray for the year, to torch the brightness of the dark divination of the abundance and failure. Relatives and friends will get together, chopping animals and drinking wine, Yi Han with the ....... As the Xichang County Records. Literature and Art" (Jianchang Zhuzhi) contained: go to the banquet prophet to go not return, Chai Lou smoke cold is still sad, and now the fire tree along the custom, bear to make the heart of the ice into ash; Wisdom early to go hard to go back to the gift of the gold cup hidden since the sad. The ancient people still shine bright section, swallowed to six edicts have become ash.

Three, in ancient times, a Hercules in the sky and a Hercules wrestling on the ground, the Hercules in the sky was defeated by the Hercules on the ground, fled to the sky in distress, in front of the God of the sky to pull open the right and wrong, so the God of the sky indiscriminately, the anger of the human race, sent a large number of pests to the ground to trample on the crops, endangering the people, the people lit torches to the fields to drive out the insect pests, defeated the God of the sky, the day! This day happens to be the 24th day of June in the lunar calendar, and the Yi people designate this day as the Torch Festival. A long time ago, there was a Yi family with three brothers living in the mountains. They planted hard every year, but every year, the gods and generals sent by the Heavenly King turned over the land and destroyed the crops. One year they caught a general, the elder brother advocated to kill, the second brother advocated to fight, and the third advocated to ask before fighting and killing. The oldest asked the general of the sky, the general of the sky said he was by the will of the king of the sky, forced to do bad things, and know the king of the sky is trying to monopolize the earth, will open the river of the sky of the matter. The three brothers asked the Heavenly General what to do, and the Heavenly General said, "The elder one builds a tin house at the foot of the mountain, the second one builds an iron house on the slope of the mountain, and the third one builds a bubbling wood house on the top of the mountain, and then he can take refuge." The three brothers according to the general said each man-made house to live in, the result of thirteen days later, the vast flood came overwhelmingly, living in the tin house of the oldest and living in the iron house of the oldest two, are sunk under the water and drowned, only the oldest three live in the soaking wood house floating in the water, the water receded stayed on a hilltop.

Lao San's bubbling wooden house attracted a lot of fleeing birds and animals, and Lao San warmly received these guests who came back from the dead. Later, Lao San wanted to marry the daughter of the Heavenly King, and those flying birds and beasts who were living in the house, discussed to fulfill his marriage.

One day, the Heavenly King set aside the clouds and toured the earth, and found one house left on the mountain, and a crow was crowing on the roof. The crow cawing was an ominous omen. The King of Heaven was busy telling his wife to look through the Book of Heaven, and when his wife opened the cupboard to look through the book, she found that the rat had bitten the Book of Heaven to rags. The king of heaven was furious and chased after the rat. On the way, he was bitten by a python on his toe, which hurt him to death. At that moment, a lark flew in and told the King of Heaven that a frog could heal his wounds. The wife of the king of heaven immediately invited the frog, the frog wants him to promise to marry his daughter to the old three, before giving him the cure, forcing the king of heaven can not, but to agree. The frog, seeing that the plan to marry Lao San was successfully realized, jumped into the pond. The king of heaven couldn't catch the frog, and his wounds got worse and worse, so he died.

Lao San married the daughter of the Heavenly King, and the flower dog offered three grains of grain ... stuck to his tail. Lao San and his wife planted these three grains of seed and harvested three hanging ears of grain in the fall. The following spring, they sowed these three hangings of grain ears again and gained nine hundred hangings, and in the third year, Lao San harvested one thousand kilograms of rice. In order to celebrate the harvest, the couple cooked white rice and invited the generals who had saved Lao San and the birds and beasts who had made their marriage a success on the first to fifteenth day of the tenth month of the summer calendar. This day, it gradually became the Yi people over the annual festival, every year after the fall harvest, are to celebrate the Yi year to pay tribute to their ancestors, to celebrate the year's harvest, while wishing for a better harvest in the coming year. The Yi New Year, like the Chinese New Year, is the most joyous and desirable festival of the year. There are many traditional rules for the Yi New Year, the main ones being: one month before the New Year, a jar of buckwheat sweet wine is prepared. Three days before the New Year, each family should split enough firewood to burn for three days before the New Year, and prepare enough rice and noodles, salt, beans and flowers for food. On the morning of the day before the New Year, each family cleaned the inside and outside of the house, around the yard, to show that the old and welcome the new.

At the same time, each family puts a pile of firewood in front of the entrance to light a fire and make smoke on New Year's Day. This is said to symbolize welcoming the ancestors back for the New Year. At dawn on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, each family lights a bonfire in a simple pit stove and waits for the arrival of the boys who will kill the New Year's pig with scalding water. When killing a New Year's Eve pig, it is important to distinguish between the young and the old, starting with the pigs of the elders and the older families. When the pig killers arrived, the host family toasted to them "pig wine", called "Ushi Zhi" in Yi language, Yi people love to see the heart of the pig, gall bladder, pancreas, urinary blisters and other internal organs. Heart instead of the next year's climate, pinch up the hard texture of the next year's drought, the soft texture of the next year without flooding; bile and pancreas instead of the master of the next year's omen, bile is not more or less and pancreatic body without signs is said to be the master of the next year's home good luck and good luck, and vice versa there are bad things; urine bubble instead of the next year's crops, bubble urine for the next year, food abundance, less for the poor harvest. After dissecting a good year pig, first cut some tongue, back slip, liver, waist, etc., burned to dissolve in a wooden bowl, put to the ancestral spirit of the fire pit above the wall of the head of the ceiling in honor of the ancestral spirit. When you start to cook the meat for the reunion, after you eat the reunion meal, you let your children bring the cooked meat and rice to those who did not kill the pig.

At night, the whole family sits by the fire, which is called "accompanying the ancestors" or "night watch", and the elders talk about the sufferings of the old society and the sweetness of the new society, as well as the truths of being a human being.

On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, people put on their festive attire and went to each house in groups to congratulate them on the new year. Every family, the workers are to Tuotuo meat, bowls of wine, called "Zhiyibo" in Yi language.

Cutting pig's feet for the dolls to take to the mountains to play dam. Adults accompanied them to set up bonfires, guiding them to throw the pig's feet into the fire without distinguishing between you and me to cook, you a piece of me a pile to pull out to eat, in order to develop the moral culture of unity and love from childhood.

Young people will sing, dance and play the qin on the slope by the walled village. Afterwards, the young men bring out their horses to race on the dam by the walled village. The whole village men, women and children go to see the horse race. The sound of hooves, whip sound, cheers intertwined together, converging into the sound of the sky, the atmosphere of the festival to a climax. At the end of the horse race, the lads had a wrestling match, so that they could get exercise and everyone could have fun.

In the New Year's Day, the Walled City people love to eat "reunion dinner", eat from this home to that home, and play from that home to this home, back and forth, joyful and happy, dissolve the usual irritation, and strengthen the unity and friendship between neighbors, if the foreign nationalities pass by the Walled City, will be pulled with everyone to eat and drink enough drunkenness and fullness, it is really unable to retain before letting the The first thing you need to do is to get a good deal on the road.

The last night of the festival, the whole family sat around the fire. In the first half of the night, the adults carefully absorbed the lessons learned from the past production and life, and meticulously planned the production and life blueprint for the coming year. In the second half of the night, the parents told the children on the end of a handful of corn, a handful of beans, a handful of beans, a handful of oats to the small bumps to the dam, the corn, beans, beans, oats to the east, south, west, north up bumps, while learning to horse, pig, cow, sheep, chickens, and loudly call the horse, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and other livestock. Then scatter the corn, beans, peas, and oats in the bumps into the corral to show that the six animals will prosper in the coming year.

After the rooster dawn, outside the cottage of other women married to the countryside, take the doll, carrying the New Year's pig's head, oatmeal tsampa, eggs and a jar of buckwheat wine, scrambling back to his mother's home to pay tribute to the New Year. Other people who need to visit friends and relatives also move at this time, in order to try to good luck.