Which nationality is the Torch Festival? Is it a traditional festival of Manchu?

People like to play with fire when they are young, but this is not allowed, because playing with fire is easy to cause fire, especially for children, and it is absolutely forbidden to play with fire. However, among ethnic minorities, some people need to play with fire on special festivals, such as Torch Festival. Everyone should hold a torch to pray for blessings and drive away disasters. So, which is the Torch Festival? Is Torch Festival a traditional festival of Manchu? Come and have a look with me.

Which is the Torch Festival?

Torch Festival is a traditional festival of Yi, Bai, Naxi, Jinuo, Lahu, Hani, Pumi, Maonan and other ethnic groups, and it is called "Carnival of the East". Torch Festival is not a special festival of a certain nation, but it has profound folk culture connotation. No matter which nation holds the Torch Festival, it is hoped that the weather will be favorable in the coming year and the disaster will be driven away.

Different ethnic groups hold torch festivals at different times. Most of them are held on June 24th of the lunar calendar, but the Bai people hold the Torch Festival on June 25th and the Lahu people hold the Torch Festival on June 20th. The festival lasts 2-3 days. On the Torch Festival, young men and women of all ethnic groups light torches made of pine and take part in activities in the village fields.

Activities include singing, dancing, horse racing, bullfighting, wrestling, as well as a grand bonfire party, carnival all night. Nowadays, people also use the opportunity of parties to socialize or meet their lovers, and conduct business activities on this day.

Is Torch Festival a traditional festival of Manchu people?

Torch Festival is not a traditional festival of Manchu. Torch Festival is a traditional festival of Yi, Bai, Naxi, Jinuo and Lahu nationalities. The festival of Manchu people is the Gold Medal Festival.

How to spend the Torch Festival?

Torch Festival usually lasts for three days. On the first day of Torch Festival, people will choose long and good pine trees, cut them into thin strips, add flammable Song Ming, bundle them into torches and start burning. At night, torches are lit in front of every house. The second day is generally higher than the first day, and the third day is the climax of the Torch Festival. The torch is tall, big and beautifully decorated, which can illuminate the whole corner, thus harvesting crops and eliminating pests.

Some ethnic minorities will hold other activities during the Torch Festival. For example, Atractylodes macrocephala and Naxi people will hold fire games, and people will tie bunches of red flowers on the big trees in the village, symbolizing "red flowers are like torches"; Pumi people worship Vulcan. According to legend, Pumi and Mosuo people had no fire at first. It was Ang Gu Mi, the female ancestor of the Mosuo people, who stole the fire from the Heavenly Palace and experienced the torch with her own eyes, which led to the fire and made the Mosuo people and Pumi people get the fire.

Three Unique Customs of Torch Festival of Yi Nationality

The Torch Festival of the Yi people is a sacrificial festival. Therefore, in traditional rural areas, grand sacrificial ceremonies are often held, and every Yi family attaches great importance to this. During this period, there are three unique holiday customs.

Sacrifice chicken

The sacrificial chickens for Torch Festival are carefully raised chickens, which must be golden hens that can't lay eggs, usually about a catty. Seven or three days before June 24 of the lunar calendar, people put this sacrificial chicken in an inverted bamboo basket.

On the morning of Torch Festival, the elders of the family took chickens to the fields to offer sacrifices to the fields, and said some blessing words to various crops, such as avoiding natural disasters, praying for God to bless the healthy development of crops, praying for a bumper harvest, driving away evil pests and diseases, and then tearing off some branches and leaves of crops and going home together.

At about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, a special kind of sacrificial branches and leaves are soaked in a cold water basin, the branches for sacrificial chickens are pressed on the neck of the chicken, the head of the chicken is immersed in the basin, and then buckwheat noodles, highland barley noodles or oat noodles are stuffed into the mouth of the chicken. Repeat these two actions until the chicken suffocates, then depilate, shave and chop the chicken. After chicken wings, chicken feet, chicken tails and chicken hearts are roasted, they are sprinkled with appropriate amount of salt and put into traditional wooden utensils of the Yi people for sacrifice. Other parts of the cooking method is the same, sacrifice first and then enjoy.

This sacrifice is a two-step process. The first step is to take the chicken outside the door and sacrifice it to nature or heaven. The second step is to simply adjust the meat in the plate and bring it to the altar in the main house to sacrifice to the ancestors. This is a very solemn ceremony. People should be serious unless necessary, and don't speak at will. Irrelevant chickens, dogs and cats can't go to the scene to find food before the sacrifice is over; Pot water and chicken feathers soaked in sacrificial branches and leaves can't be dumped immediately. They should be put on the day when the fire is sent, and dumped together with the torches sent away.

Torch woven with Artemisia selengensis stem

The torch was lit on three nights of Torch Festival. The torches lit are mainly the torches made by Artemisia selengensis and the torches cut by pine trees. However, it should be noted that the torches lit at night can only be torches made of Artemisia.

These torches should be prepared several days in advance, as early as a month or two ago, especially those made of dried Artemisia branches, which are usually made by householders or sensible children. One or two months before the Torch Festival, people tend cattle and sheep in the mountains every day, or go to the mountains to find dried Artemisia branches, break them into bundles and take them home, and start knitting when they have enough.

When compiling, select and add materials according to the length and thickness to be woven. Generally speaking, a torch more than one meter long is lit at night or when playing with fire, and a torch more than one meter long is lit when sending fire at night. The longest torch is three to five meters or seven or eight meters long. To weave a torch more than one meter long, you can take out a few stems of Artemisia selengensis and weave them into a bundle. From beginning to end, you can tie them into a thick torch with three or five pieces of hemp rope at different distances.

If the braided torches are three to five meters or seven or eight meters long, on the basis of braided torches with a length of one meter, insert a circle of dried Artemisia sticks under the hemp rope and then go up, then tie them with hemp rope, and then insert a circle of dried Artemisia sticks on them, and so on until the desired length is reached, and then the knot is declared complete.

This kind of long torch is often thick in the middle and thin at both ends, and some thick parts in the middle can reach more than one foot in diameter, which has strong flame resistance and can survive for a long time from home to the fire place. When weaving this kind of torch, if the head of the family or the family doesn't have a suitable child to weave it, please ask the capable young man in the stockade to weave it and send it to use. The young man's reward is a drumstick of a cooked chicken slaughtered at the Torch Festival of the host family.

Light a fire, play with it, send it.

On the first night of Torch Festival, the fire will be lit. Generally, a torch for lighting pine nuts will be lit, and sometimes a torch about one meter long made of dried Artemisia branches will be lit. Usually, it begins at dark after sacrifice and dinner. After taking out the fire from the burning fire pool in the house, light the torch and go outside. Divided into one (heap) or several (heaps), but usually odd, such as one (heap) or three (heap) or seven (heap).

Some torches are placed in the open space in front of and behind the house, and some are placed in the crops in front of and behind the house. Then people in the stockade get together, burn one or three bonfires in the open space in front of the house or stockade, and jump around the bonfire or chat, tell stories or play games until late at night.

Playing with fire is the second night of Torch Festival. The whole process and content of playing with fire are similar to the ignition ceremony on the first night. The difference is that there will be many colorful festivals such as bullfighting, sheep fighting, cockfighting, horse racing, wrestling, archery, costume matching and so on during the day.

On the third night of Torch Festival, it will be a grand torch relay ceremony. As soon as it gets dark, the children in every family in the stockade use torches made of long withered Artemisia sticks to get fire from the fireplace in the house, then light up every corner of the house and shake the torches up and down and left and right in every corner of the house to burn dust and unlucky things.

While shaking the torch, I kept saying, "Fire, fire! Burn it, burn it! Is the fire given by heaven or left by ancestors? Burn everything unlucky tonight! Burn the monster. The whole family is safe and happy, the cattle and sheep are thriving, and the grain is abundant ... "Before going out, just let the torch shake and burn in the house for a while, then hold the torch and turn around the whole house for one or three times, then join the torch team of the whole stockade and walk towards the lush and curved mountain road.

When walking to the torch relay site on the steep ridge in the forest, people arrange the torches in one direction and let them continue to burn. The torchbearer shouted the names of all kinds of poultry or animals there, while digging a small ditch on the slightly thick Artemisia stem with his hand or a small blade, putting in the prepared salt and asking the animals to drink salt water.

After some established etiquette, people can finish the ceremony and go home, and continue to stir up happy dances around the burning bonfire. This night is a world of fire. If you look at the fire delivery teams and fire delivery points of other stockaded villages from the fire delivery point of one stockade, you will find that the whole night world is a sea of fire, a home of fire and a world of fire.