When is the Torch Festival this year? How many days will it last?

Different ethnic groups hold torch festivals at different times, mostly on the 24th day of the 6th month of the lunar calendar. The Yi torch festival usually lasts three days and three nights, and is divided into three stages: fire sacrifice, fire playing and fire sending. July 2021: Due to a variety of reasons, the torch festival activities in Xide and Zhaojue counties in Liangshan were canceled.

The first day of the Torch Festival: Fire Sacrifice. On this day, villages and hamlets slaughter cows and sheep, share them collectively, and prepare wine and meat to offer to their ancestors. When night falls, people from neighboring villages will set up an altar at a location chosen by the elders, light the sacred fire by striking a stone in the traditional way, and have the Bimo (Yi folk priests) recite scriptures to offer the fire. Then, every family, adults and children will take the torch made of artemesia grass from the hands of Bimo and roam around the field, following the legend of Ash ugly woman who drove away insects with fire.

The second day of Torch Festival: playing with fire. On this day, families gather under the sacred fire at the altar to hold all kinds of traditional festival activities. The boys are expected to emulate the legendary Ati Raba by racing, wrestling, singing and bullfighting. The girls follow the example of the legendary ugly woman, dressed in beautiful clothes, put up butter umbrellas, dancing "Doloho", Da body dance.

On this day, the most important activity is the beauty contest of the Yi family. Elderly people have to follow the legend of the Ati Laba hard-working and brave, heroic and handsome and Ash ugly woman kind and intelligent, beautiful and generous standards from the boys and girls to choose the annual beauty and beauty. Night falls, a pair of loving men and women, in the mountains, on the banks of the stream, under the yellow oil umbrellas, strumming the moon lyre, playing the mouth strings, telling each other how much they love each other.

The third day of the Torch Festival: sending fire. This is the climax of the entire Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival. When night falls on this day, everyone will hold a torch and race around. At last, people will gather the torches together to form a pile of huge bonfires, and the happy people will gather around the bonfires to sing and dance to their heart's content.

Folk Culture

Because of the long-term development (in the dimension of time) and regional evolution (in the dimension of space), the connotation of the folk culture of the Torch Festival is not the same as that of the early single form, but is a composite form, which includes a variety of activities in the traditional society, and embraces the rich connotations of religion, beliefs, ethics, songs and dances, skills, folk aesthetics and so on. The "Folklorico" is widely circulated in folklore. The widely circulated "Torch Festival Legend" provides a possibility for analysis and research.

The Yi region is known as the "hometown of fire", and the Yi people are good at singing and dancing, upholding the music and dance traditions and oral arts inherited from their ancestors for thousands of years, and the songs and tunes, legends, and even epic performances of the torch festival customs belong to an important part of the oral and intangible cultural heritage of mankind.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Torch Festival (Yi Torch Festival), Baidu Encyclopedia-Torch Festival