Rich Yi Customs and Culture

The Yi, the sixth largest ethnic minority in China, is a relatively simple ethnic group with its own unique ethnic and cultural characteristics, with its own unique language and script, as their soul and spiritual support, their customs and culture are rich in content, and their influence on the future generations is quite deep.

So, let's take a look at Yi culture from the perspective of Yi culture!

Yi clothing is not the same everywhere. In Liangshan and Qianxi areas, men usually wear black narrow-sleeved right-slanted tops and wide-legged pants with many pleats, and in some areas they wear small-legged pants and store small locks of long-haired bandanas in the front of their heads and tie a pincer knot on the right side. Women to retain more national characteristics, usually wrapped around the head of the head, there are waist and belt; some parts of the women have the habit of wearing long skirts. Men and women go out clad in rubbers. Jewelry has earrings, bracelets, rings, collar row flowers, etc., mostly made of gold, silver and jade.

The main food in the life of the Yi people is corn in most areas, followed by buckwheat, rice, potatoes, wheat and oats. Meat, mainly beef, pork, mutton, chicken, etc., like to cut into large chunks of large pieces (fist size) to cook, the Han Chinese called "steely meat". The big and small Liangshan and most of the Yi people are forbidden to eat dog meat, do not eat horse meat and frogs and snakes and other meat. The Yi are fond of sour and spicy food, and are addicted to wine, and have the etiquette of treating guests with wine. Wine is essential for solving all kinds of disputes, making friends, weddings, funerals and other occasions.

The structure of Yi houses is the same in some areas as that of the surrounding Han people. Liangshan Yi residents use board roofs and earth walls in most of their houses; and there are houses shaped like "dry bars" in the Yi areas of Guangxi and eastern Yunnan.

The Yi people around the prevalence of patrilineal small family system, young children often live with their parents. The status of women is lower. The inheritance is divided equally among the sons, and the estate is generally owned by the next of kin. In the history of the Yi people, the practice of hyphenating the names of fathers and sons was prevalent, and this custom continued among the Yi inhabitants of Liangshan until the founding of the nation. Monogamy is the basic system of marriage among the Yi, and a high bride price is required to marry a daughter-in-law. Staggered marriages from the table are more popular, and the death of the husband is practiced in the transfer of the house. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, some of the Yi areas in Yunnan Province still maintained the public housing system, and the Liangshan Yi maintained a strict hierarchical endogamous marriage. Historically, the Yi people practiced cremation, and before the founding of the People's Republic of China, residents of Liangshan and Yunnan along the Jinsha River still practiced this burial custom. Other areas have gradually changed to upper burials since the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The religion of the Yi people has a strong primitive religious color, worshiping many gods, mainly the nature worship and ancestor worship of all things. In nature worship, the most important is the belief in elves and ghosts. People believe that many inanimate things in nature are attached to the elves, a family where all the ancestors left everything such as clothes, jewelry, silver, utensils, can be attached to the elves "Gil", that it has the magic power to protect the family. Due to the long history of ethnic and cultural exchanges, Buddhism has a long history of being introduced into the Yi minority area. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, Taoism was prevalent in some Yi areas. With the invasion of imperialist forces, Catholicism and Christianity were also introduced to the Yi area in the late 19th century.

The main festivals of the Yi people are the "Torch Festival", the "Year of the Yi People", the "Worship of the Lord", the "Mizhi Festival", and the "Jumping Festival". The main festivals are "Torch Festival", "Year of the Yi", "Worship of the Lord", "Mizhi Festival", "Song Jumping Festival" and so on. The "Torch Festival" is the most common and grandest traditional festival in the Yi ethnic area, usually held on the 24th or 25th day of the 6th month of the summer calendar. At the Torch Festival, Yi men, women and children, dressed in festive costumes, play animals to offer spiritual cards, dance and sing, horse racing and wrestling. At night, holding torches, turn around homes and fields, and then meet a place to burn a bonfire, dancing.