Traditional Festivals of the Yi People

Traditional Festivals of the Yi People: Torch Festival, Race Dress Festival, New Year's Day, Singing Ceremony, Skirt Changing Ceremony, etc.

1, Torch Festival

Festival of the Yi People: The Torch Festival.

1. Torch Festival

Torch Festival - Carnival of the Yi people: "Torch Festival" is usually held in the evening of the 24th to 26th day of the 6th lunar month. The "Torch Festival" is usually held from the 24th to the 26th night of the 6th lunar month. At that time to kill cattle, kill sheep, sacrifices to ancestors, some areas also sacrificed to the Lord of the earth, feast with each other, eat lumps of meat, *** wishing a bumper harvest.

Torch Festival is generally celebrated for 3 days, the first day of the family get-together, after 2 days of wrestling, horse racing, bullfighting, boat racing, tug-of-war and other colorful activities, and then held a grand bonfire party, all-night revelry.

2, Racewear Festival

Racewear Festival - Yi girls fashion show: Chuxiong Yi State, there are two places to racewear Festival. One is Yongren County straight Tho village of the dress festival, the time for the first month of the lunar calendar every year 15. One is the Dayao County Santai township of the dress festival, the time for the March 28 each year.

The festival provides an opportunity for young men and women who live in scattered areas and usually have little chance to get together and get to know each other to confess their love. And the best way for the girls to show themselves is to see whose clothes are the prettiest.

The Yi women's clothing is all handmade peach blossom and embroidery, and it often takes one or two years to make a set of clothes. Therefore, whoever has the most clothes and the best patterns is seen as hard-working, capable and dexterous.

3, make up the New Year's Day

Yi people living in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other places, in the New Year after the tenth and eleventh of the second month of the lunar calendar, but also to have a New Year's Day, the Yi language, called this festival for the "Malong fire".

In the ritual activities, to sacrifice the dragon is the largest. Sacrifice of the dragon in two, three, April in a dragon day, the village as a unit each person to bring a bowl of rice, a small piece of salt, by the old man prepared incense, in the collective sacrifice under the dragon tree; Yunnan Yi choose the first month of the first day of the dragon sacrifice, after the sacrifice of the dragon, everyone sat on the ground, regardless of the elders and young people, bring their own rice, meat *** food, is a large-scale gathering.

4, "hit song"

All over Yunnan, not only the Yi, even the Bai, Naxi and other ethnic groups are prevalent in this form of song and dance, just called differently, such as "hit song "

According to the report, it is said that the "Lusheng Dance" is the most popular form of song and dance in Yunnan, not only among the Yi, but also among the Bai, Naxi and other ethnic groups.

According to the evidence, "playing songs" is "treading songs" transcription. As early as the time of the Han and Tang dynasties, "Tap Song" has been a very active folk song and dance in China's central and southern folk.

And the Yunnan Jinning Shizhai mountain unearthed copper drum-shaped shellfish storage cast on the "Yunnan feather dance" and Jiangchuan Lijiashan unearthed 18 pendant-tailed people even arm ring dance of the copper buckle ornaments as well as solidified in Yunnan Canyuan and other places of the cliff paintings on the dance pattern, the dance pattern and the Yi ethnic group's "playing song" image the same.

The dance motifs on the bronze buckle ornaments and the dance patterns on the cliff paintings in Cangyuan, Yunnan Province are all the same as those of the Yi "beat song", which may serve as a proof of the ancient origin of the "beat song".

To this day, the mural paintings of Longtan Temple in Weibao Mountain, Weishan County, Yunnan Province, still retains a picture of the "Song Treading Diagram" drawn by the Qing Dynasty, whose situation is very similar to that of the Yi ethnic group's Song Treading Song in Weishan, Yunnan Province, today.

5, "skirt changing" ceremony

In the large and small Liangshan region, the Yi girls will hold a mysterious "skirt changing" ceremony when they come of age, called "Shalaluo" in Yi. Yi girls in the "Shalaluo" before, wearing a red and white color skirt, comb is a single braid, ear hanging is to wear ear wires.

After the ceremony of "Changing Skirts" is held, she will wear a black and blue three-piece floor-length skirt, and the original single braid will be changed into a double braid, and she will wear an embroidered headband and hang an earring.

After the ceremony of "changing skirts", young girls are free to go shopping, catching up, watching horse races, making friends and falling in love. "Skirt" time is based on the development of young girls, generally selected between the ages of 15 to 17 years old, more choose a single year old.

Because in the view of the local Yi people, the double age of the "skirt" will be more disaster, life will not be auspicious. As for the specific date of the "dress change", the old man should be asked to make a good choice of calculation, in order to finalize the auspicious date.