Traditional festivals of Yi people

Traditional festivals of Yi people: torch festival, costume festival, New Year's Day, "singing songs" and "changing skirts" ceremony.

1. Torch Festival

Torch Festival-Carnival of the Yi people: "Torch Festival" is a grand festival of the Yi people, usually held on the evening of June 24th to 26th in the lunar calendar. At that time, cattle and sheep will be killed, and ancestors will be sacrificed. In some areas, landowners will also be sacrificed, and they will feast on each other and eat tuo tuo meat, wishing the whole grain a bumper harvest.

Torch Festival is generally celebrated for three days. On the first day, the whole family gets together, and then on the second day, colorful activities such as wrestling, horse racing, bullfighting, boat racing and tug-of-war are held, and then a grand bonfire party is held to party all night.

2. Dress-up Festival

Dress-up Festival-Fashion Show of Yi Girls: There are two places in Chuxiong Yizhou where there are dress-up festivals. One is the costume festival in Zhiju Village, Yongren County, which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month every year. One is the Saizhuang Festival in Santai Township, Dayao County, which is held on March 28th every year.

The costume festival provides an opportunity for young men and women who live in scattered places and seldom have the opportunity to get together and get to know each other. And what girls can show themselves best is to see whose clothes are the most beautiful.

Yi women's clothes rely entirely on hand-made peach blossoms and embroidery. It often takes one or two years to make a suit. Therefore, whoever has many clothes and good patterns will be regarded as hardworking, capable and ingenious.

3. Supplementary Year Festival

Yi people living in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other places will have an annual festival on the 1th and 11th day of the second lunar month after the New Year, which is called "Malong Fire" in Yi language.

among the sacrificial activities, dragon festival is the largest. Dragon festival chose a Dragon Day in the middle of February, March and April. Each person in the village brought a bowl of rice and a small piece of salt, and the elderly prepared incense and sacrificed collectively under the dragon tree. The Yi people in Yunnan chose the first Dragon Day of the first month to hold dragon festival. After the sacrifice, everyone sat on the floor, regardless of age, bringing their own meals and eating meat. It was a large-scale gathering.

4.

Dage is popular all over Yunnan, not only in Yi nationality, but also in Bai nationality, Naxi nationality and other ethnic groups, but with different names, such as Dage, Left-footed Dance, Stepping Song and Dancing Lusheng.

According to textual research, "Dage" is a transliteration of "Ta Ge". As early as the Han and Tang Dynasties, "Ta Ge" was a very active folk song and dance in the Central Plains and South China.

However, the "Yunnan Feather Dance" cast on the bronze drum-shaped shell container unearthed in Shizhai Mountain, Jinning, Yunnan Province, the copper buckle ornaments of 18 hanging-tailed people dancing arm in arm and ring unearthed in Lijiashan, Jiangchuan, and the dance patterns solidified on cliff paintings in Cangyuan, Yunnan Province are all the same as the image of "Dage" of the Yi people, which may be used as evidence of the ancient origin of "Dage" of the Yi people.

Up to now, there is still a "song-walking map" drawn by the Qing Dynasty on the mural of Longtan Temple in Weibaoshan, Weishan County, Yunnan Province, which is very similar to the song-playing of the Yi people in Weishan today.

5. Dress-changing ceremony

In Liangshan area, Yi girls have to hold a mysterious "dress-changing" ceremony when they grow up, which is called "Shalalo" in Yi language, meaning to take off their childhood skirts and put on adult ones. Before "Shalaluo", Yi girls wore red and white children's skirts, with plaits and pierced ears.

After the "dress change" ceremony, you should put on a long skirt with a black and blue middle section. The original plait should be combed into a double plait, and you should wear an embroidered headband and hang earrings.

After the ceremony of "changing skirts", girls can freely go shopping, catch up with races, make friends and fall in love. The time of "changing skirts" depends on the development of girls, usually between the ages of 15 and 17, and more than one year old.

Because in the eyes of the local Yi people, "changing skirts" at the age of two will be full of disasters and will not be auspicious for life. As for the specific date of "changing skirts", the elderly should be asked to make a good choice before they can finally set an auspicious day.