The customs and habits of the Yi people in Liangshan Prefecture during the New Year.

Liangshan Yi people are called "black Yi" and "white Yi" by the outside world. Originally, the Yi people did not have the distinction of "black, white and red". How did "Black Yi" and "White Yi" come from? In this way, it is extremely rare for other ethnic groups to describe and define the difference in rank by color.

In Liangshan Yi language, "black Yi" is called "Nuo" and "white Yi" is called "Qu". Nuo and Qu are the inherent languages of Liangshan Yi people. "Black Yi" and "White Yi" are all foreign annotations. Taking Ganluo County in Liangshan Prefecture as an example, the concepts of "black" and "white" are used to distinguish the two sub-nationalities. With Erjue River as the boundary, Hexi is a "white" area and Hedong is a "black" area. Bai Yi and Hei Yi celebrate the Torch Festival for three days, not only in language, but also in costumes, customs, weddings and funerals.

The first day of Torch Festival: Sacrificing fire. On this day, all villages will slaughter cattle and sheep, share them collectively, and prepare wine and meat to worship their ancestors. When night falls, people near the village will set up an altar at the location selected by the old man, and tap stones to light the flame in the traditional way. Bimo (a Yi folk priest) will recite the scriptures and offer sacrifices to Vulcan. Then, every household, adults and children will wander in the corner of the field with torches made of wormwood from Bimo, imitating Asher's legend of fire repellent.

The second day of Torch Festival: spread the fire. On this day, every family gathers under the sacred fire of the altar and holds various traditional festivals. Boys should imitate the legendary Atiba, horse racing, wrestling, singing, bullfighting, fighting sheep and cockfighting. The girls imitate the legendary Ash, wearing beautiful clothes and holding butter umbrellas, dancing "Doloho" and body dancing. On this day, the most important activity is the beauty contest of Yi family. Old people should choose handsome men and beautiful women of the year from boys and girls according to Ashiba's legendary standards of diligence, courage, kindness, intelligence and beauty. As night falls, a pair of affectionate men and women, in the mountains, by the stream, under the butter umbrella, pluck Qin Yue, play the strings and tell each other about their lovesickness. Therefore, some people call Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival "Valentine's Day in the East".

Torch Festival Day 3: Send fire. This is the climax of the entire Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival. On this day, when night falls, everyone will run around with torches. Finally, people gathered their torches together to form a huge bonfire, and happy people gathered around the bonfire to sing and dance heartily. The scene is extremely spectacular. Therefore, it is also called "Oriental Carnival Night".

Torch Festival is an ancient and important traditional festival for Yi, Bai, Naxi, Jinuo and Lahu nationalities. With profound folk culture connotation, it enjoys a good reputation at home and abroad and is called "Oriental Carnival". Different ethnic groups hold Torch Festivals at different times, mostly on June 24th of the lunar calendar. The main activities are bullfighting, goat shooting, cockfighting, horse racing, wrestling, song and dance performances, beauty contests and so on. In the new era, the Torch Festival has been endowed with new folk functions and produced new forms.

1) Torch Festival tunes

There are a lot of torch songs in Yi area. Although there are various forms, there are fixed torch songs. Due to the different pronunciations of Yi dialects, Yi people in Liangshan, large and small, call it "Du Ze Duo Luo", which means to sacrifice fire, "Duo Luo" means to make a wish, and "Ho" is a song. The branch of Sunuo of the Yi nationality in Chuxiong, Yunnan Province is called "blossoming", which means offering sacrifices to Vulcan, and "er" means "playing". The Torch Festival of Yi people has always been the most grand, and has gradually evolved into a complete set of folk songs.

Among the songs of the Yi people in Chuxiong, there are songs of burning fire, sending fire, evoking spirits, Le Tong, antithesis of torch festival, torch festival sacrifice and so on. The time, place and singer of singing these songs are different. For example, "Song of Burning Passion and Fire" means that the whole family sings around the "festival fire" under their own eaves under the leadership of their parents to celebrate; "Evocation of Soul" is sung by housewives alone, holding sacrifices (grain, salt, wine and meat), walking straight to their vegetable fields or grain fields, singing while walking, and picking a crop seedling when they come back, indicating that the souls of people, livestock and crops have been taken home together to celebrate the Torch Festival, and at the same time symbolizing welcoming Ding Qingji, the prosperity of six livestock and the bumper harvest of grains. "Torch Festival duet" is only sung by people in this village when they meet at the dam site near the village; The sacrificial song of Torch Festival consists of four parts: animal husbandry production, wine sacrifice, sacrifice and rice field sacrifice. This song was recited by the priest Bimo on the night of the Torch Festival, which reflected the primitive religious concept of Yi people, that is, to eliminate worship with fire and pray for happiness.

The torch songs of the Yi people in Chuxiong are mostly traditional five-character rhyming sentences, with relatively fixed padding at the beginning and end of the sentence, and filled with function words such as "Oh, Khan Lee at the bottom of the gang" and "Oh, Come from the gang". Some of the padding words are longer, such as solo, chorus, duet, harmony, etc., and generally do not need to be accompanied by musical instruments. Most songs are pentatonic, followed by feather tones. In his tune-seeking songs, the phenomenon of interweaving tone and rhyme often appears. Most of them have evolved into ballads with the theme of middle and small songs and a few or more phrases, among which the rhythm of "×××××××××" is particularly prominent. Generally speaking, this kind of torch songs are open-minded, simple and powerful, and full of national characteristics.