What are the traditional festivals of the Yi ethnic minority?

Traditional festivals of the Yi people

Torch Festival: The most grand festival of the Yi people is the "Torch Festival", held every year on the 24th of the sixth lunar month. There are many legends about the Torch Festival, one of which goes like this: In ancient times, during the war against foreigners, the Yi people tied torches to the horns of sheep, drove the sheep into the enemy's formation, and defeated the invading enemies. Since then, people have celebrated the Torch Festival to commemorate and celebrate victory in the war. During the Torch Festival, the Yi people hold wrestling, bullfighting, and singing and dancing activities. At night, torches are lit in every village and village. People hold the torches, sprinkle rosin on the torches, and bless each other.

Flower Arrangement Festival: Every year on the eighth day of the second lunar month is the Yi people’s Flower Arrangement Festival. There is a touching legend about this festival: It is said that a long time ago, there was a cruel and dissolute native official in Tanhua Mountain, Chuxiong, who built a " Tianxian Garden", deceiving the Yi people that there are fairies weaving and embroidering inside. They forced every village and village to send the most beautiful girls to the "Tianxian Garden" for local officials to have sex with, and many Yi sisters were forced to death. There was a beautiful girl named Miyi. In order to save her Yi sisters, she broke into the "Tianxian Garden" alone on the eighth day of the second lunar month. She took off the poisonous white horse cherry blossoms she was wearing on her head and soaked them in wine. The local official drank alcohol, poisoned the local official and sacrificed himself. In order to commemorate this heroic and dedicated girl, people designated the eighth day of the second lunar month as the Flower Arrangement Festival. On this day, people put the picked azaleas on Flowers are placed in front of the door, behind the house, and hung on the horns of cattle and sheep. Everyone in the Yi family, men, women and children, wears flowers to express resistance to violence and evil and to pray for good fortune and happiness. Young men and women even put on festive costumes, gathered together, sang and danced, and young men and women who were in love put azaleas on the other's head to express their unwavering love for the other.

The Clothing Festival: The Clothing Festival of the Dayao Yi people in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture is also called the Clothing Festival. It is held every year on March 28 of the lunar calendar. Legend has it that it commemorates a Yi girl named Mibolong. She sacrificed her life to eliminate the hegemony and turned into a beautiful bird after her death. During the festival, local Yi girls, wearing several sets of colorful costumes, gather at the singing venue in Santai District, form a circle, and dance arm in arm to the accompaniment of the young man's yueqin and suona. Dance for a while, exit the dance hall, change into new clothes, and dance again to test the girl's dexterity, wealth and beauty. Yi women not only embroider their hats, clothes, and aprons, but also embroider their bags and shoe insoles with various patterns. Moreover, each person's craftsmanship, composition, and color are different from each other, and each has its own merits. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning, day and night stars, landscapes, trees and rocks, flowers, birds and animals, all kinds of characters can be embroidered.

Tiger Festival: The Yi people of the wheat field in Shuangbai County celebrate the Tiger Festival from the eighth to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which is called "Luoma" in Yi language. On that day, all the adult men in the village worshiped the local owner at the back of the village, and then 8 people were selected through divination by the wizard. These eight people put on rugs with tiger stripes on their faces, feet, and hands, and made up as tigers. Under the leadership of the black tiger head, they danced various dances that simulated production, life, and reproduction, and went to the whole village. It is used to drive away ghosts and evil spirits from each household, which is called "Luo Manai Bang" in Yi language. The Tiger Dance (also known as Tiger Sheng) starts from the eighth day of the first lunar month and increases by one tiger every day (8 tigers at the beginning) to 15 tigers, that is, until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. In the tiger dance, an elder holding a "bengdong" bell is the leader (also known as Duoxi). Those accompanying the tiger all have tiger stripes all over their bodies and are covered in tiger skin. If tiger skins are hard to come by, use felt instead. During the Tiger Leaping Festival, every household in the former village would offer incense to the "Tiger God", and each household would perform a tiger dance from the front door to the house to drive away evil spirits and seek the protection of the Tiger God. At night, fires are set up in the villages and fields, and tigers and pipes dance around the villages. After all 15 tigers appeared, including men, women and children (the metaphor comes again), the whole village celebrated the prosperous future with wine and caroused all night long.

Traditional customs of the Yi people

The Yi people were originally called "Yi people", and their name originated from the "Southwestern Yi" (a collective name for the southwest ethnic minorities) recorded in Han history. According to historical masterpieces such as the Yi classics "The Origin of the Yi Nationality" and "Southwestern Yi Chronicles", they call themselves Ni (?5?7). The ancient Chinese word "Ni" is pronounced as Yi, so Chinese records are often called "Yi".

In 1956, during the period of eradicating the ethnic discrimination in the old society, the Yi people sent representatives to Beijing to meet with Chairman Mao. After learning about the situation and listening to opinions, Chairman Mao made suggestions. Since the name "Yi" had a derogatory connotation (barbarian), they "Yi" was changed to "Yi", which means there are "rice" and "silk" under the house (_), food and clothing, symbolizing prosperity, so "Yi" was changed to "Yi".

The Yi people are the sixth largest ethnic minority in China. They mainly live in the three provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou in southwest China, with the rest scattered in other provinces of China and outside China. The total population is about 9 million, with 8,714,393 people registered in China (in 2010), and nearly one million more in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand.

There are many branches of the Yi people, including Nuosu, Nisu, Nasu, Nesu, Nizu, Luowu, Asipo, Axi, Sani, etc., and Nipo call themselves names, but not all of them refer to themselves in a national sense. For example, Luowu, Sani, Azhe, and Axi are branch names, and Nuosu, Niesu, Nasu, Naisu, Nie Zu's dialect/Tu dialect self-identification (accounting for more than 70% of the population) has the same meaning in the Yi language context, both originating from "Ni". In terms of the general name, the word "Ni Tso" can cover the titles of all branches. Some of the Yi dialects in various places cannot communicate directly, but they have more than 60 words in common and the same grammatical structure. After a short period of familiarity, they can have a conversation. The Yi language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family in the Sino-Tibetan language family and is divided into six major dialects.

Clothes

The Yi costumes vary from place to place. In Liangshan and Qianxi areas, men usually wear black narrow-sleeved right-slanted tops and multi-pleat trousers with wide trousers. In some areas, they wear trousers with small trousers and a long hair bandana with a small lock in the middle of the front of the head, tied on the right side. A pincer knot. Women mostly retain ethnic characteristics, usually wearing buns on their heads, aprons and belts; women in some places have the habit of wearing long skirts. Men and women wear Tsarwa when going out. Jewelry includes earrings, bracelets, rings, collar flowers, etc., mostly made of gold, silver and jade.

The clothing of the Yi people comes in many varieties and colors, and is a concrete manifestation of the traditional culture and aesthetic consciousness of the Yi people. In the long process of historical development, the Yi people living in different regions have created and formed different clothing customs, which occupy an important position in the material folk customs of the Yi people. According to the regional and branch expressions of Yi costume folk customs, Yi costumes can be divided into six types: Liangshan, Wumengshan, Honghe, Southeast Yunnan, West Yunnan, and Chuxiong. Each type can be divided into several styles.

Calendar

The Yi people’s October solar calendar is based on 12 zodiac signs, and 3 zodiac cycles are one period (month), that is, 36 days are a month, and 30 zodiac weeks are for one year. There are 10 months in a year, 360 days. At the end of the 10 months, there are 5 "New Year Days" added, which is called the "October Year", and the whole year has 365 days. Every 3 years, an extra day is added, that is, a leap year (leap day), to 366 days.

According to research, the Xiangtian Tomb of the Yi people is actually an observatory used by the ancients to observe the sky and stars, and is closely related to the Yi solar calendar. The ten-month solar calendar of the Yi people is a long and mysterious ancient calendar. It has a profound relationship with Chinese Confucianism, Taoism, and Yin-Yang theory. There are still many "codes" that need to be deciphered and studied.

Religious beliefs

The religion of the Yi people has a strong primitive religious flavor and worships many gods, mainly animistic nature worship and ancestor worship. The most important nature worship is the belief in spirits and ghosts.