The Origin of Li Nationality Customs and Festivals

Most of the traditional festivals of Li nationality are the same as those of Han nationality, mainly including Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival, Winter Festival and April 8. In addition, there are many traditional festivals with their own national characteristics.

Li nationality spring festival

The traditional festivals of the Li nationality are the same as those of the local Han nationality, but they are different in festivals and customs. Li people celebrate the Spring Festival, which is called Chinese New Year, from New Year's Eve to the fourth day. The original intention of the Spring Festival holiday is to take off the old cloth and send it to welcome guests.

Lily calls January a year, which is the leisure month of China New Year and the beginning of the year. Li people call the twelfth lunar month "the mid-moon". During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Li people should finish all the things they should have done in those years, such as cleaning the house, chopping wood and making wine, sewing new clothes, killing pigs and chickens, making rice cakes or jiaozi, getting married, building a house and paying off debts. New Year's Eve, clothes, furniture, etc. Must be washed in the river, to prepare rice cakes, zongzi, rice, kill chickens and pigs, arrange sacrifices. Sacrificing ancestors on New Year's Eve, * * * having a family reunion dinner and drinking, wishing the new year "prosperity". On the first day of the first month, Li people will send rice cakes to cowsheds and chicken cages and hang zongzi leaves on fruit trees and barns. If they want to get water, they will put a copper coin or a rice cake by the river or the well to show that they will buy "blessed water" from the river god and the land god.

On the first day of the first month, the Li family did not go out, did not talk to outsiders, did not do business, and did not feed pigs and dogs. On the second day of the first month, we began to pay New Year greetings to each other, visiting relatives and friends, drinking and singing. On the third and fourth day of the first month, young Li men and women go out for a picnic, adults go hunting in the mountains, go fishing in the river, and have fun activities such as swinging and dancing. On the fifth day, the whole family took part in the activity of "sending God out of the village" to pray for the safety of people and animals in the new year.

According to traditional customs, the Li nationality in Baisha County will hold collective hunting activities during the festival. After the old people in the village use chickens to predict auspicious days, the men in the village will climb mountains with shotguns, bows and arrows on their backs. Old people and children of Li nationality chased dogs around their prey, while young people ambushed them with guns. The prey was taken to the village, and the head of the prey belonged to the owner of the hunting dog. The hunter gets a leg, and the rest is divided into several small pieces, which are evenly distributed according to the population or households. From the third day to the fifth day, Baisha county also held a "public procession", that is, the gods in the temple were carried out of the village, and people burned incense and prayed. During the festival, people will visit relatives and friends, which is a very grand festival.

In Lingshui, Yaxian and other places of the Li nationality, the saints and pensioners of the Li nationality don't wrap zongzi during the Spring Festival, thinking that wrapping zongzi is just like wrapping the dead, which is unlucky. The Li people in Wuzhishan, which is full of water, gather the whole village to dance "New Year Dance" with gongs and drums to celebrate the New Year. After liberation, the customs of the Li nationality during the Spring Festival are basically the same as those of the Han nationality, and taboos and sacrificial activities are gradually decreasing.

Li nationality dragon boat festival

In the traditional festivals of the Li nationality, every household in the Li nationality has to kill chickens to make meat and wrap zongzi with meat. In some branches of the Li nationality, the whole family, men, women and children, went to the river to take a "dragon water" bath at noon that day. It is said that anyone who washes "Dragon Water" this year will be healthy, especially without scabies. There are many taboos in festivals, such as not going out to herd cattle and not carrying water in the river.

Li nationality festival

The festival of Li nationality in Hainan province is on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year. This festival is influenced by the local Han traditional festival Lantern Festival (commonly known as "Chinese New Year"), but the festival customs are slightly different. On this day, amid the lively firecrackers, all households in the Li family are busy making zongzi, killing chickens to worship their ancestors and praying for good luck in the coming year.

Jiamao area is divided into two types: Chinese New Year and Li New Year. China's New Year's Day is the Lantern Festival, and Li's New Year's Day is held twice. The first time is 12 days after New Year's Eve (according to the zodiac, if New Year's Eve is the Year of the Ox, it is the second New Year's Eve after 12 days). On that day, dumplings will be made, men will go hunting in the mountains, and women will go. The lights were on all night that night. The next year, the first time was 12 days apart, and glutinous rice dumplings were wrapped, but they could go out to produce and stop hunting and fishing.

The third day of March of Li nationality

March 3rd is the biggest traditional folk festival of Li nationality, and it is also a beautiful day for Li youth. Also called love plot and love day, it is called "Fu Nian Fu" in Li language. Held on the third day of the third lunar month every year, it is a traditional festival for Li people in Hainan to mourn their hardworking and brave ancestors and express their yearning for love and happiness. The third day of the third lunar month is an annual event for the Li people. The venue is generally located in an open rubber forest, with green leaves covering the sky and a "carpet" at the foot, which is quiet, cool and quiet. No wonder "March 3" has become the freedom of local people to choose their spouses, and it is called "love plot".

Legend has it that in ancient times, Li people living in Changhua River suffered a big flood. Only a couple survived in a ladle and were drifted to the edge of the Bird's Nest Mountain. On the third day of March, the flood receded and they got married. Men plow and women weave, have children, care for each other and work hard, which gradually makes the Li nationality multiply and develop. Later generations regard them as ancestors and solemnly commemorate them on March 3 every year. In festivals, men, women and children are dressed up and eating cakes and zongzi. Boys fish, girls cook and fish, and then sacrifice the cave with Tianfei and Guanyin fossils.

After the sacrifice, young people came to the activity venue to shoot arrows, climb poles, wrestle, tug-of-war and swing. As night fell, a bonfire was lit on the shore, the boys spread their flower umbrellas, and the girls' silver ornaments and shell ornaments flashed in the firelight. Love songs are euphemistic, and the dance gradually rises, from gentle lyricism to unrestrained joy. Sometimes couples leave the bonfire quietly. The young man hung the ear bell on the girl's ear, inserted the hairpin made of deer bone into the girl's bun, and the girl tied her carefully woven colorful belt around her lover's waist. The two sides vowed to meet on March 3 next year. Because March 3 is related to marriage and love in terms of its origin and main activities, it is also called love plot.

Li nationality army slope festival

June 20th of the lunar calendar is a folk festival of Qi people, a branch of Li nationality in Qiongzhong, Hainan. Junpo Festival is the worship of Li people to ancient Li heroes or characters in myths and legends.

Legend has it that this day is the birth day of the owners of four villages and towns, such as Qiandui and Chengpo. On that day, Li people came from all directions, carrying the statue of Master Yao to the villages in the noise of gongs and drums. Every time the team goes to a village, all the men, women and children in the village should dress up to welcome them. Every harvest year, the villagers also specially invited a famous troupe nearby to perform Qiong opera.