Yi torch festival

Torch Festival is a traditional festival for ethnic minorities in southwest China, especially Yi people. Torch Festival is not only a grand activity at home, but also the beginning of the new year. Baima Tibetan people live in the same place as Yi and Qiang people, and the torch festival in its festival culture is unique, which is regarded as an important branch of Tibetan New Year.

On the fifteenth night of the first month of every year, men, women and children in Baima Shanzhai line up with torches, shouting all the way, winding through the Shanzhai and walking all over the fields. They want to drive away evil spirits with torches and pray for good luck and happiness. In Baima Shanzhai, it is very particular to light the first torch. According to the lunar year, the oldest Ani (grandfather-Baima Tibetan) should be chosen to undertake it. At that time, old Arnie would light the torch first and then follow. As they ran, everyone shouted "Oh, a handful". If two villages are adjacent to each other, the two teams of torches tend to move closer to the middle, rub in parallel, and then rotate into a circle, where people are singing, dancing and cheering.

Mianning Tibetan Torch Festival Torch Festival is an annual traditional festival for Tibetans in Mianning, Sichuan Province, which is held in the middle of June every year in the lunar calendar. It is said that they don't celebrate the New Year in the first month, but the real China New Year is the Torch Festival in June. According to local legend, a man turned into a dragon in mid-June and wanted to turn the land surrounded by four mountains into the sea. In order to protect the land, everyone began to chase dragons in the morning, and when it got dark, they rushed with torches. Finally, they drove the dragon to guanxian and tied it under the Erwang Temple. Because they were afraid that it would do harm again, they decided to catch it once a year, and they had to kill animals to see the blood. So year after year, it evolved into today's Torch Festival.

During the Torch Festival, people slaughter cattle and sheep in the village to sacrifice to Vulcan. At night, all the people in the village lit their torches and threw them into the threshing floor in the center of the village. At the moment, the flames are blazing and spectacular. The young people scattered the rotten wood powder collected and screened before the festival on the torch pile and played the game of "playing with the fire handle". On the night of Torch Festival, young men and women sang, danced, entertained and reveled all night.

It is said that the earliest Torch Festival was that people lit torches, wandered around crops and burned pests in crops, so that agriculture would have a bumper harvest in the coming year. With the passage of time, the ancient Torch Festival has become a traditional festival for Vulcan to pray for a bumper harvest. Until now, it is still an effective method for Mianning Tibetans to control agricultural pests and diseases and prevent diseases.

Torch Festival is really a happy festival!