1, the first day of Torch Festival: offering fire.
On this day, everyone puts on their favorite clothes and is happy. Every village will kill cattle and sheep, hold banquets, all kinds of meat, fragrant and sweet wine, and the aroma is overflowing. If you worship it, God will be full of praise. 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.
2. 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 Ashima, wearing beautiful clothes and holding a butter umbrella, singing Doloho and dancing with their bodies. On this day, the most important activity is the beauty contest of Yi family. Older people should choose handsome men and beautiful women of the year from boys and girls according to the legendary standards such as Ashiba's hard work, courage, handsome spirit and Ashima's 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".
3. 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".
First, the basic situation of "Torch Festival"
1, Liangshan Yi Torch Festival, the second star festival of the Yi solar calendar, is celebrated in the hottest time of the lunar calendar in June. Yang Shen, a poet in the Ming Dynasty, once wrote a poem "The Stars Return to the Festival in June". According to historical documents, the Torch Festival means "occupy agriculture with fire", "hold fire to illuminate the fields to pray for the New Year" and "illuminate the fields so that the clouds can avoid insects".
2. Torch Festival is a grand festival with the largest scale, the richest content, the most spectacular scene, the largest number of participants and the strongest national characteristics among many traditional festivals of Yi people. On June 24th of the lunar calendar every year, the Yi compatriots in Liangshan put on holiday costumes, sang and danced, held grand beauty contests and costumes, horse racing, wrestling, archery and other competitions, lit torches and marched in the wilderness at night to commemorate their heroes.
Torch Festival is a traditional festival of Bai, Naxi, Lahu, Hani and Pumi. Yi, Naxi and Jinuo nationalities are on June 24th, Bai on June 25th and Lahu on June 20th. This festival lasts for two or three days.
Two. Torch Festival activities
Xichang Yi Torch Festival has been open to the outside world, promoting economic and trade exchanges and connecting with the international community. The triennial "Liangshan International Torch Festival" has given this traditional festival a new era style and new connotation.
1, beauty pageant
(1) The Yi people have loved and pursued beauty for generations. "Beauty pageant" has been the most important and distinctive activity in the traditional torch festival of Yi people since ancient times. It is different from the commercial and artistic activities "beauty pageant" in the world today. The traditional folk "beauty pageant" of the Yi nationality, which has lasted for thousands of years, has very strict requirements. Beautiful Yi girls dressed up, holding pholiota adiposa, dancing slowly around the fire on the lawn. The judges are all venerable old people in the village. Their choice is crucial and natural, which depends not only on girls' figure and appearance, but also on their clothes; It also depends on their filial piety to their parents and elders; More importantly, it is judged according to their usual moral behavior and hardworking reputation.
(2) Since the reform and opening-up, the previous "beauty pageant" activities of the Yi Torch Festival have not only retained the original style and characteristics, but also made breakthroughs and innovations on the basis of inheriting and developing the tradition. The contestants wore their usual life clothes and stage clothes, which fully showed the characteristics of costumes in various parts of Yi nationality, with colorful colors and different styles, especially the costume exhibition, which was refreshing.
(3) In order to endow the Yi Torch Festival "beauty pageant" with new connotation and flavor of the times, and make this activity both traditional and contemporary, in 2004, the China Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival "beauty pageant" specially set up the "most beautiful audience award" to mobilize the audience to participate, so that tourists from all directions can also show their elegance on the field. At the same time, not only the beautiful and handsome men selected by the expert judges, but also the audience present have the opportunity to cast a vote, so that flowers can become the spokespersons of the audience and choose their favorite beautiful and handsome men.
2. Strength competition
(1) Bullfighting
A loud horn sounded, and two bulls glared at each other. With a roar, two pairs of specially sharpened horns suddenly collided. The crowd around cheered and the cows were stimulated and encouraged. Sometimes the frontier attacks, sometimes the enemy and the enemy fight, sometimes the blood splashes, and sometimes the opportunity to fight back. The winning bull wore red flowers on its head and neck, and was led around the field by its owner. Its value doubled and it looked beautiful.
(2) Fighting sheep
There is a sense of humor and humor in the sheep fighting competition. Two rams came swaggering, found their opponents and rushed forward, then left with a bang, and nothing happened. After several more times, the fight ended, and the two sheep were wiped clean and shook hands to make peace, regardless of the outcome. It's really interesting.
(3) Horse racing and cockfighting are all male competitions, which are the exuberance of vitality within the nation, the collision of enterprising fire and wine, and the sculpture of pioneering stubbornness and wisdom.
Third, the value of "Torch Festival"
1, Torch Festival is called "Du Ze" in Liangshan Yi language, which means "offering fire". The original form of Torch Festival, in short, is the ancient fire worship. In today's mountain society, we can still see the belief and cultural core of this festival "offering fire" from the investigation of various folk customs.
2.20 10 On August 4th, thousands of people in Xichang, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province dressed in festive costumes and danced with unique ethnic characteristics, which kicked off the 6th China Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival. Liangshan Yi Torch Festival is one of the first list of intangible cultural heritage published in China. It is one of the top ten folk festivals in China and one of the top ten famous festivals in Sichuan. It has been included in the "20 10 World Intangible Cultural Heritage Declaration Project" by UNESCO.
3.20 16 On June 20th, Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival won the title of "Top Ten Tourism Brand Activities of the Silk Road in the Eyes of China People" at the Silk Road Tourism Promotion Night hosted by the Silk Road Tourism Promotion Alliance on June 20th.