Before the festival: every family prepares food. During the festival, all villages and hamlets make big torches with dry pine wood and pine seeds, and small torches are set up in front of each house, which are lit at night, making the villages and hamlets bright; at the same time, people hold small torches and march in groups on the edge of villages and ridges of mountains and fields, and insert the torches and pine seeds into the corners of the fields and fields. Finally, young men and women gather in the square, many torches piled up into a fire tower, flames blazing, people gathered in a circle, singing and dancing, a joyful, all night long. The main activities of the Torch Festival at night, people or lighting torches to the sky to pray for the New Year, in addition to obscenity for good luck, or burning bonfires, the rise of a grand song and dance entertainment activities. During the festival, there are horse racing, bullfighting, archery, wrestling, tug-of-war, swinging and other recreational activities, and the opening of trade fairs.
The Torch Festival generally lasts three days and three nights, the first day for the "Du Zai", meaning to welcome the fire. On this day, villages and cottages will play cattle slaughter sheep and pigs, to wine and meat to meet the God of fire, ancestor worship, women have to catch buckwheat buns, tsampa noodles, outside of the people have to go home to eat a reunion dinner, together around the fire to drink home-brewed wine, eat lumps of meat, *** with the sharing of joy and happiness. At nightfall, people from neighboring villages will build an altar at the location chosen by the old man, striking the flint to ignite the sacred fire in the traditional way, and the fire will be sacrificed by Bhima chanting. Then, every family, by the family old man from the fire from the fire point with artemesia sticks tied into the torch, so that children and grandchildren from the old man's hands to take the torch, the first light all over the house every corner, and then the field corners, the hills over, with the light of the fire to drive out the disease and disaster. Finally, they gather on the hillside to play with the torches, sing and dance, and play all kinds of games.
The second day of the Torch Festival is "Duge", which means to glorify and praise fire, and is the climax of the festival. At dawn, men, women and children are dressed in festive attire, with boiled lump meat, buckwheat buns, gathered at the altar under the sacred fire, to participate in a variety of traditional festival activities. Thousands of people gather to organize horse races, wrestling, singing, beauty contests, pole climbing, shooting, bullfighting, sheep fighting, cock fighting and other activities. Girls dressed in beautiful clothes dance the "Doloho". On this day, the most important activity is the beauty contest of the Yi family. Elderly people choose a beautiful man according to the image of the hard-working, brave and handsome Blackbody Laba in the legend. The beauty like Nizhang Azhi who is kind, intelligent, beautiful and generous is selected. When evening comes, thousands and thousands of torches, form a fire dragon, from all directions to the same place, and finally form countless bonfires, burning red sky. People dance and sing around the bonfire until late at night, which is a grand and joyful scene, and thus enjoys the reputation of "Oriental Carnival". When the bonfire to go out, a pair of young men and women with love quietly into the hillside, into the bushes, under the yellow umbrella, plucking the moon zither, strumming the mouth strings, tell each other how much they miss each other. The Yi Torch Festival is also known as the "Valentine's Day of the East".
The third day of the Torch Festival is called "Doha" or "Dusha" in Yi language, which means sending fire. This is the end of the entire Yi Torch Festival. When night falls on this day, after sacrificing to the fire god and having dinner, each family lights torches one after another, holding the torches, walking to the agreed place, gathering together, setting up the fire altar, holding the fire ceremony, reciting prayers to the god of fire, praying to the ancestors and the Bodhisattva, granting the descendants health and happiness, granting the earth a good harvest and joy. People dance with torches and chant the words of blessing, "burn the plague, burn the hunger, burn the disease, burn the year of peace and harvest" to pray for the peace of the family, the six animals to prosper. At this time, also with the first day of the slaughter of chicken wings and feathers, etc. together with the burning, symbolizing the evil spirits and the plague of the devil also burned. Then find a larger stone, the lighted torch, chicken feathers, etc. together under the stone, a metaphor for suppressing the devil, to protect the family prosperity, abundant harvest, cattle and sheep fat. Finally, the mountains and villages under the village cottage dragon-like torches together, burning into a pile of large bonfires, to show that the people united as one, *** with the defense against natural disasters.