Early in the morning on the eighth day of the fourth month (lunar calendar), just after 6:00 a.m., a grand "Cow King Sacrifice" was held. The highly respected Buyi elders worshiped the bull king with pig heads, chickens, wine, incense and paper, kicking off the celebration. Young and beautiful Buyi girls and boys dressed in full costume enthusiastically waited in front of the village gate, offering carefully brewed wine to every guest who came to participate in the activity. At noon, suona and firecrackers were fired, which set off the climax of the celebration. The Buyi people put bright red flowers on every hard-working ox, and comforted the oxen with elaborately made flower rice and fresh grass, and held a grand parade in the village. People from all walks of life stood by the side of the road and clapped their hands as they watched each of the plowing oxen pass by happily. Afterwards, a large-scale cultural performance was held in the broad square. Buyei compatriots from all over the country pushed the celebration to its climax with songs and dances.
"April 8 Cow King Festival" is a festival for the Buyei people to celebrate the abundance of grains, the prosperity of six animals, food and clothing, and to praise the selfless sacrifice of the cow. Legend has it that there was a sacred cow punished by the Jade Emperor for violating the heavenly rules by the side of the Heavenly Lake, and it was touched by the spirit of the Tujia youths who sacrificed their lives to cross the Heavenly Lake. Late at night one day, it dives to sneak across the sky lake, into the immortal valley field a roll, so that the body is sticky with grain, but in the dive back when the body of the immortal valley was washed away by the water. Fortunately, the tip of the nose and ears of the sacred ox there are dozens of grains of immortal grain has not been washed away, it gave the grain to the local Tujia, Miao people. From then on, the people of Tujia and Miao had grain seeds, and had a good life with abundant grain every year. But the sacred cow is due to serious injuries and suffering, died on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, soil, Miao people are very sad, they will be the sacred cow in accordance with the burial of soil, Miao old man's rituals carried out a thick burial. And on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar every year, to all the cattle red and colorful, with the most solemn rituals to pay tribute to the sacred cow. This has led to the formation of the "Cow King Festival".
Legend has it that a long time ago, the Tujia and Miao people living here relied on hunting wild animals and picking wild fruits, and were threatened by hunger for years. Next to the village there is a heavenly lake, it is said that there is a golden immortal grain planted on the other side of the heavenly lake, and people are very eager to eat the immortal grain rice on the other side of the heavenly lake. However, the Heavenly Lake is deep and endless, and the waves are so rough that it is impossible to cross. In order to survive, some young people risk their lives, set up wooden rows want to cross the sky lake to steal the immortal valley, but always a go no return, buried at the bottom of the lake ...... Tujia cottage of the strong young man is less and less, and the rest are old and weak, sick and disabled, widows and orphans young people, can only be in the threat of starvation and beasts in the bitter struggle. On this day, the cows in farmers' homes are given a day off to worship the cow god, who is the most faithful companion in the life of Xiangxi villagers. Grazing is something almost every family does. When the children of western Hunan farming families were young, there was almost no one who didn't herd cattle.
In the early stage, in order to survive, people often dealt with all kinds of plants and animals, and the relationship between people and them was very close. Due to the low level of productivity, people can only use the concept of the spirit of all things to see everything around them, to some kind of plants and animals as their ancestors, or see them as their ancestors with their own clan has some kind of blood relationship, and give it some kind of mysterious significance, and then produced the totem worship. Among the totem cults of the Miao, the ox is one of the main ones. Regarding the origin of the cow, the "Song of Searching for the Cow" describes it like this: In the ancient times, the Heavenly King sent the Prince to deliver a message to the human beings: "Wash your face three times a day, and eat one meal". However, the prince forgot the original message halfway and misquoted it as: "You eat three meals a day and wash your face once". As the population on earth continued to increase, there was not enough food to go around, so the trouble went to heaven. The king of heaven said to the prince: "It is you who put the words wrong, now the famine on earth, stirring up the peace above, only let you go down to the oxen to drag the harrow and pull the plow, to help them labor. By the way to bring you some books to read, and then every time to the eighth day of the fourth month of the ancient calendar, you turn back to the heavenly realm to rest for a day." So the Prince descended to earth to become an ox. On his way down to earth, he accidentally swallowed the books in his stomach, so now the ox has to chew his food over and over again.
From the record, we can see that the Miao people had already dealt with oxen in ancient times and were able to tame them to plow the fields, and the oxen became the faithful companions of the Miao forefathers. According to the characteristics of human thinking at that time, it is the worship of the psychological emergence of the boom period, and cattle have no human strength, can pull the plow for people with a harrow, is the first people rely on the survival of the animal, also naturally became the object of worship of the Miao people. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, the folk have the ceremony of sacrificing to the cow god. The master of the family to give the cow's birthday, give the cow grooming, for the cow red and green, and do a good job of umi rice in the cattle pen to sacrifice to the cow god.