The Dragon Boat Festival, which lasts for three days, is a traditional festival in the Yi villages of Napo County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Festival of the Yi people. The Yi people's Tiaogong Festival has a history of more than a thousand years. It was originally a festival to celebrate the triumph of warriors who went on an expedition and commemorate their victory. The time for celebrating this festival varies from place to place, but most of them are concentrated in the first ten days of the fourth month of the lunar calendar.
The Yi people have an organizational structure for the Gongtiao Festival. The main members are Mo Gong (hereditary, representing the God of Heaven), Nan (or "Sa Nan", representing the Earth God), Magongpa, and Balang. Plus some old people in the village. They are also the hosts of ethnic customs affairs in the village. The organization's office is located in a public house in the village.
The Dance Festival usually lasts for three days. The main contents include worshiping heaven and earth, ancestors, mountain gods, telling the history of the nation, singing and dancing, eating vegetables and drinking wine, etc. There is a grand scene that is indispensable, and that is the group dance held on the dance floor.
Related activities
The Gongtiao Festival, also known as the "Tiaogong Festival", is the largest festival of the Yi people in Napo, Guangxi and Funing, Yunnan. It is said to commemorate the triumphal victory in ancient times. Returning warriors; it has been passed down for thousands of years. The specific time for each village to celebrate the festival is similar, all in the first ten days of the fourth month of the lunar calendar. The content includes worshiping the heaven and earth, gods and ancestors, preaching the history of the nation, dancing, singing, performing entertainment, etc. A village celebrates a public dance festival, and several nearby villages come to participate, making it very lively. During the festival, all the men, women, and children in the village wear festive costumes. Bimo (a wizard, which means teacher in Yi language) preaches the achievements of the ancestors and leads everyone to worship. Then there is drinking and singing, and everyone plays bronze drums and blows the Lusheng. Around the golden bamboo clump, follow the traditional dance steps, from slow to fast, from low to high, and celebrate to your heart's content. The young people performed dances such as "Jumping Gate" and "Crossing the Broken Bridge" that symbolized hunting and killing enemies, expressing their memory of the heroic martial spirit of their ancestors and their victory in resisting national oppression. There are festive foods all around, and everyone can eat and dance at the same time. Bimo's chanting, prayers, blessings and other rituals are interspersed from time to time. Horse racing and various performances are also held during the period. After dark, young men and women go to various houses in groups to take turns dancing, blessing, and even partying all night long.
At that time, people wear specific clothes. Girls wear white shorts, blue cloth trousers, leggings, necklaces and earrings, and ribbons around their waists. The young men wore four brand-new short coats, each with their collars exposed. Nine young men gathered in the square holding long poles (symbolizing the long thatch used by their ancestors) and wearing blue robes. The "Master" led the crowd to sacrifice pig heads to their ancestors, and climbed onto the bamboo platform to officially announce the start of the Golden Bamboo Dance. "Magongba" - the lead dancer wears a white hat, a robe, and new shoes and socks, leading the crowd to dance to the beats of reeds, gongs and drums. The dance lasted for two days. At noon on the third day, all men, women and children, old and young, climbed to the top of the mountain together, worshiped their ancestors again under the auspices of the "Master", and then left one after another.
Related legends
It is said that in ancient times, Jiu Gong, the leader of the Yi nationality, led his troops on an expedition and was defeated in a war. The enemy took advantage of the victory and pursued him. However, Jiu Gong had no choice but to hide in a golden bamboo forest for a while. . The enemy fired arrows like raindrops into the forest, but the golden bamboo formed a natural barrier and could not be killed. In anger, the scattered people wanted to march towards the bamboo. Jiu Gong was in a hurry and came to his senses, lighting bamboo leaves to confuse the enemy. The enemy mistakenly thought that Jiu Gong was performing sorcery and retreated without a fight. Jiu Gong did not forget the life-saving grace of golden bamboo, and led his people to plant a golden bamboo in the center of the square in the fourth month of the lunar calendar as a commemoration. Passed down from generation to generation, it has become a traditional festival of the Yi people in Napo area.