Introduction: The Torch Festival is a traditional festival of ethnic minorities who gather around a large fire to perform rituals for good luck, and some ethnic groups will hold up burning torches and run through pine forests and fields, in front of villages and behind villages. So, do you know the origin of the Torch Festival? How did the Torch Festival come about? If you don't know, come to see my introduction.
The origin of the Torch Festival
The Torch Festival is a traditional festival unique to the Yi people, every year on the 24th of June in the lunar calendar, in the famous aerospace city, the "Moon City" Xichang, where the Yi compatriots to put on their festive attire. Carrying songs and dances, organizing powerful beauty pageants and costumes, horse racing, wrestling, archery competitions, and lighting torches at night in the wilderness parade, to commemorate the heroes in their hearts. It has been practiced for more than a thousand years since the Han and Tang dynasties. The Torch Festival is usually held on the 24th day of the lunar calendar every year and lasts for three days. Records and legends about the origin of the Torch Festival, of which the more common two:
First, according to legend, the heavenly Ntiguzhi (Yi mythological god of heaven) sent his minions to the mortal world to endanger the living beings and crops, the people in the ZhiGe Aru (Yi mythological heroes) under the leadership of the undaunted, on the 24th of the lunar calendar, the day of the pests with torches burned, won the God of Heaven, so the Yi people to the day set as the Torch Festival. The Yi people then designated this day as the Torch Festival.
Second, in ancient times, a Hercules in the sky and a Hercules wrestling on the ground, the Hercules in the sky was defeated by the Hercules on the ground, fled to the sky in distress, in front of the God of the sky to pull open the right and wrong, so the God of the sky indiscriminately, to take the wrath of mankind, sent a large number of pests to the ground to trample on the crops, endangering the people, the people lit torches to the fields to drive out the insect pests, defeated the God of the sky, which day! This day is the 24th day of the 6th month of the lunar calendar, and the Yi people have designated this day as the Torch Festival.
Every lunar June 24, is the traditional festival of the Yi people in China, the Torch Festival. According to the customs of the Yi people, this day to hold bullfighting and wrestling and grand mass cultural and artistic activities. At night, every family in front of the door erected a torch, the village also erected as high as three or four feet of large torches, for good luck. Village men, women and children holding torches shining all over the premises, animal enclosures, crops, roads, said the expulsion of demons and ghosts, snakes and pests, wishing for a good harvest.
Then, people often gather to the village head, square and other places, held a grand bonfire party. In addition, young people have to hold burning torches, running in the pine forest fields, village before and after the village. At this time, only to see the fields and villages swimming everywhere in the shiny fire, forming a brilliant sea of fire, which is also the most characteristic activities in the Torch Festival.
How did the Torch Festival come about
On the origin of the Torch Festival, there is a folk legend that: a long time ago, there was a Yi young man named Eqi Laba, a wrestler, and no one in the world beat him. When the heaven knew it, they sent the evil god down to compete with Eqi Laba. As a result, the god was killed by Eqi Laba. In anger, the heavens sent down countless insects to harm the crops and the earth. Under the leadership of Eqi Laba, the Yi people went up to the mountains to cut pine and make countless torches. They put the torches on the ridges of the fields and killed thousands of insects, thus saving the crops. People were worried that the pests were not burned out, so at the end of the sixth month of the lunar calendar every year, they wielded the torches to drive away the pests and blessed people and animals to get rid of disasters and diseases. This custom has been passed down from year to year, and over time, it has become the most important festival of the Yi people - the Torch Festival.
Traditional Customs of Yi Torch Festival
According to the traditional customs of the Yi people, the Torch Festival is celebrated for three days.
Early in the morning of the first day, men gather at the river to kill pigs, slaughter cows, and beat goats for meat; women are busy cooking buckwheat buns and grinding tsampa flour at home to prepare cooked food for the next two days, and there is also an important content on this day, that is, each family should kill a chicken, look at the tongue of the chicken, chicken gallbladder, and chicken stock to divine the good and bad luck of the coming year, and burn chickens for ancestor worship to hope for the safety of all the family and prosperity of the livestock.
The next day, the people of the four townships and eight parts of the people dressed in festive costumes from dozens of miles or even hundreds of miles of the cottage tidal wave to the green mountains surrounded by the torch field. This day's activities can be described as brilliant, traditional projects are bullfighting, horse racing, sheep fighting, wrestling, cockfighting, pole climbing, sheep grabbing, shooting, song contest, beauty contest, race clothes, eagles catching chickens, jumping "Jiloho" dance, playing torch, playing love fire and so on.
The activity is very rich in primitive interest and local flavor.
On the third day, he continued his activities from the previous day. The sun reflected the red sky, Tapu holding the winning cow, Ayi holding the undefeated rooster, young men surrounded by "torch beauty", Amimi followed the wrestling heroes back to the cottage, lit with artemisia or bamboo sticks made of torches to hold the sacred "send fire" ceremony. The climax of the torch festival is coming, Yi men, women and children hold up the torch in their hearts to celebrate the harvest, pray for peace and blessings.
The Torch Festival is the size of the Liangshan Yi people's "Carnival", is a brother and sister men and women love the "Valentine's Day". The Ming Dynasty literati Yang Shengan on the torch festival carnival night of the pomp and circumstance first marveled, leaving a thousand years of poetry: "cloud Phi red sun cha contains mountain, the torch even to go back and forth, 10,000 lotus flowers open the sea, a day of the stars down to earth". The Yi proverb describes the torch festival as: "Bush" (New Year) is the festival of the mouth, "Du Zai" (Torch Festival) is the festival of the eyes.