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All fired up for the Torchlight Festival
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The Torchlight Festival involves a three-day bonfire party often credited as “the Eastern world’s Carnival.” It is the Yi ethnic group’s biggest festival of the year.
The Yi population is about 8.71 million and they are one of the oldest ethnic groups in China. Today they are mainly scattered around Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Most Yi people are found in mountainous areas or in the valleys of mountains. This has given rise to the old saying “the weather is different a few miles away” in the Yi area.
The Yi ancestors can be traced back to the ancient Di and Qiang people in western China around the second century BC, who gradually settled in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi.
The inhabitants in these areas were known by the Han people as “Yi” in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), and Wei and Jin dynasties (AD 220-420). Yi literally translated as barbarian. They were also called Cuan and Luoluo (Ngolok) in different historical periods. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, they were once again referred to as Yi.
The Yi have their own language belonging to the Tibetan-Myanmarese language group of the Chinese-Tibetan language family. The Yi once used a syllabic script called the old Yi language, which was created in the 13th century. It is said it included about 10,000 words, of which 1,000 were for everyday use.
The script can still be found in works of history, literature, medicine and the genealogies of the ruling families in many Yi areas. But the word form and pronunciation is often different among different Yi tribes. The language was reformed after the liberation to make it consistent.
The ancient ethnic group also has its own calendar, astonishing many scholars when it was discovered in the 1980s. The scholars believe the Yi calendar, referred to as “Ten Months Solar Calendar,” can be traced back 10,000 years and was similar to the famous Maya calendar.
In the Yi calendar, one year is divided into 10 months with each month having 36 days. The other five days — six in a leap year — are for celebrating the New Year and are not part of any month. They also break down the year into five seasons represented by earth, copper, water, wood and humans.
The Torchlight Festival falls on the 24th day of the six month in the Yi calendar — usually around the end of July. There are various versions of how the festival began. Some suggest it started as a celebration of a successful rebellion against a tyrannical landlord. Other scholars are more inclined to believe the festival started because ancient Yi people worshipped fire.
The celebration usually lasts three days and includes wrestling, horse racing, bull fighting and tug-of-wars.
When evening arrives, Yi people light torches and march around villages in a group. They will then gather together for a grand bonfire party and revel in singing and dancing the whole night.
The Torchlight Festival is said to embody the Yi people’s devotion to fire, which represents glory, justice, prosperity and the great power that destroys all evil.
Staple foods include buckwheat, corn and potatoes as rice production is limited in the mountainous areas they usually inhabit. Pork, mutton and beef are usually cut into fist-sized pieces for boiling. As for their beverages, tea and liquors are regarded as the best for serving honored guests.
Numerous kinds of liquors can be tasted during festivals, some contained in unique goblets like those made of wood, sheep or ox horns, and even eagle’s claws.
Baked tea is a popular drink among Yi people. The green tea leaves are put into a heated earthen pot and then baked until they turn yellow and release a fragrant scent. Boiling water is then poured into the earthen pot and the tea is served after brewing.
Yi clothing varies in different regions. But generally, Yi women are used to wearing embroidered clothes and long trousers with exquisite lace or skirts with pleats. Men often wear black narrow sleeved clothes and loose pants. Both men and women wear handkerchiefs on their heads.
Many Yi people believe in polytheism, combining the worship of ancestors with Taoist and Buddhist beliefs.
There are also Christians among the Yi people due to the influence of missionaries in the 19th century.
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