Torch FestivalCustoms of the Torch Festival

The torch is the central ritual object of the Torch Festival, and making torches is the most important preparation before the celebration. Villages bind large torches from dry pinewood and resinous pine splints and erect them in the village, while smaller torches are placed in front of individual homes. People cut down a local tree known as the “torch tree,” split one end into several sections with a knife, and pour melted pine resin over it to prepare the torch. Traditionally, torches are also made from bundled mugwort, while dry bamboo, other wood, or resinous pine splints may be used as well.

Torch sizes are strictly differentiated. A large torch several zhang high is erected in the center of the village, medium-sized torches stand in front of households, and small torches are carried by individuals. After the torches are made, they are dried in a cool place to ensure that they burn with strong flames. Torch-making is not merely a technical task but a collective activity involving the entire family and village: elders provide guidance, young people do the work, and children gather around to watch, so that anticipation for the festival gradually grows during the process. An open area near the village is selected as the main activity ground, where a green pine tree approximately 10 to 20 meters tall is erected in the center. A wooden pole decorated with red paper flowers is placed horizontally across the top, and flammable brushwood is stacked around the pine in the shape of a pagoda to create a giant ceremonial torch.

Before the festival, Yi households traditionally slaughter cattle and sheep. The slaughter is not merely a way of preparing festival food but also a sacrificial act through which respect is shown to ancestors and the Fire Deity. Families prepare wine and meat for ancestor worship and make festival foods such as tuotuo meat (坨坨肉) and buckwheat bread.

On the day of the festival, each household erects several torches in front of the home for use in the celebrations. Young women prepare their finest festival clothing in advance and are sometimes so excited that they barely sleep, helping one another dress and arrange their appearance for the following day while also preparing dry provisions, meat, fruit, and other food for the journey to the communal festival grounds. A local saying describes the Torch Festival as a festival for enjoying oneself, with “three days of celebration and no fault in having fun.” Even newly married women celebrating their first Torch Festival in their husband’s family may shyly half-cover their faces with woolen capes and watch the festivities from behind their mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.

As night falls, people from neighboring villages build a ritual altar at a site selected by elders. The altar is usually constructed with stones on an open plot of land or a hill near the village, symbolizing the sacred hearth.

The most sacred moment is the “taking of fire.” People ignite the sacred flame in the traditional way by striking flint against stone, then use the spark to light torches made from bundled mugwort stalks. This method symbolically recreates the moment when ancient ancestors first discovered and preserved fire: every strike pays tribute to ancestral wisdom, and every spark calls upon the Fire Deity. In places such as Shilin in Yunnan, Bimo (毕摩, Yi ritual specialists and priests) conduct solemn and mysterious ceremonies of obtaining and worshipping fire on majestic Laoguishan Mountain, striking a fire steel against flint to ignite tinder and then using the first sparks to light the torches.

After the sacred fire has been lit, the Bimo chant ritual scriptures and conduct the fire sacrifice. The Bimo are among the most authoritative cultural figures and custodians of knowledge in Yi society, believed to mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead and to communicate directly with spiritual beings. They serve simultaneously as priests, healers, ritual specialists, and keepers of history, and are among the most important inheritors and guardians of Yi culture.

As the Bimo chant ancient scriptures in deep and powerful voices, villagers offer wine, meat, and newly harvested grain to the Fire Deity and their ancestors, praying for the safety of people and livestock, abundant harvests, and ancestral blessings upon future generations. During the fire ritual, the Bimo recite sacrificial texts whose contents commonly ask the Fire Deity for protection, the destruction of pests, and plentiful grain. Their voices mingle with the flickering flames and echo through the night sky, carrying human prayers toward the divine. The Bimo also preside over rites honoring Heaven and Earth, worshipping fire and ancestors, and driving away evil and misfortune.

After the fire-sacrifice ceremony, adults and children from every household receive torches made from mugwort from the Bimo and walk through the edges and corners of the fields, reenacting the legend of Ashimo (阿什嫫) driving away pests with fire. People carry torches around fields and houses, forming a winding “fire dragon” along the ridges as the flames illuminate the entire countryside.

As they move, people loudly recite sacrificial verses, most of which concern destroying pests and securing a plentiful harvest, for example: “Let no sparrow come to the head of the field; if a sparrow comes, twist and break its beak. Let no rat come to the end of the field; if a rat comes, smash its teeth. Let no insects burrow into the grain; if they burrow in, raise the torch—when insects meet the flame they die, and the grain will be clean, full, and abundant…” The torch procession is therefore not only a visual spectacle but also an intense soundscape in which the crackling of fire, the shouts of the crowd, and the chanting of ritual texts combine to create a powerful ceremonial atmosphere.

The routes of the torch procession are carefully prescribed. Each household carries torches to its own fields, with families dispersing to walk around every edge and corner of their land in order to express the wish that pests be eliminated, weather remain favorable, and the harvest be abundant. The torches illuminate not only the fields but also the community’s hopes for agricultural prosperity. Seen from a distance, the entire village glows with light. Groups carrying small torches move through the edges of the village, mountain paths, and field ridges, inserting torches and resinous pine splints into corners of the farmland.

Finally, the participants gather on the hillsides, where they play with torches, sing, dance, and take part in various games. Although the first day is centered on “worshipping fire” and is primarily solemn and sacrificial, entertainment begins after the ceremonies, as people sing and dance in the firelight in preparation for the greater celebrations of the following day.

At daybreak, men and women, young and old, dress in their finest festival clothing and bring cooked tuotuo meat and buckwheat cakes to the festival grounds. Thousands upon thousands of people gather from every direction to take part in the large-scale celebrations.

Yi clothing commonly uses red, yellow, and black, complemented by silver ornaments. Young women wear elaborate dresses and carry yellow oil-paper umbrellas, while young men put on the traditional chalva (查尔瓦, woolen felt cape), displaying Yi textile craftsmanship and aesthetic traditions. The Torch Festival is one of the most important occasions for the concentrated public display of Yi clothing culture.

Horse racing, wrestling, bullfighting, ram fighting, and cockfighting are among the most important activities of the second day. These forms of competition have symbolic connections with festival legends involving heroes wrestling or contending with divine beings and have become important cultural symbols within the celebration.

Wrestling is the most representative competitive sport of the Torch Festival. Yi wrestling has a long history and has traditionally been an important way of testing a man’s courage and strength. Wrestling competitions during the festival attract large crowds of spectators who cheer enthusiastically, while young men imitate the legendary hero Atilaba (阿体拉巴) by displaying strength and skill in the wrestling arena.

Horse racing is another indispensable competition. Young Yi riders leap onto their horses, raise their whips, and race around the track while spectators fill every available place around the course. The event is a dramatic display of speed and excitement.

Bullfighting, ram fighting, and cockfighting are also traditional festival competitions. These contests between animals express the Yi admiration for strength and form an important part of festival entertainment. In the bullfighting arena, two powerful bulls lock horns as dust rises around them, while ram fighting provides another intense and highly popular contest.

Pole climbing, especially climbing a greased pole, is another important event. A smooth bamboo pole is coated with oil, and participants attempt to climb it using only their hands and bodies. Whoever reaches the top is declared the winner. The contest tests not only strength but also technique and perseverance.

Beauty contests are among the most important events of the second day. The Yi have long valued and pursued beauty, and beauty selection has traditionally been one of the most distinctive activities of the Torch Festival.

Senior elders select an annual young man and young woman according to the legendary ideals represented by Atilaba, who is described as hardworking, courageous, heroic, and handsome, and Ashimo, who is regarded as kind, intelligent, beautiful, and generous. The female winner is called “Jinsoma” (金索玛), while the male winner is called “Golden Eagle” (金鹰). These titles represent not merely physical beauty and handsome appearance but also the Yi cultural ideal of noble personal qualities.

The contests therefore judge more than outward appearance. Hard work, courage, kindness, and intelligence—qualities highly valued in traditional Yi ethics—form the core criteria. Young women wear their finest clothing and most elaborate silver ornaments, presenting both beauty and character before the assembled community.

Duoluohe (朵洛荷) is a distinctive Liangshan Yi performance combining song and dance and traditionally performed collectively by women only during the Torch Festival. In Yi, duo means “fire,” while he carries the sense of “praise” or “song.” Duoluohe is one of the most characteristic artistic forms of the Yi.

Young women dressed in brilliant ethnic clothing carry yellow umbrellas and perform Duoluohe with light, coordinated steps. At major performances, hundreds of Yi women may hold yellow umbrellas and dance while singing, presenting the classic intangible-cultural-heritage performance Duoluohe. Its graceful, animated movements vividly display the beauty of Yi clothing and the rich atmosphere of Yi folk tradition. When as many as a thousand women in vivid ethnic dress move in orderly formations beneath yellow umbrellas, they resemble a sea of Soma flowers blooming across the mountains.

The Dati Dance (达体舞) is the collective dance with the broadest public participation and the liveliest atmosphere during the festival. The pattern is one of competitions by day and song and dance by night. As evening approaches, thousands upon thousands of torches form long fire dragons moving from every direction toward the same gathering place, where they eventually become countless bonfires that illuminate the sky. People sing and dance around the fires deep into the night.

When night falls, young couples gather in the mountains, beside streams, and beneath yellow oil-paper umbrellas, playing the yueqin (月琴, moon lute) and the mouth harp (口弦) while expressing affection and longing. For this reason, the Liangshan Yi International Torch Festival is sometimes called an “Eastern Valentine’s Day.”

As the bonfires begin to die down, young men and women quietly move toward hillsides and wooded areas, where they sit beneath yellow umbrellas, play the moon lute and mouth harp, and speak of their feelings. The Torch Festival provides young people with an opportunity for relatively free social interaction and emotional expression. The sounds of the moon lute, mouth harp, and love songs intermingle in the night while torchlight illuminates youthful faces, creating an atmosphere in which romance and festival life become closely intertwined.

As night falls, everyone carries a torch to an agreed gathering place, where a fire altar is erected and the ceremony of sending away the fire is performed. People chant ritual texts and pray to the Fire Deity, asking both ancestors and the Fire Deity to grant health and happiness to future generations and abundance and joy to the human world.

The central idea of the ceremony is “sending away.” The Fire Deity is respectfully sent away, and all inauspicious things are symbolically sent away with it. Participants bring their torches together to form enormous bonfires, and the celebrating crowd gathers around the flames to sing and dance. Firelight illuminates every face while song and laughter echo through the night sky.

According to tradition, only after this ceremony is complete does the Torch Festival formally end. People believe that after three days of ritual and celebration, the Fire Deity has accepted their reverence and will bless the village with favorable weather, abundant crops, healthy livestock, and peace in the coming year. Although the sacred fire is sent away, reverence and gratitude toward fire remain in the hearts of the people.

The three days of the Torch Festival—worshipping fire, playing with fire, and sending away fire—form a complete ritual cycle. The cycle is both a tribute to fire and an expression of the Yi understanding of time: through the lighting, burning, and extinguishing of fire at a moment of transition between old and new, the community completes a process of collective spiritual purification and temporal renewal.

The first day, “worshipping fire,” is about reverence—reverence for the Fire Deity, ancestors, Heaven, and Earth. The second day, “playing with fire,” is about celebration—song, dance, competition, and social interaction in the light of the flames. The third day, “sending away fire,” is about departure—sending away calamity, illness, and all the misfortunes of the old cycle. Each of the three days and nights has its own distinctive character. After dinner each evening, one household begins by lighting its torch, after which others quickly follow and walk out of the village with their torches. People sing Torch Festival songs, and their voices echo through the valleys as the flames spread. Following customary directions, the torches form a long fire dragon moving toward the public gathering grounds, where they are brought together into a large blaze around which the entire village dances and plays.

Tuotuo meat (坨坨肉) is one of the most representative foods of the Torch Festival. Beef, mutton, or pork is cut into large pieces and boiled with minimal seasoning, usually only salt and Sichuan pepper, so that the natural flavor of the meat is preserved. Rich yet not greasy, tuotuo meat is regarded as one of the highest forms of hospitality in Yi culture. During the festival, people bring cooked tuotuo meat to the activity grounds and share it with relatives and friends.

Buckwheat is one of the most important traditional crops in Yi regions. During the Torch Festival, people make buckwheat bread, buckwheat cakes, and related foods. Buckwheat flour is mixed with water, kneaded into dough, shaped into cakes, and either roasted over fire or steamed, producing a distinctive aroma. Buckwheat bread is not only festival food but also a sacrificial offering: freshly harvested buckwheat is used to make bread for presentation to the Fire Deity and ancestors.

The Torch Festival coincides with the season when new buckwheat is harvested. People use freshly harvested grain to prepare different foods, both to taste the new harvest and to celebrate agricultural abundance. The fragrance of fresh buckwheat and the flavor of newly slaughtered cattle and sheep combine to create a rich festival feast. During the Bimo’s fire-sacrifice ceremony, villagers also offer newly harvested grains to the Fire Deity and ancestors as an expression of gratitude for the harvest.

Duoluohe is a Liangshan Yi performance combining singing and dancing and traditionally performed only by groups of women during the Torch Festival. In Yi, duo means “fire”, while he conveys the meaning of “praising” or “singing.”

During the performance, Yi women wear distinctive festival dress whose brilliant colors shimmer in the sunlight. Holding golden-yellow oil-paper umbrellas, they form orderly lines and sing while dancing with light, coordinated movements. Their voices are melodious, their steps synchronized, and their silver ornaments glitter in the sun, creating a striking spectacle. Duoluohe is therefore not merely a dance but also a concentrated public expression of Yi ideals of feminine beauty.

The Dati Dance has the broadest public participation and the most energetic atmosphere of all the dances performed during the Torch Festival. Its movements are relatively simple to learn, its rhythms lively and strong, and people of all ages can take part. Participants join hands around bonfires and dance in unified rhythm.

Training for Dati Dance can be highly systematic, with clear requirements for basic steps, hand gestures, and formation changes in order to produce rhythmic unity and coordinated group movement. When tens of thousands of people dance together around dozens of bonfires, the scale and energy of the scene are extraordinary. The Dati Dance expresses cultural values often associated with the Yi people: unity, warmth, enthusiasm, and openness.

During the Torch Festival, many traditional Yi instruments are played. The mouth harp (口弦) is especially favored by Yi women. Usually made from bamboo, it is held against the lips and plucked to produce a clear, delicate sound, and it is often used to express emotion. The yueqin (月琴, moon lute) is commonly played by Yi men; its round body resembles the moon, and its tone is soft and mellow. Kaxijuer (卡西举尔) is a Yi-style vertical flute, while the mabu (马布) is a distinctive Yi wind instrument known for its resonant and far-reaching tone.

At night, young men and women play the moon lute and mouth harp in the mountains and beside streams as they express affection to one another. These instruments are therefore not simply musical devices but important vehicles of emotional communication. The sounds of the moon lute, mouth harp, and love songs mingle in the darkness, creating one of the most evocative soundscapes of the Torch Festival.

The Torch Festival is also an important occasion for the concentrated display of Yi handicrafts. Yi silversmithing is highly developed, and silver crowns, necklaces, bracelets, and belts create a continuous shimmer from head to waist. Yi embroidery is known for vivid colors and intricate patterns and forms one of the most important decorative elements of traditional clothing. The Torch Festival is therefore one of the most important occasions for presenting the tangible cultural heritage of Yi dress, silverwork, embroidery, and related crafts.

In its most basic form, the original foundation of the Torch Festival is ancient fire worship. The Yi ancestors’ early reverence for fire transformed it from a natural phenomenon into a cultural symbol representing light, strength, purification, and hope.

In the Yi worldview, fire is not only a source of light that disperses darkness and brings warmth but also a sacred medium connecting Heaven, Earth, human beings, and divine forces. The Torch Festival is a sacrificial celebration devoted to praying for a good harvest and driving away calamity and evil. Because the Yi believe torches can ward off disaster and harmful forces, fire is regarded as a miraculous power capable of bringing plentiful crops, flourishing livestock, and protection from poverty and disease. The festival is thus a collective and cyclical tribute to fire: by lighting torches and singing and dancing around bonfires, people establish a ritual connection with fire and reaffirm their relationship with nature, ancestors, and the community. Some scholars have further suggested that Yi fire worship may also be historically related to sun worship.

During the Torch Festival, villages prepare wine and meat to honor their ancestors. Ancestor worship is one of the most important religious practices in Yi culture. Within the Yi system of belief, ancestors are understood to continue protecting their descendants even after death. The festival’s ancestral rites therefore form a spiritual dialogue between the living and the dead and between the present and the past.

Through ancestor worship, Yi people affirm their position within the family lineage and strengthen their memory of and identification with ethnic history. During the festival, solemn rites are held to honor Heaven and Earth, worship fire and ancestors, and drive away evil, while prayers are offered for thriving livestock, abundant grain, and household peace. The Torch Festival therefore expresses the Yi aspiration to live in accordance with natural rhythms and to pursue a secure and prosperous life.

The Torch Festival is closely connected with agricultural civilization. The sixth lunar month is the season when rice begins heading and maize is flowering, and torches are prepared in advance for this agricultural moment. One of the festival’s most important functions is traditionally expressed as “illuminating the year and praying for abundance”—lighting the fields with torches, driving away pests, and praying for a good harvest.

During the festival, people carry torches through the fields and use flame and smoke to drive away insects. This action has both practical and ritual significance. The sight of torchlight illuminating the fields is understood not only as driving away pests but also as dispelling anxiety over the possibility of crop failure. The Torch Festival is therefore a sacrificial festival centered on praying for agricultural abundance and eliminating disaster and evil, and its folk characteristics include honoring Heaven and ancestors, burning away pests and disease, and performing rituals for a plentiful harvest.