Mountain Festivals

Unlike other parts of Yunnan, the spring in Ailaoshan is not the time for festivals. The cold, foggy mornings have warmed up and the weather is pleasant and balmy. But the only celebrations of importance are local rice-planting rites and the ancestral rites of the Zhuang on the 3rd day of the 3d lunar month. In the Zhuang festival the collective feast includes red rice, red eggs and chicken. Otherwise, most minorities observe major Han festivals and participate in the government-sponsored programmes of the Torch Festival.

Ailaoshan folks plant their rice in April and May and the rains commence soon afterwards, turning the silvery terraces into steps of shimmering green. Rain soaks the steep slopes, which sometimes slip away under the weight and fall across the road. Landslides are a continuous problem in the summer, providing work for roadside villages to clear away the mud. In the hills and valleys the clouds swirl around the settlements, framing windows of rural scenery.

With the rainy season in full sway the Hani stage Kuzhazha, though at different times in different places-a common phenomenon among these people. Yuanjiang, Honghe and Huangcaoling Hani observe theirs beginning the first pig day of the 5th lunar month. In Luchun and the rest of Yuanyang it begins the first sheep day of the 6h lunar month.

The first day individual household heads perform rituals in the terraces to the protective spirit of the rice crop. Some villages hold a collective feast this day, too. Next day villagers construct a swing, a teeter-board and perhaps a small ferric wheel, capable of seating four in separate chairs. The swing may he a relatively modest one, suspended on two vine-ropes from three or four long tree limbs lashed together. Or, as in Yuanjiang, it may be a pair of tall poles with a crossbeam, their positions secured by cables fixed to the ground. Swinging is done standing up, sometimes by two persons together, side by side or face to face. The teeter-board is a long beam fixed to a post about 1.5 metres tall. The beam both turns around and goes up and down, with riders at each end.

For most of the area's Yi the Torch Festival is not part of their annual activities, except in Yuanyang city. More important are the ancestral rites which take place three weeks afterwards, on the full moon of the 7th lunar month. The first day the Yi repair and renovate the main road through or nearest the village. On the second day they decorate the dining area with flowers, sacrifice a pig and invite the ancestral spirits to their homes. Feasting continues two more days. The next night the family head recites the family genealogy. On the last night they sacrifice chickens and ducks and kowtow to the ancestral spirits. A small portion of each dish goes on a tray, which they take outside, offer the ancestral spirits, and bid them good-bye.

Until 1966 the Yi celebrated the Torch Festival, but it became a Cultural Revolution casualty and its revival has been confined to the show staged by the county government in Yuanyang city. The main event here is the county wrestling tournament, which lasts three days and draws huge crowds of minorities from villages all over the county. On the 25th day of the 6th lunar month dances are staged in the stadium behind the central bus station. Individual singers and troupes of the Yi, Hani, Dai and Zhuang perform, followed by a great fireworks show. The next two mornings and afternoons feature the wrestling matches, in the same arena.

By September the rice plants in the terraces every-where are golden ripe. Just before harvest each family plucks the first panicles and takes them home for their New Rice ceremony, involving a feast and rites for the ancestral spirits. Harvest begins after this day. Rain is intermittent by then and by October few fields remain uncut. In the post-harvest months various collective feasts are held, while in the middle of the 10th lunar month the Landian Yao stage their annual Panwangjie.

Coinciding with the lunar New Year, or the Han Spring Festival, are a couple of the most important of the annual ethnic celebrations. AiIaoshan people observe the Spring Festival in the flan manner by visiting relatives, feasting, closing shops and transportation links for three days and shooting off lots of firecrackers. The Miao, however, have their own festival the first six days of the New Year, Caihuashan, Treading the Flowery Mountain, staged about 20 km east of Laomeng.

For this event the Miao choose the bravest young man and the most beautiful young woman. The latter presents the former with a bolt of red silk or a banner which he is to attach to the top of the upright pole in the middle of the grounds, over ten metres high. When he concludes this feat he hands the girl a flowery umbrella. The crowd urges the couple to get closer, the couple re-treats behind the umbrella and if they fall in love and marry so much the better, both for them and for the villagers.

On the third day a crowd gathers to listen to the singers at the base of the pole. Around noon attention shifts to the nearby courtyard in front of the middle school. Here Miao men conduct rituals with a pony and then a buffalo, inducing the animals to go this and that way, sit, lie on their sides, get up and hop over a bamboo pole held about a metre above the ground. Following this a number of Miao dances take place, with soloists singing in between.

The most important annual Hani festival commences a few days later, on either a buffalo day or dragon day, depending on the sub-group (Jinping Hani stage it a month later). Called Rhamatu or Aungmatu, it involves sacrifices and rituals in the sacred grove beside or above the village, the cleaning of wells and water sources, the expulsion of evil spirits and offerings to the Dragon god of the forests at an altar before the "dragon tree" of the grove. The following day around noon the men of the village stage a collective feast outdoors along the main street of the village. Each household provides one table, placed side-by-side in a long and sinuous, dragon-like line. The feasting continues until dark, while singing and dancing transpire nearby and again in the evening.

The Alu in Laojizhai also observe Rhamatu. Rather than a sacred grove, the Yi rites, conducted by the village bimaw, take place at the altar of the three stones within the village residential area. Though the rites and feasting occur in every Alu village, in the evening the most centrally located of them hosts the dance party for all, which continues until the next morning. Girls lose their shyness then and ask the boys to dance. A few days afterwards comes another festival, in which the boys, made up and wielding painted wooden swords, cavort through the village chasing off evil spirits. After this Alu life returns to normal and the youths pursue the romances that began with the dancing on the night of Rhamatu(Aungmatu).