The Torch Festival and the County Fair

Like most Yi, those in Ninglang County make a big affair out of the Torch Festival. The Ninglang city government sponsors a public spectacle in the central stadium. Singers and dancers from the Yi, Mosuo, Pumi, Tibetan and Han nationalities perform on stage before the crowd. The show may include a huhu player. This is a brass mouth harp of three or four leaves, each producing a single, separate note, and some girls can play incredibly intricate and melodious tunes with it.

The sets conclude and bonfires are lit in the square. A number of Yi parade around with torches held aloft. Youth form ring dances which soon so fill up the area they turn into sinuous lines that weave in and out of each other. Flutes at the front, the dancers sing traditional, typically merry Yi dancing songs. Bigger villages in the mountains stage their own shows around bonfires in the main square and in the highlands northeast of Ninglang several village dance troupes compete in a daytime contest. Pony races and combat between bulls or goats augment the programme..

In recent years an Apple Festival has been held, usually in Xinyingpan in September, to celebrate Ninglang County's newest industry. Naturally, singing and dancing are part of the programme. A bigger, older event takes place in Ninglang city the week beginning 20 November-the Ninglang County Fair. This draws thousands of Yi visitors from all around, plus the Mosuo, Pumi, Lisu and Bai in the vicinity.

Besides the evening entertainment the first two nights, the Fair is the venue for much market activity, including the sale of Yi clothing, Yi language books and music tapes, herbal medicines, horse trappings, tools, etc. The government puts up advisory posters on health and animal husbandry, plus agricultural displays. A field (sometimes a hill) beside the city is set aside as a large horse and mule market. Their highland owners put up with the repeated teeth and hooves inspections of potential buyers and camp with their animals for the week.