The Yi Flower Festival in Chuxiong

                                                      

                                                                   by Jim Goodman

 

       Chuxiong lies between Kunming and Dali.  Its position marked it as a major stop on the ancient caravan route to Myanmar, the old Burma Road, and the city is probably just as old as Kunming and Dali.  It was long known as Lucheng, the Deer City in Chinese, or Elu in the local Yi language, after the myth of its founding.  Accordingly, in ancient times a spotted deer descended from Heaven, ran in a specific circumference, then vanished.  The local people observing this considered it an auspicious sign and built a wall along that line, enclosing what became the city of Lucheng.  The best view of the city is from Elu Park, on a nearby mountain to the west, which also features high cliffs, strange rock formations, and groves of camellia trees that blossom in February.

        The original wall and all the old buildings have disappeared, so there are no traditional neighborhoods to explore.  However, nowadays a multi-building provincial museum on a knoll in the western part of Chuxiong is well worth a visit.  The different halls feature well-labeled displays of the prefecture’s flora and fauna, minerals, minority nationalities’ clothing and artifacts, ancient tools and weapons, plus a room full of dinosaur skeletons. 

       Across the highway just northwest of the city lies the recreational and cultural park with the long name of The Park of the Ten Month Calendar Culture of the Yi Nationality in China.  Several tall carved stone pillars dominate the park, supposedly in the style of the area’s ancient Yi inhabitants.  The annual Yi Torch Festival in July is staged here with great fanfare.  Although the Yi comprise only about 18% of the prefecture’s population, divided into several sub-groups, they reside on over half the territory.  This qualifies Chuxiong to be an Autonomous Yi Prefecture, where the top figures in the government are Yi.

       The Yi minority nationality is the largest in the province, comprising 11% of the population.  Yi sub-groups inhabit every part of Yunnan except Dehong in the southwest.  On my first two trips to Yunnan in 1992 I visited Sani Yi in Shilin County and Nuosu Yi in Ninglang, observed Duli Yi in the Xiaguan and Dali markets, the Nisu Yi on a brief trip to Yuanyang, and bought photo books featuring other Yi sub-groups to whet my appetite for more encounters with them. 

       On my third trip to Yunnan, March 1993, with a friend along who was mainly interested in the northwest, I arranged for our journey to stop first in Chuxiong in time for the Yi Festival of Flowers, held the 8^th day of the 2^nd lunar month.  The event also takes place in a big way in Dayao County, in the mountains northwest of Chuxiong, but when we learned of a closer venue at Zixishan, a protected forest about 10 km west and then south 30 km into the mountains, we opted for that.  The museum and park weren’t built until the end of the decade, so we had no reason to spend time in the city. 

       Zixishan is home to the Camellia Research Center, which also had a small guesthouse with comfortable rooms and electric blankets.  We arrived in late afternoon and stayed the night.  Next morning our Yi hosts took us down the mountain to their home village.  After a hike through the forest we came to a more open hill area, a reservoir and terraced farms filled with ripening yellow mustard flowers.  The village lay on a nearby promontory overlooking the pond and the terraces, with a view of a Miao village in the distance.

       Yi houses resembled those of the rural Han, only without compound walls, made of mud-brick with wood posts and tiled roofs, wide, two stories, with the kitchen and receiving rooms on the ground floor and the sleeping rooms upstairs.  Sheds in the yard housed the animals, mainly buffaloes, used for traction and milk, pigs, chickens and goats.  Besides food, they raise goats for their skins, which are made into sleeveless jackets, worn with the fur on the inside in cold weather and on the outside when it’s rainy.

       Our hosts served us a meal of mainly different meat dishes, washed down with a liberal amount of rice liquor.  Fortunately we didn’t get too drunk to climb back up the mountain afterward., Though it was slow going, we could choose good sites to take breaks and stare at the hills, valleys, trees and waterfalls.. Back at the lodge we had a similar meal and after several more rounds of drinks went to sleep easily. The temperature dropped considerably, but we had electric blankets.

     

       Early next morning we were off to the festival site, which lay several km away following a motorable dirt road through the pine forest.  The name of this event is Chahuajie in Chinese, which literally means Camellia Festival, and is dedicated to the Yi heroine Miyilu for her role in ridding the area of a vicious tyrant who kept demanding young Yi women for his perverse pleasures.  Miyilu volunteered to meet him, but when they were alone together she drew out a hidden knife and stabbed him to death.  She fled the palace, but the tyrant’s guards caught up with her and slew her under a white camellia tree.  Her blood stained the tree’s roots and from then on the flowers came out red.

       There are variations on this tale.  The Dayao version has Miyilu volunteering to marry the tyrant and when he happily agrees she offers to share wine with him as a toast to their betrothal.  Miyilu is wearing a poisonous azalea in her hair and secretly dips it into the wine, rendering it lethal.  When the couple drinks the wine they both die.  She is buried beneath a camellia tree.  Her brother comes to look for her, learns what happened and cries so much over her grave his tears turn to blood, which stains the roots of the camellia tree and turns the flowers red.

        In Dayao County the festival’s greatest activities take place in Tanhua.  Besides dressing their best for the dances, the Yi here pin red camellias to their hair, house door, compound entrance and even the buffaloes.  We didn’t witness any of that in Zixishan, but the dancing and carousing was probably just as vigorous.  At the ceremonial entrance gate to the festival grounds a row of Yi girls stood bearing small cups that they handed to the emcee, the bimo—spiritual leader of the Yi, wearing feathered turban and fancy woolen cloak, who filled them with rice liquor to offer the guests, three cups each, as they arrived.

       After we quaffed our cups we proceeded to a lane flanked on each side by Yi girls dressed in gorgeous traditional clothing and Yi boys playing trumpets, long-necked lutes, guitars, flutes and gourd pipes.  When we reached the beginning of the lane the boys in front raised their long trumpets and blared out a welcome.  The boys commenced playing their instruments and the girls began singing old melodies in their high-pitched voices.  When we had completely passed through this ‘Yi gauntlet’ (as we nicknamed it) the music and singing stopped, but resumed as soon as the trumpets announced the next set of guests.

       Some Bai and Miao were also present, the women of the former dressed Dali-style, the latter in bulky skirts.  Rural Han from nearby villages also attended.  The non-Yi guests were Han government officials from Chuxiong and the two Americans and their Han driver.  Everybody else was Yi.  Most of the men wore modern clothes, augmented here and there by goatskin jackets.  Others wore the traditional blue cotton jacket, long-sleeved with wide white fasteners running down the front.  Lots of Yi, male and female, carried fully hand-embroidered shoulder bags, a craft specialty around here.

        The Yi at the festival comprised three sub-groups.  The men’s clothing was the same for all of them, but among the women the outfits of each of the three was distinctly different, especially what they wore on the head.  With the first group we saw it was a round black cap with several pompoms in different bright colors inserted on top.  These women wore a black vest over long-sleeved shirts, usually red or pink, and a scarf which held a kind of bell-shaped bib of thick cotton.  The bib widened below the breasts, reached to the waist and was embroidered with red camellias.  A wide, brightly embroidered belt across the bottom of the bib and plain black trousers completed the outfit.

       With the second group we encountered the women wore a long-sleeved, hip-length jacket, fastened on the right side.  It was black, with wide bands of embroidery, of camellias and other motifs, along the hems, cuffs, collar and sleeves.  Over it, suspended by silver chains around the neck, was a bib similar in shape, but longer, down to the hips, and tied with straps around the back.  It also featured embroidered camellias.  Instead of caps or turbans, they wore their hair in buns with a wide ornamented silver band around it and chains and clasps holding the bun in back.  The hair jewelry was often very antique, handed down by females from one generation to the next, only worn on special occasions and never sold, for that would break the line of continuity the jewelry symbolizes.

      Jackets worn by the third Yi sub-group were also long-sleeved, side-fastened and reached to below the hip.  A wide black band was across the waist, setting off the bright colors and lavish embroidery strips of all parts of the jacket.  Even more eye-catching was the headdress, a round turban festooned with rows of cowry shells stitched like crosses around the brim and beaded tassels in between.  

       After all the guests were in place the program began with a dragon dance, followed by several speeches and then recessed until dusk.  Folks wandered off and prepared meals on campfires.  We joined one Yi group for a rough-and-ready repast of pork, chicken, vegetables and several toasts of rice liquor.  Around dusk the music show commenced, to go on for hours.

       It was certainly a color spectacle.  Even the instruments were ornamented, with thin strips of embroidered cloth tied to the ends of the guitars and lutes.  The guitars were often made by the players themselves, or perhaps their fathers, as some had an old patina.  They were of wood, with low-relief painted floral designs on the front of the body and a carved dragon head at the end of the neck.

       Lads on their instruments started each group, playing and dancing energetically in a circle.  Girls joined in and began singing to the melodies with their distinctive high pitch voices and quivering extended notes.  Girls of all three sub-groups joined the circles together.  The dancing grew ever more vigorous, for these were youth, after all, and this was what they came to do.  By the time it was fully dark there were many such circles, competing in frenetic cacophony, dancing until they just couldn’t go on any longer. 

       Several small fires around the grounds provided warmth for the spectators.  A few stalls sold snacks and rice liquor was passed around among the men, though not the musicians and dancers.   The performers continued until very late.  Finally exhausted, they joined the groups around the fires to relax and socialize.  Around midnight those still around could enjoy the screening, on a huge sheet draped between two big trees, of a Yi movie.

       We were back in the comfortable Camellia Research Center’s guest house by then, to enjoy a last drink with our hosts and an easy sleep under the electric blankets.  In the morning we took a last invigorating hike around the area, passing creeks and waterfalls, spotting a fox in the woods, enjoying the mountain air and scents.  But we were off to Dali that day.  Other attractions in the vicinity, like a venerated 600-year-old camellia tree and a 500-year-old temple compound, we had no time to see. 

       Zixishan also has nurseries for camellia, rhododendron and cherry trees.  A new hotel was going up at the time next to one of the more accessible reservoirs and work was in progress daily to upgrade the road from the highway.  Perhaps Zixishan would become a tourist destination for nature lover travelers.  As an officially preserved forest, it will always have its trees, its camellias, creeks, animals and, hopefully, will always play annual host to the spectacular Yi Flower Festival.  

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Discoveries in Dayao County

                                                                            by Jim Goodman

the White Pagoda on a hill next to Dayao City

       Chuxiong, in between Kunming and Dal, is officially a Yi Autonomous Prefecture because the Yi minority nationality, though constituting only around a quarter of the population, resides on more than half the territory.  The Yi are the largest ethnic minority in the province, 11% of Yunnan’s residents, divided into a few dozen sub-groups and five major dialects.  But most travelers skip Chuxiong.  It doesn’t have the spectacular scenery of areas further west, like snow mountains, mighty rivers and picturesque lakes, so the only Yi the average visitor encounters in Yunnan are those in Lijiang and Dali prefectures, the Stone Forest near Kunming and maybe Yuanyang. 

8th century White Pagoda

      The Chuxiong government earlier this century tried to play up the Yi aspect of its territory with the construction of a Yi theme park on the northern side of the capital, exhibits in its fine new museum and promotion of the annual Torch Festival.  Still, that hasn’t resulted in a burst of Yi cultural tourism.  Chuxiong City is easy to access, but Yi villages are far away in the hills, requiring a little time and effort, and in many areas, especially the northwest quarter of the prefecture, quite unspoiled and solidly rooted in their traditional lifestyle.  

        Dayao County is a fine example.  Besides its several Yi sub-groups, who live relatively the same way but dress very differently, the county also features a couple famous religious monuments.  One is the White Pagoda, so named for its color, on top of a small hill next to Dayao city.  It is also known as the Bell Stick Pagoda, for its shape resembles the stick used to strike bells in a Buddhist temple.  Built in the Nanzhao Era in the 8^th century, rising from an octagonal platform 18 meters high, it has stood erect through major earthquakes over the centuries, its only scar a meter-long crack near the top.

bronze Confucius in Shiyang

       The other religious monument of note is the huge, 2.5 meter-high bronze image of Confucius, housed in a temple in Shiyang, 36 km west of Dayao.   Made in the early 17^th century, it took over nine years to cast.  Weighing around 1000 kg, this statue of the seated sage, crowned and holding a tablet, flanked by dragons, is the only extant bronze Confucius on the mainland of China.  Shiyang means Stone Ram, named after something like that found when digging a great salt well in the town many centuries ago.  The town lies along a narrow river with Buddhist and Daoist shrines on the slopes of the south bank hill, some in caves, with odd statues like a scowling, bearded man ripping open his abdomen to reveal a Buddha inside and a clean-shaven man splitting open his face to show another one underneath. 

Daoist sculpture, Shiyang

       Shiyang is actually more of a religious center than Dayao itself.  Aside from the temples around the White Pagoda, the only other religious monument is the late Qing Dynasty six-tiered pagoda on the hill at the south entrance to the elevated plain around Dayao.  The city still had a lot of old wooden, two and three-story tile-roofed wooden buildings when I first visited it over twenty years ago, friendly inhabitants, mostly Han, an active artistic scene of sculptors, painters and silk carpet-weavers, all yearning to attract foreign appreciation and business.  Bars and entertainment venues were few and social life revolved around private visits among friends. 

       On Sunday market day this all changed.  Han villagers from the plain and Yi from the hills swarmed into town.  They came on foot or bicycle, led or rode ponies, pulled carts, pushed wheelbarrows or took tractor-trailers.  They set up stalls in the main market area and along New Road, selling grain, fruits, walnuts (the county is famous for these, especially the soft-shelled variety from Tiesuo, northwest of the city), cloth, shoes, mountain herbs, silver ornaments, tools and crockery. 

Yi in Dayao for market day

Santai Yi girl

       Most sellers and shoppers were Han, but the Yi formed a sizable percentage and their traditionally dressed women brightened up the crowd scene.  Most of the Yi were from villages to the east and south of the city, the females dressed in long-sleeved, pastel-colored blouses, black vests, black turbans, plain trousers and a short, thick apron embroidered with big flowers.  Some may also wear a goatskin vest, a characteristic garment of Yi in Chuxiong prefecture.

       Both men and women wear these. They make them from the skins of two goats, expertly stitched together, that reach to the knees, hang open in the front and, though worn all year round, last for several years.  In the cooler months they tend to wear the fur side against the body and the leather side out.  When it rains they reverse the vest and wear the fur side out.

Santai on market day

       A few of the Yi will be from sub-groups north or west of the city.  The most colorful outfit belongs to the Yi women around Santai, to the west.  They wear the brightest blouses in the area, appliquéd with many rows and bands elaborately embroidered with flowers and arabesques.  They accent this with several long silk aprons in front, of graduated sizes, different hues and patterns.  This is worn over ordinary trousers and shoes and usually topped, incongruously, with an olive green army cap. 

       Santai lies along a junction of two streams west of Tanhua Mountain, surrounded by high hills.  On the 28^th day of the 3^rd lunar month Yi in this area celebrate Fuzhuangjie, the Dressing Up Festival, also known as the Yi Fashion Show.  On this occasion they show off the best traditional clothes they own, gather in Santai town for an all-day market scene, then go to nearby Guola village on the hill above at night for several hours of singing and dancing.

Tanhua market day

       Yi from Tanhua district, directly north of Dayao, may also be in Dayao for market day, but in fewer numbers, for Tanhua also holds its market day on Sunday.  And while there may be a few Han merchants from Dayao and Shiyang in attendance, here the crowd is overwhelmingly local Yi.  The village lies on the southern slope of a ridge, dappled with peach and pear trees.  Just beyond the lower part of the village are a small cave and a modest waterfall. 

       Tanhua houses are typical of rural Yunnan, made from mud-brick and wood, with tiled roofs, two stories, on stone foundations.  The interior walls are often stone, the floor earthen and the wooden doors and shutters might feature carvings.  The people raise wheat, maize, beans, buckwheat and potatoes and tend goats, the main meat dish in the area. 

Yi at his doorstep, Suimo village

       Higher than Dayao, the weather is always cooler and one local Yi custom I learned on a fairly cold, drizzly, pre-market morning when invited inside to “come sit by the fire a while.”  The Yi here always keep live coals in the hearth so that they can get a fire flaming quickly when they come back inside.   My gracious hostess served me tea and warm, unleavened wheat bread until the rain ceased and people had begun arriving for the market.

       Tanhua market day differs from those around Dali or in Ailaoshan, where the great majority of the people in attendance are women.  Here, as in other market day venues I witnessed in the county, as many men show up as women.  Trails lead out of Tanhua in several directions and a couple villages are visible from the upper end of Tanhua.  But many of those who come hail from places three or four hours away and leave home as soon as it’s light enough to see the path. 

       Unlike Tanhua, where the women seem to compete with each other to see who can wear the most gorgeous outfit, the Yi in Tanhua market were not quite so inclined.  They have a traditional ensemble that is at least as attractive as Santai’s, but most of them rarely wear more than a few elements of it for market day.  For sure this will include the goatskin vest, but also, like the vest used by both sexes, intricately embroidered, fringed and heavily tasseled shoulder bags.  They are fairly large and their bright colors contrast sharply against the dark goat fur of the vest over which they are draped.

Tanhua Yi shoulder bag 

       The embroidery on every shoulder bag is unique, and they can be of any color, but the overall design follows an ancient tradition, in which the patterns and their arrangement have symbolic, religious significance.  The central motif represents the sky god, the paramount deity in local Yi religion.  He is the first god worshiped in any ceremony and his permission must be sought before the Yi honor any other deity in their pantheon, which includes gods of the mountains, the forests, hunting, autumn, grain and marriage.

       The blocks and patterns around the central motif represent the yin-yang principle.  Lines that divide the inner patterns from the outer ones are known as tiger paths.  Various trees, stars and other motifs fill the area beyond the tiger paths.  Several tassels hang on each side where the strap meets the bag and a long fringe, of one or several colors, is attached to the bottom.  Great variation exists in the patterns, colors and motifs deployed and some women achieve a high degree of artistic talent making them.  Since the bags are always in public view, with people constantly comparing and evaluating them, reputations for fine embroidery get established.  One can ask who is the best embroiderer in the village and be given a name at once.

       To embroider their bags the women use the cross-stitch style, in which the motifs consist of tiny x’s.  For their long-sleeved, side-fastened, hip-length jackets the decorative strips use a more pictorial style, with rows of flowers, whorls and arabesques, similar to the Santai style.  They can be just as lavishly embellished as the latter, though the dominant background color is usually red or blue rather than golden yellow.

Yi woman in Tanhua

the Yi style in Tanhua

       The main stylistic difference from the Santai outfit is the combination bib-apron worn over the jacket, with large, fist-sized flowers embroidered on the lower part.  An ornamented silver chain holds the top part around the neck, while a belt, with several embroidered cloth tabs attached, fastens it in the back.  Rather than an army cap the women wear black turbans lined with rows of silver studs in front and the tail ends elaborately embroidered and fringed at the ends.  They tie it in a way that shows off the ends and add a few thread tassels above the right ear.  In the village environment of shades of brown and green, the traditional Tanhua outfit stands out in resplendent contrast.

       While the entire ensemble is not part of everyday wearing apparel, it is all but obligatory for major public events like weddings and festivals.  Besides important Han events like New Year and Qing Ming, Yi villages in the county also stage their own Torch Festival programs.  But one event—Chahuajie-- draws Yi from all over the area to Tanhuashan, the 3657-meter high mountain just above Tanhua village.  Held the 8^th day of the 2^nd lunar month, its name translates as Putting Up Flowers, honoring the ancient Yi heroine Miyilu and is also celebrated in other parts of the prefecture by other Yi sub-groups, albeit with a slightly different story behind it.

belt tabs at the back of the apron

       Long ago a powerful, wicked lord kept demanding young Yi women for his depraved pleasure until the brave Miyilu offered herself in marriage, intending to slay him in the process.  According to the Yi in the hills close to Chuxiong, Miyilu killed the tyrant on the wedding night and fled.  But his relatives caught up with her and murdered her beside a white camellia tree.  Her blood stained the roots and the camellia has been red ever since.  The Tanhua version has her offering to marry him while pinning a poisonous azalea flower to her hair.  She asks the lord to join him in a drink, secretly poisons the liquor with the azalea and when they imbibe they both die.

       In commemoration the Yi mount azaleas and camellias on their doorways and then assemble in a grove on the slope of Tanhuashan.  There they witness rites conducted by their bimaw (ritual specialist), watch a dramatic re-enactment of the tale, a different Tanhua girl playing the part of Miyilu every year, then make flower wreaths, break up into groups for feasting and in the evening indulge in singing and dancing, featuring boys playing the ‘moon guitar’ and girls singing in high-pitched, undulating voices, until long past midnight.  It’s a welcome break from their ordinary life of farming and herding and a proud re-affirmation of their Yi identity.

the traditional style in Tanhua

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