In Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, every year at the beginning of the second lunar month, the Yi people hold a ceremony to regard fire as the spirit of all things.
On this day, tens of thousands of ethnic minorities gather in Hongwan Village to sing and dance, and hold wrestling or song and dance competitions. Finally, everyone danced wildly around the fire god, hoping that the fire god would bless the next year with a good harvest. This is the ancient and mysterious Ashi Festival of Fire.
The Yi people are one of the ethnic groups with a long history and ancient culture in China, and the Yi people have been widely distributed in the southwest region of China. Every year on the third day of the second month of the lunar calendar, a grand and wonderful fire festival is held. It is said that of all the Yi settlements in China, only this village has continued this ritual of fire sacrifice. Therefore, the fire sacrifice in Hongwan Village has been called a living fossil of China's fire culture by literary historians, and people also call it the Oriental Carnival. Every Yi family has a fire pond that has been going on for many years, and the more the fire pond burns, the more prosperous the family can be.
From the naming ceremony of being born by the fire pond to the final cremation, they have been accompanied by fire all their lives, a people who worship fire. The Axi people are a huge branch of the Yi people, and it is they who have passed on the ritual of sacrificing fire for thousands of years.
Legend has it that the ancestors of the ancient Yi people often encountered the danger of hunger and cold when hunting in the primeval forest in the era when there was no fire. In order to bring warmth and light to his compatriots, an ancestor known as Mu Deng drilled on the decaying wood for three days and three nights, and finally obtained the fire. With the fire, the villagers have since escaped the barbaric era of Ru Mao drinking blood, so Mu Deng, who brought the sacred fire, was revered as the fire god by the ancestors of the Yi people.
In order to sacrifice the fire god ceremony, people first create a fire god statue, this fire god will hold a torch and paint the body with bright oil paint to appear in the fire sacrifice ceremony, becoming the object of people's sacrifice. Vulcan is tall, has a strong body, and prominent features.
In addition, Vulcan is like a painted oil paint, each color has a special meaning. For example, black represents desire, yellow represents the moon, red symbolizes fire, and brown symbolizes the earth. The many colors show that the Ashi people are a multi-god people, and the culture of worshiping the fire god is long and mysterious.
Before the official start of the sacrifice to the god of fire, there is also a mysterious sacrifice that only men can participate in. The altar of sacrifice was set up in the densely planted forest next to Hongwan Village, and suddenly out of nowhere, several people dressed in oil paint and almost naked appeared. Armed with long wooden knives and shouting loudly in their mouths, they gathered together and slaughtered a black pig as a tribute, presiding over the sacrifice of the red wan village. He was the leader of the Yi clan tribe. For all the sacrifices carried out in the village, a person who is the avoider of the devil must preside over the sacrifice. The object of worship of the ceremony is the god who blesses the water and soil of this side.
People seem to use this ritual sacrifice as a warm-up before officially defeating the Vulcan. The main place of worship for the Vulcan is under one of the stout trees in Hongwan Village, which is called the Vulcan Tree.
The ceremony began, and the absolutists as sacrifices began to recite the scriptures, and many people painted in oil paint and almost naked appeared under the Vulcan tree, singing and dancing indulgently. I saw a few multicolored men using a thin rod to constantly rotate on a piece of wood, doing the action of drilling wood for fire, and the rest of the multicolored people around them kept cheering and cheering.
On the day when the Ashi people sacrifice fire, no matter what the weather is, Ashi will not be inched, which is also to commemorate the ancestors who once obtained the fire bare-chested, which recreates the celebration scene that occurred after the arrival of the fire in the Axi tribe.
The Vulcan statue, the protagonist of the sacrifice, finally appeared, and several multicolored people carried the Vulcan statue to the tree. When the drill is hot, the team of men who send fire to the god of fire will hold up the fire god and transmit the newly drilled fire seeds to every household in the village to sacrifice the fire.
The highlight is the spacious square in the center of the village, where newly drilled tinders are sent to light firewood that has long been prepared, and people dance feverishly around the burning fire to the sound of lively firecrackers.
This is a grand fire sacrifice ceremony, which seems to be the reproduction of the scene of ancient human life by the Assi people. The beating flame is the sustenance of all good wishes for the Yi people.
In ancient times, it was precisely because of learning to use fire that ancient humans came out of the original wilderness and entered the highest level of civilization. In this way, the Assi people recreate the carnival of this distant civilization to awaken people's memories of their ancestors.