There are many festivals in the Yao people, and there are big festivals and small festivals. The big festivals are Panwang Festival, Spring Festival, Danu Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, Shewang Festival, Qingming Festival, etc., and small festivals are almost every month.
The Danu Festival of the Yao people in Du'an, Guangxi, is relatively solemn, and it is said that it is a festival commemorating the struggle of the ancestors against toast. PanWang Festival, commonly known as "Jumping Pan King" and "Returning Pan King Wish". It is held every 35 years on the 16th day of the 10th lunar month, and is usually carried out by one household, several households or one village. The main ceremony is performed by the Master dancing the god prayer, singing the song of the pan king, dancing the long encouragement, and praying the blessing of the pan king (pan urn).
Panwang Festival, generally a festival of the Yao people who call themselves "Mian Zhi", is very solemn. The Yao people's own festivals include panwang festival, spring festival festival, Danu festival, juggling hall, and banging festival. In the festival, because there are many people, rice is generally not cooked in an iron pot, but steamed with wood Zhen, which has a stronger aroma. Every festival. The Yao family also has to make rice dumplings. Festive dishes are mainly chicken, duck, fish, pork, tofu, vermicelli and various vegetables. The Yao people of the Wuling Mountains like to make tofu rounds during the festival and wrap "lotus bandage". Panwang Festival is held only once every few years. In the past, during the Panwang Festival, livestock were slaughtered in large quantities and sacrificed.
The festival is held every year, usually in the third month of the lunar calendar, when young men go up the mountain to hunt and go down the river to catch fish; Women are to wrap rice dumplings and steam five-colored sticky rice. In the evening of the Chinese New Year's Eve Hua Basket Yao must first give a piece of meat and a ball of rice to the dog to eat, called the sacrificial dog, and then the family can eat. They believe that the grain species was brought by the dog, and the sacrifice of the dog was a pre-prayer for the abundance of grain. Festive dishes should be colorful, in addition to chicken, there are also river fresh and hunted mountain fowl game and tofu. In some places, the Yao people also cook black rice on the eighth festival of April.
In Jiangshui County, Hunan Province, Yao girls eat flower eggs, make flower dumplings, and eat flower sugar every year when the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar celebrates the "Picnic Festival". When the girls ate flower eggs, flower candy and flower sticks, the boys were not allowed to peek, and the offenders were punished. Jugetang is a large-scale entertainment activity for Liannan PaiYao to worship ancestors and celebrate harvests, mostly after the 16th day of the 10th month of the lunar calendar, and the length of time varies, about 3-9 days.
At that time, the family will be equipped with water wine, glutinous rice and rice to entertain guests, many Yao young men and women will take the opportunity to choose the right person, once the men and women are in agreement, the parents of both sides can say goodbye through the matchmaker, and take pork and wine as gifts. When the wedding is held, a large feast is held, and according to the traditional custom, the wedding banquet must be attended by the village elders, and the bride and groom must drink a cup of wine.