Traditional to the Yi people, the Flower Arrangement Festival is tinted with a strong Yi flavor, and is grandly celebrated in the Tanhua mountainous region of Dayao County, Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

On the festival, which falls on February 8 of every lunar year, richly dressed local people, with a bamboo basket on their back and beaming with pleasure, can be seen scattered all over the mountain, busily picking Albizzia julibrissin flowers (from a kind of Asian silk tree), which are later used to decorate farm tools, shrines, and the doors, windows, and the surrounding areas of the people's respective house. Sometimes, flower-capped sheds are set up over the main paths, turning the whole village into an ocean of flowers. On that day, the locals even dress the cows with flowers, wash their mouths with salty water, and then drive them onto the mountain. Singing and dancing together in their splendid attire, the Yi people also present the flowers to others, expressing their best wishes for a healthy and prosperous year.

In celebration of the festival, hens and cattle are killed, and glutinous rice cake made in every household. As night falls, the whole village gathers around a bonfire, singing and dancing among the bursts of joyous Lusheng (a reed-pipe wind instrument) music. While the young people dance around the bonfire hand in hand, the elder squat under big trees, smoking, drinking, eating, and talking freely and cheerfully.

For the young people in love, the Flower Arrangement Festival is also a day of love when flowers are presented as an engagement gift. Usually, the young man puts fresh camellia flowers on the head of the girl he is in love with, who in return will adore the man's Lusheng with Albizzia julibrissin flowers, expressing their passionate affection towards each other.

  A tale about the festival

A long time ago, the world was drenched in a flood, sparing only a brother and his younger sister, who survived by hiding in a wax-sealed gourd. Having floated inside the gourd in the flood for several days, they arrived at a place of nowhere.

One day, the flood began to recede, and the mountains and trees gradually appeared. Soon the gourd rested on a big branch. An eagle, while flying over the top of a mountain, caught sight of the gourd and heard sounds coming from the inside. Thinking there might be someone alive inside, the eagle grasped the gourd and placed it atop the mountain.

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Author: Jessie

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