Torch Festival

The return of the stars

The Torch Festival, Huoba jie, is one of the main holidays of the Yi people of southwest China, and is also celebrated by the Bai, Hani, Lahu, Naxi and Pumi. Its other name, Xinghui jie, means “the return of the stars”. Some scholars trace it to an old calendar of ten months of thirty-six days used by the Bai and Yi, in which two “star-returning” festivals, in winter and summer, both counted as the New Year; the summer one was lit by torches. A popular legend tells of the wrestler Atilabia, who drove away a plague of locusts with torches of pine.

Torches, fire and dance

Preparations can begin a month ahead, when people gather wormwood for torches; around Liangshan it is believed to ward off evil. Traditionally every family lights torches, carries them into each corner of the house and around the fields, and some villages hold torch parades to drive away bad luck and pray for a good harvest. Then comes the bonfire, with the moon guitar and the three-stringed sanxian, singing and dancing through the night. Houses are cleaned, people wear their finest clothes, beef is eaten for good luck, and there is wrestling, horse racing and bullfighting.

Since 1993 the government of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture has organised a large public celebration. In 2026 the first fire was lit in Puge County on 19 July: a bimo, a Yi ritual specialist, lit the main torch and handed it to young people, six hundred women danced the duolehe with yellow umbrellas, and the night ended with thousands of torches and the dati dance around the bonfires.