Yi Torch Festival: Liangshan's 'Oriental Carnival' of Fire
Some time in late July or early August, the mountain prefecture of Liangshan in southwest Sichuan turns orange. Tens of thousands of pine torches are lit at once; bonfires taller than houses crackle in town squares; and strangers grab your hands and pull you into a spinning circle. This is the Yi Torch Festival (火把节, Huǒbǎ Jié) — so exuberant that Chinese writers long ago nicknamed it the "Oriental Carnival."
For the Yi, one of China's largest ethnic minorities, the Torch Festival is what Spring Festival is to the Han: the year's central gathering. It falls on the 24th (or 25th) day of the sixth lunar month, and in Liangshan it is a statutory local holiday that in some years stretches to eight consecutive days — longer than National Day.
Why Fire?
The Yi are a mountain people, and fire has always been survival: warmth against the cold, light against the dark, a weapon against pests. The festival's oldest layer is a harvest rite. Families lit torches and walked them through rooms and fields to drive away insects, disease and misfortune, then scattered the ash on the soil as fertiliser. In a region where crops are hard-won, fire was both protection and prayer.
"Fire represents the sun, and signifies warmth, bravery and beauty." — from folk accounts of the Yi Torch Festival
Two Peoples, Two Legends
What makes the Torch Festival unusual is that the same flame carries two opposite stories. The Yi version is a victory: a strongman hero named Atilaba (or Atlaba) defeats an invader sent from heaven; the defeated gods retaliate by sending locusts, so the people cut pine into torches and burn the pests out of the fields, saving the harvest.
The Bai version, told around Dali in neighbouring Yunnan, is a funeral. Roughly 1,300 years ago, the ambitious ruler Piluoge invited rival chiefs to a pine-tower banquet and burned them alive. A loyal woman, Baijie, recognised the plot too late to save her husband; she is honoured by the torches. Two readings, 400 kilometres apart, survive side by side.
Historical records of torch-lighting among Yi and related groups reach back to the Han (206 BC–AD 220) and Tang (618–907) dynasties, and the festival was inscribed on China's first national intangible cultural heritage list on May 20, 2006.
Three Movements of the Festival
Traditionally the celebration runs in three acts:
- Welcoming the fire — households clean house, make offerings to ancestors, and a bimo (Yi ritual specialist) lights the first flame.
- Playing with the fire — the daytime spectacle: horse racing, wrestling, bullfighting, sheep and cockfighting; women in pleated skirts and silver headdresses dance the duoluohe.
- Sending off the fire — small torches carried through fields and around homes to purify the land and carry away bad luck.
The bonfire party is the emotional peak. To the beat of drums and the yueqin (moon lute), circles expand as strangers join. Silver ornaments flash; skirts swirl. As one foreign visitor in Xichang put it, "even though you don't know these people, they kind of become your family."
The Sports and the Style
The Torch Festival is also a showcase of Yi skill. Wrestling and horse racing recall a herding and warrior past; bullfighting draws huge crowds. The clothing is the other headline: hand-embroidered jackets, pleated skirts, and headdresses heavy with silver — each pattern a marker of identity and region.
In modern Liangshan the festival has been scaled into a flagship cultural-tourism event. Xichang, the prefectural capital, stages an opening ceremony with hundreds of dancers, fire-themed light shows and, in recent years, a music festival bolted onto the ancient rite. In 2026 the prefecture ran 98 Torch Festival events across its 17 counties; the 2025 season drew more than 16.5 million visits and over 14 billion yuan in spending.
A Living Heritage Under Pressure
Tourism brings money but also change. Researchers note that ritual sequences have shortened, performances are more staged, and night markets now line the bonfire squares. Yet the core — fire, communal gathering, reverence for ancestors and harvest — survives. In villages such as Butuo and Yuexi you can still find small bonfires where Yi families sing late into the night.
The Torch Festival embodies the Yi people's reverence for fire and nature, and their wish for a good harvest and a peaceful life. — Xinhua
If you visit, expect to be pulled into the dance whether you know the steps or not. That is the point: the fire does not ask who you are. It only asks that you join.
Sources
- China.org.cn / Beijing Review — "Torch festival in Liangshan" (national ICH, May 20, 2006)
- Xinhua, "Torch Festival flames light up more benefits in SW China" (Aug 2026)
- OlaChina; Wikipedia (Torch Festival)