AngMaTu (Dragon Worship) Festival of Hani Ethnic Minority in Jinping County, Honghe
Overview
- Chinese Name: 金平县哈尼族昂玛突节
- English Name: AngMaTu (Dragon Worship) Festival of Hani Ethnic Minority in Jinping County, Honghe
- Location: Dalaotang Village of Jinhe Town in Jinping County, Honghe
AngMaTu (Dragon Worship) Festival in Jinping County is held in Dalaotang Village of Jinhe Town.
The Hani Ethnic Group’s Angma Tu Festival is the grandest festival of the Hani people, held annually before the spring plowing begins (usually in mid-January). It is a sacrificial event that prays for favorable weather, abundant harvests, and the safety of people and livestock in the coming year. With the progression of time, this activity has evolved into the most significant festival of the Hani people.
Angma Tu Festival
The “Angma Tu” festival is generally held for 3 to 5 days. During the event, the passionate and lively Hani people, young and old, gather in circles to joyfully dance and sing about their beautiful lives. There can be more than 300 tables set up for street banquets, stretching for hundreds of meters, which is why it’s also called the Long Dragon Banquet. At the banquet, the village’s respected elderly men sit at the front, while women sit at the back, and the rest of the people sit in the middle. The entire village drinks homemade rice wine and enjoys dishes carefully prepared by each household. The atmosphere is not only a competition in culinary skills, full of warmth and community spirit, but it also showcases the unity of the Hani people. If you happen to be here during this time, the hospitable Hani people will warmly invite you to sit and share in their wonderful life together.
Every year, on the 1st day of the 12th lunar month (around October 10 in the Gregorian calendar), is the Spring Festival for the Haniz ethnic group in Habao Village, Ezhai Township, Yuanyang County—known as the Angma Tu Festival. This festival is a time for the Hani people to worship the village god and pray to the dragon for rain. On the eve of the festival, the village head sets up an altar in the central Dragon Forest at the entrance of the village, where a dragon pig without mixed colors is slaughtered to invite the dragon to celebrate with everyone. After the prayers, the head of the village cuts the dragon pig meat into as many pieces as there are households in the village and distributes it for everyone to enjoy.
Long Street Banquet
The Long Street Ancient Banquet, as a tradition of the Hani “October Year,” is a feast of blessings. Thus, people of different skin colors and from different countries come with good wishes, like pilgrims, to participate in the annual Long Street Ancient Banquet, enjoying the “blessed” foods that symbolize health and longevity. People request a sip of holy water from the “divine seat” of Migu, holding chopsticks in hand, and they eat from the ‘dragon head’ to the ‘dragon tail’ along the street, wishing one another good fortune, prosperity, peace, and happiness.
On the second day of the Angma Tu Festival, every family prepares nearly 40 varieties of traditional Hani dishes, including yellow glutinous rice, three-color eggs, pork, chicken, fish, duck meat, beef jerky, goat jerky, shredded meat, and peanuts, along with wine, and sets up their tables in the designated street area—each family having one or two tables. The tables line up along the street, creating a banquet that stretches over 700 meters, known locally as the Long Dragon Banquet or Street Center Feast, which is the longest banquet in China.
During the banquet setting, the sound of gongs and drums fills the air, creating a lively atmosphere. Men, women, and children dress in festive attire, bringing their daughters and helping the elderly, gathering from all directions to take their seats. When entering, the host (the village head) sits in the main seat, while others voluntarily arrange themselves around the long table based on gender, age, and interests. When dishes from each household are brought to the table, they are first presented to the village head for tasting, accepting his genuine toast. The village head takes portions from each dish and mixes them together before distributing them to others; this mixed dish symbolizes the unity of the village in worshiping the gods and welcoming the dragon together for the festival.
As the Long Street Banquet begins, the village head leads everyone in raising their glasses in a toast for favorable weather in the coming year. All participants take their first bite of the dragon pig meat cut into small pieces by each household sitting at the central table, indicating that the dragon has entered their hearts, after which they eat other dishes. If tourists happen to encounter the Long Street Banquet, people will readily give up their seats and welcome you to join. Each year, around 4,000 people participate in the Long Street Banquet, with hosts and guests dining, drinking, and exchanging blessings joyfully. During the banquet, elders take advantage of the joyful atmosphere to pull out various musical instruments to sing and dance. After eating and drinking, young men and women may venture into the bamboo forest to express love and affection. The festivities last until 5 PM, when the village head beats the drum, parading under the dragon tree, as everyone claps their hands to send the dragon home. At night, as the banquet winds down, young men and women sing and dance, engaging in romance, continuing throughout the night. Such activities occur for three days and nights.
The Angma Tu Festival reveals the Hani people’s understanding of water and their worship of the dragon within their agricultural culture, while also reflecting the hardworking, simple, and mutually supportive traditional virtues of the Hani people.
