New Rice Festival of Wa Ethnic Minority in Ximeng County, Puer
Overview and Introduction
- Chinese Name: 西盟县佤族新米节/迎新谷节
- English Name: New Rice Festival of Wa Ethnic Minority in Ximeng County, Puer
Every fourteenth day of the eighth lunar month is the traditional New Rice Festival, men and women of Wa people in new festival clothing with a lot of feature food (new rice, steamed sticky rice, cooked chicken rice, bamboo worm, tilefish, yellow fruit, etc.), packed by red thread for themselves or for the guests. On this day all people in the village gather on the village square for traditional activities including “cattle slicing for sacrificial offering”, new grain celebration, new rice eating, bullfight, wrestling, hunting, wooden drum dragging etc.
Activities
In the evening, they light bonfires, beat wooden drums, fire celebration salvo, blow lusheng, bamboo flute, play the three-string sanxian, traditional wooden drum dance, hair-swing dance and singing carnival activities. In addition the young, taking advantage of this festival day, look for companion and spread love, wishing for everlasting relationship.
The carnival goes overnight in dancing and singing, food tasting, drinking to celebrate harvest and to “communicate” with the heaven, and to pray for good crop weather, safety of human and animals and good harvest for the next year. These activities during the New Rice Festival generally last for three days.
