About Yunnan
Story of Ashimais spread in the Yi Autonomous County, in Shilin of Yunnan Province. It is a long narrative poem of Sani people who are a tributary of the Yi ethnic group. People narrate or sing the story of Ashima with oral poem language. The story of Ashima fighting against the power forces with great fortitude reveals human thoughts, namely, darkness will be replaced by light, evil will be replaced by virtue and oppression and bondage will be replaced by freedom. It reflects the ethnic characters and spirits which is that Sani people prefer to die rather than surrender...
Guozhuang Dance, also named as "Guozhuo", "Gezhuang' and "Zhuo", means "singing and dancing in a circle" in the Tibet language. It is one of the three major Tibetan folk dances distributed in the Tibetan inhabitation areas of Qamdo and Nakchu of Tibet, Ngawa and Garze of Sichuan, Diqing of Yunnan, Qinghai and Gansu. Guozhuang can be divided into several categories, for instance, "Big Guozhang" performed in the large religious sacrificial ceremony, "Middle Guozhuang" performed in the traditional folk festivals and "Small Guozhuang" performed in the friends" party. In addition, it also can be divided into "Mass Guozhuang" and "Lama Guozhuang", "Town Guozhuang" and "Agricultural Guozhuang"...
Wooden Drum Dance is a folk dance popular in southwest of Miao, Li and Wa ethnic groups. In the time of sacrificial rite, they will dance while beating the wooden drum. The drum shapes are cut from the natural trunk and hollowed out inside. The general wooden drum dance is one part of large sacrificial rite ceremony participated by the whole ethnic people. Wooden drum is regarded as the symbol of ethnic group. The sacrificial rite ceremony of beating wooden drum and dancing is full of morals to their strong worships of ancestors and nature, having obvious characteristics of primitive culture..
The Bronze Drum Dance is one of the most widespread and most influential ancient dances among Zhuang and Yi ethnic groups in Wenshan, Zhuang and Miao Ethnic Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. It is distributed in Zhuang and Yi villages of Guangnan, Malipo, Funing, Xichou, Maguan and Qiubei counties. Nevertheless, the most representative bronze drum is in the Zhuang and Yi ethnic groups of Guangnan County, Xinzhai Village of Malipo County and several Bailuo subsidiaries of Muyang village, Funing County.
Dongba Scripture Paintings include Dongba pictures and characters, cover pictures, sutra title pages and illustrations. Dongba wooden plate painting is painted on a simple-made wooden plate which is mainly used in sacrificial ceremonies and has a source relation with "figure wooden plate" of ancient Qiang people in the southwest of Han dynasty. It takes coarse and rugged handmade papers as carriers which fall into tow categories; one is used for drawing gods, or stand in the altar for people to pray or put on priest's head and the other for painting anthology or guideline of painters or textbook of painting inheritors...
Tie-dyeing, a kind of ancient textile dyeing technique, was called "Jiao xie" in ancient time. So far, this kind of traditional technique is remaining in the ZhouCheng village, the Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan City and Taicang and Miaojie of Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County. The Bai Tie dyeing industry in Zhoucheng village is the most famous and named as "National Tie-dyeing hometown" by Ministry of Culture..
The Torch Festival in June 24th of lunar calendar is the most grand and most magnificent festival full of national characteristics. In the ancient time, the Torch Festival is also called Xinghui Festival. Some scholars think that the festival is an annual festival celebrated in ten months calendar by Yi nationality. It is also the New Year of the first half year so that it is also called celebrating New Year...
Water-splashing festival is also known as "Buddha's Birth Day" which is called "Bimai" (New Year) in the Day language. Dai People in Dehong region of Xishuang Banna also call it "Shanghan" and "Shangjian" which are originated from Sanskrit and mean turnover, alteration and transmission and New Year's coming. The water-splashing Festival is celebrated by Achang, De'ang, Bulang and Wa ethnic groups and some countries like Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and Laos...
Dongba paper of Naxi is also known as Baidi paper, made by unique technique and now is stored in the Baidi Village of Naxi County, Shangri-La County of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Region. Baidi (Baishuitai) is the origin of Dongba culture. Dongba paper is the most important writing paper popular in the northwest of Yunnan...