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My Visit to the Torch Festival  by Brook Song
I n Liáng Shān (凉山) there are many Nuosu Yi people. But not all
are in Xīchāng （西昌）. Only a little ways out of Xichang there are
mountains! In these mountains there are small towns and villages. Many of the Yi in Xichang come from these towns looking for work.
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A Nuosu Yi girl flashes a smile.

Torch Festival, Huǒ Bǎ Jié （火把节), is a very important Yi festival. Once at the Torch Festival, my mom and I went to one of these towns. It is called BùTuō (布拖). Our friends were staying in a hotel, but there wasn't room for mom and me so we stayed at the house of a friend who lived there.

On the night of the festival, mom and I went to the torch plaza and walked for a while, then we found the other foreigners and went to the stadium. It was crowded and we had trouble finding seats. Finally we were given seats up on the stands.

We went back out after a while. As it got darker, we saw men wearing traditional vests and women dressed in traditional many-colored skirts and much silver. Some people wore hats of felt and silver carrying bundles of sticks and holding them out to the sides. These bundles are torches. There is a legend that once demons

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Traditional Nuosu Yi skirts.
killed the plants of the Yi people. They waved fire over the crops and in this way killed the demons. The Yi do this once every year.

Once the torches were lit, mom took me inside the hotel because she was afraid of the fire. Lightning, thunder, rain! In a flash there were almost no torches lit. The streets were packed with people trying to get home and under cover. Mom and I got home okay. Mom had brought an umbrella for sun, but we used it for rain.

The next day we would go home. I was very sick but that couldn't be helped. I felt even worse on the bus, but then better again when I got safely in my familiar bed. If you come during a Yi holiday, you may want to try a village as well.