Lijiang celebrates Sanduo Festival to honor Naxi tradition

Sanduo Festival is a grand traditional festival of the Naxi people in which they worship their ethnic patron saint "Sanduo", the guardian and protector of the Naxi people in their times of need.

The festival fell on March 24 this year, and started with a solemn ritual – the sacrifice in Lijiang's Yulong Naxi autonomous region, where a selection of symbolic animals was slaughtered to the Naxi god and a series of traditional instruments performances and a bowing ceremony were staged.

A band made up of inheritors of Naxi traditional instruments goes on stage to celebrate this year's Sanduo Festival on March 24. [Photo by He Hongyan/xinhuanet.com]

The celebration will last until March 30 with a merry variety of entertainment and trade activities like a traditional temple fair, ethnic singing and dancing, and a picnic and interchange of goods; all of which are followed by the rites worshiping Sanduo.

Naxi, wrapped in sheep skin and adorned with seven round embroidered discs symbolizing seven stars, gather together to celebrate their folk tradition.

The opening of the festival attracted visitors from all over the country wishing to experience the different beliefs, traditions and histories of this China's unique ethnic groups.

Locals wearing Naxi traditional costumes perform at the Sanduo Festival. [Photo by He Jingyi/xinhuanet.com]

"The purpose of commemorating Sanduo is to inherit and carry forward our excellent traditional ethnic culture and to invigorate our spirits of unyielding and progress," said Liu Yanchao, an official of the Yulong Naxi autonomous county.

The festival itself dates back more than 1,200 years and is one of the symbolic folk events held in Lijiang, Yunnan province. It has been listed as a Yunnan intangible cultural heritage project.

The festival attracts visitors from all over the country wishing to experience the different beliefs, traditions and histories of one of China's unique ethnic groups. [Photo by He Jingyi/xinhuanet.com]