Kuoshi Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Kuoshi Festival was brought in when the ancestors of the Lisu migrated en masse to the Nujiang River valley, and it has a history of more than a thousand years. In 1990, the Kuoshi Festival was designated a local statutory festival with a three-day holiday.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Kuoshi Festival is an annual traditional festival of the Lisu people and the most grand ethnic festival of Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture. “Kuoshi” is Lisu: ku means “year” and shi means “new,” so kuoshi means “new year.” The Lisu Kuoshi Festival corresponds to the Han “Spring Festival.” Because customs and calendars differ slightly from place to place, the timing of the festival varies; it is basically set between the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month and the tenth day of the first month of the following year, generally beginning on a day of the dragon. In a few places, the blossoming of the cherry trees is used as the marker for setting the date of the Kuoshi Festival. Every Lisu household celebrates the Kuoshi Festival. Its folk activities during the festival include: on the first day, glutinous rice or millet is pounded into cakes called xianmi baba; these cakes are an important food and sacrificial offering during the Lisu Kuoshi Festival, and generally the first cake pounded is given to the dog to eat, in gratitude for the grain seed the dog brought to humanity. On the second day, the New Year pig is slaughtered; before sunset that day every household washes up, and an elder presides over a blessing and sacrificial rite whose content is to sweep away the old and welcome the new, praying for favorable weather in the coming year, and the offerings for the third day are prepared. On the third day, ancestors and the tripod are offered to; folk legend holds that on this day the souls of the ancestors come to the world of the living to enjoy the offerings in their relatives' homes, and the tripod is the god that guards Lisu households, so on this day every Lisu household holds rites of ancestor worship and tripod worship, praying for the protection of ancestors and gods. On that day, taboos include going out, killing living things, spending money, and washing; from the fourth day on, people may visit relatives and friends, hold weddings, and gather on threshing grounds or open spaces for distinctive recreational and athletic activities such as antiphonal singing, dancing, crossbow shooting, and swinging. The Lisu people help one another and interact frequently, preserving the fine tradition of unity with which the Lisu met various challenges in historical times; the Kuoshi Festival is an important bond maintaining ethnic cohesion. Since 2005, the Kuoshi Festival celebrations have been elevated to the “China Nujiang Lisu Kuoshi Tourism and Culture Festival”; the Kuoshi Festival is now both a traditional festival of the Lisu and an important folk festival of all the ethnic groups of the prefecture.
Pounding the glutinous rice cake
On the first day glutinous or millet rice is pounded into cakes; the first portion is set before the dog as a token of thanks before the rest is shared.
Slaughtering the new-year pig and the elder's blessing
On the second day households wash before sunset and an elder leads a rite for a fair year ahead, while the pig is killed and the grain counted for the coming offerings.
Ancestor worship and the rite for the tripod stand
The third day centres on welcoming ancestral spirits to the family's offerings and honouring the spirit of the tripod stand, with taboos on leaving home, killing, spending and washing.
The gathering of song, archery and swing
From the fourth day taboos are lifted and young people gather at the drying ground to sing, dance, shoot crossbows and swing, and weddings are often held in these same days.
Fixing the date by the dragon day and blossoming cherries
No fixed calendar day is used; most villages begin on an auspicious dragon day while others wait for the cherry blossom, so neighbouring villages may keep different new years.
The Nujiang Lisu Kuushi tourism festival
From 2005 the observance was raised to a prefectural tourism festival, on top of the earlier legal three-day holiday, making it a festival of the whole prefecture.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Kuoshi Festival is mainly distributed in Lisu settlements in the four counties (cities) of Lushui City, Fugong County, Gongshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous County, and Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County of Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, and in the settlements of the Lemo people, a Bai branch in Lushui City, and of the Nu people in Fugong; it is also found in parts of Lisu settlements in Longyang District and Tengchong City of Baoshan City, Yulong Naxi Autonomous County of Lijiang City, Weixi Lisu Autonomous County of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Yingjiang and Lianghe counties of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. The Kuoshi Festival has a long history, deep cultural accumulation, and a broad area of transmission; it is an important vehicle for the continuation of Lisu traditional culture and a necessary platform for its display.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The series of activities held each year serves as a good vehicle for the popularization and transmission of Lisu traditional culture. The various activities of the Kuoshi Festival are a concentrated expression of Lisu traditional culture, covering production, diet, costume, art, religion, and other fields, and are an important basis for studying the history of Lisu ethnic development and Lisu culture. The Kuoshi Festival gathers practices scattered across the villages of the Nujiang gorge into the same stretch of time: pounding cakes, slaughtering the New Year pig, and worshipping the tripod are otherwise scattered through the year and concentrated into only a few days; whose cakes are pounded firmest and whose pig is fattest is plain for all to see. The festival is therefore not only sacrifice but also an annual public appraisal — the quality of the rites, of the livestock, and of the brewing is weighed one by one by the people of neighboring villages on this occasion.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。