Panel 1-2 A Study on the Cultural Significance of the 'Pig Slaughtering' Ceremony in the Seasonal Customs of the Yi People of Yunnan Province, China /Na Sangjin

Na Sangjin
Vice Director, Mythology Research Center of Yonsei Institute for Sinology, Republic of Korea
 
　　 This paper analyzes the traditional sacrificial rituals of the Yi people in Southwest China, which utilize the pig as the central offering, and explores how these rituals reflect and reinforce ancestral veneration and collective consciousness. For many ethnic groups across China, the custom of 'killing the yearly pig' (殺年豬) before the Lunar New Year serves both to express gratitude for ancestral protection over the past year and to prepare for the festive feast to follow. In Yunnan, many ethnic minorities share the practice of slaughtering the annual pig, with the entire village collectively participating in the process, preparing the dishes, and sharing the food. However, for the Yi people of Yunnan, the annual pig slaughter is not merely a festival preparation but a solemn ceremony of ancestral worship (祭祖儀式). The Yi usually perform this ritual on an auspicious day (such as a Monkey, Dog, Rat, or Tiger day) near the New Year in their Yi Calendar (late tenth month of the lunar calendar). Before the actual sacrifice, they perform cleansing rites for the household, the sacrificial animals, and other items. The pig's internal organs and head are then placed before the ancestral shrine for the main offering. The traditional practice of the living and the deceased sharing the meal, exemplified by dishes like ‘tuotuo rou’ (坨坨肉), continues to this day. This ritual functions not just as an offering to the ancestors but as a crucial socio-cultural mechanism for confirming community identity. Notably, outside of China, practices like the ‘Dotje’(豚祭) pig sacrifice on Jeju Island, South Korea, also regard the pig as a sacred offering, through which communities pray for abundance and peace, reinforcing village cohesion. This demonstrates that the custom of using the pig as a sacrifice has a long history in the East Asian cultural sphere, transcending mere food acquisition to become a significant cultural phenomenon that profoundly reflects ancestral worship and social values.

Keywords: Yi (彝) people, ‘pig slaughtering’, Ritual Tradition, Ancestral Worship, Collective Consciousness, East Asian Culture


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