Qiang New Year on its own terms
Qiang New Year
Qiang New Year is a harvest-season celebration of Qiang communities in Sichuan. Its customary calendar date is the first day of the tenth lunar month, several months before the first-month Spring Festival. Giving thanks for prosperity, honouring ancestors and renewing relationships with the natural world give this New Year its particular meaning. Reverence for the mountains accompanies prayers for harmony within families and the village.
The festival is celebrated in communities across Maoxian, Wenchuan, Lixian, Songpan and Beichuan, among other parts of Sichuan. Celebrations commonly last three to five days. The name Rimai is one transcription of its Qiang name, although names, timing and ritual details have varied between villages.
The tenth lunar month belongs to the Chinese lunisolar calendar. It is not Gregorian October: in 2026, its first day falls on November 9. The familiar tenth-month date became more widely standardised during the festival’s revival from the 1980s onward. Earlier village observances could follow different local schedules, partly in relation to the ripening and gathering of crops.
Ritual and gathering
A shibi, a Qiang ritual specialist, directs the religious ceremonies and preserves knowledge of their chants and sequences. Mountain rites give thanks for the harvest and seek protection for the coming year. They can include a goat offered to the mountain. Sheepskin drums, epic recitation, singing and dancing join worship with the transmission of inherited narratives.
The festival moves between the sacred landscape, communal gathering places and the home. Mountain rites concern the village’s relationship with its protecting powers. Collective festivities draw households together through dress, dance and food. Evening household worship brings the observance back to family deities, the hearth and a shared meal.
| Setting | Characteristic practices | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain ritual | Offerings and prayers led by a shibi | The village and its sacred landscape |
| Collective gathering | Singing, dancing, shared food and drink | Participation across households and generations |
| Household observance | Family offerings and an evening meal | Domestic relationships and household protection |
In salang, a communal circle dance, people of different ages join the celebration. Opening jars of grain alcohol and sharing food also make the festival an occasion of exchange between households. Villagers contribute provisions and labour as well as attending the rites.
Festival identity
The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake damaged villages, ritual spaces and ceremonial objects, and killed people who carried the tradition’s knowledge. Reconstruction and renewed teaching became inseparable from the festival’s survival. Qiang New Year entered UNESCO’s Urgent Safeguarding List in 2009 and was transferred to the Representative List in 2024.
Contemporary practice includes large public celebrations and village rites. A town programme may bring together performances from several communities, while a village ceremony retains its particular altar, chants and household responsibilities. Migration, tourism and public cultural programmes have changed where people gather and how ceremonies are presented. The continued work of ritual specialists, families and dancers connects these different settings with the festival’s harvest thanksgiving and community life.