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On the eighth day of the second lunar month, the Yi people in Tanhua Township, Dayao County, Yunnan Province, celebrate the Flower Festival in honor of a legendary girl named Mi'er.

Long, long ago, the beautiful Mi'er lived on Tanhua Mountain. She was skilled at singing, embroidering, and weaving as well as farming and herding sheep. Mi'er was engaged to Qiaoli'er, a hunter who lived in a village on another mountain, and they were deeply in love.

In the Goddess Garden on the top of Tanhua Mountain lived the tribal chief, a shameless and dissolute man. "A goddess will come to my garden from heaven," he told the villagers one day, "and she will teach the girls how to weave and embroider." In this way, he deceived the people.

"Send the most beautiful girls of the mountain to the Goddess Garden," he ordered. Thus the innocent girls were sent to the garden, into the trap of the lustful chief.

Mi'er decided to rescue the girls. Wearing a poisonous white flower in her hair, she entered the garden. She offered the chief a cup of nuptial wine and put the flower into it as he watched. Then she took the first sip. The chief was delighted, but he did not know what kind of flower it was. He drank the rest of the poisonous wine and died. The girls were saved, but Mi'er had given her own life.

When Qiaoli'er came back from hunting, he learned that Mi'er had gone to the Goddess Garden. In great anger, he took up his weapons and rushed to the garden, but he was too late.

Qiaoli'er took the body of Mi'er in his arms and in great despair walked along Tanhua Mountain. He wept till he had no more tears and blood came from his eyes. The blood fell on the white flowers all over the mountain, dyeing them red.

Since then, every year on the eighth day of the second lunar month, people on Tanhua mountain honor Mi'er and invoke auspiciousness by placing flowers on the doors of houses, farm implements, and the horns of sheep and cattle. Men and women dressed in festival clothes assemble on the mountain to celebrate the Flower Festival.

The Flower Festival is the best time of the year for the young people to talk about love and choose mates. During the celebrations, people sometimes see a girl leave the dancing circle and quietly walk into the woods, followed by a young man. No need to say anything. Everyone knows they are lovers.
Accompanied by the music of reed-pipe instruments, the festivities will last from afternoon till dawn the next day.