Mayouping Village is located in Guantun Township, Yao'an County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture. It is surrounded by mountains and forms a plateau basin in the center. The forest coverage rate is 75%. There are 567 households and 2,175 people in the village. Among them, the Yi population accounts for 95.3% of the total population, with an average cultivated land area of 1.56 mu per capita and a per capita net income of 634 yuan (2001). Mayouping Village was built in the Song Dynasty and has a long history. The residential villages are distributed in the high and cold mountain depressions. The villages are generally located near the mountains and rivers. The houses are in various forms. The traditional houses include earthen houses, wood pile houses, thatched houses and straw houses. Men like to drink, women are good at weaving, and both men and women can sing and dance, maintaining the simple living customs. Mayouping has a fine tradition of attaching importance to education since ancient times. The history of primary schools has been more than 100 years, and the people are well-educated. Singing and dancing are an important part of the villagers' lives. "When the reed pipe sounds, the feet itch, and the feet jump all night long", which vividly shows the Yi people's love for singing and dancing and their bold national character. The song and dance called "Da Tiao" has as many as 72 kinds of playing tunes and performance forms, and is rich in connotation. The village is regarded as one of the birthplaces of the Yi ethnic group's creation epic "Mei Ge". The singing content of "Mei Ge" is divided into four parts: creation, creation, marriage and love, and funeral, which summarizes the early historical development and evolution of the Yi people. During festivals, funerals, weddings, and house building, Bimos or singers are invited to gather by the fire to sing Mei Ge. Sometimes they sing for three days and three nights. Men, women, old and young gather together, play the three-stringed instrument, blow the gourd sheng, sing Yi songs and "roaring Mei Ge", and dance the "left foot" dance or "Da Tiao". In order to inherit the Mei Ge culture, the village established the "Mei Ge Cultural Base", developed the "Mei Ge Cultural Festival" on the basis of traditional culture, and created popular songs such as "The Yi People Love You, Abo Chairman Mao" and dances full of the flavor of the times such as "The Iron Ox Enters the Yi Village". The village has become a well-known Yi cultural village. Most of the clothing for men and women is homemade, black and blue, decorated with exquisite embroidery, especially with ethnic characteristics. It mainly consists of hats, tops, waistcoats, aprons, capes, back capes, belts, long skirts, short skirts, aprons, trousers, leg covers, shoes, ribbons, shoulder bags, bellybands, insoles, pipes, purses, sheepskin coats, as well as silver earrings, earrings, bracelets, rings and a small amount of jade and other accessories. The clothing is all hand-embroidered by Yi women, mostly with black, blue and white fabrics as the background, and decorated with patterns made by picking, pasting, patching, embroidery and other techniques. The patterns are taken from the birds and beasts, flowers, plants, insects, mountains and rivers, the sun, the moon, the stars, clouds, rain and feng shui in daily life, with rough lines and bright and solemn colors. Its clothing style, color tone and decoration have retained the basic style of the ancient "Guantouyi", which is the uniqueness of the Yi clothing in Mayouping and is worth studying and appreciating. Children and the elderly like to wear sheepskin waistcoats (mandarin jackets) over long coats to keep warm and prevent rain. Men and women also wear sheepskin jackets when carrying firewood in the mountains to protect their shoulders from the cold. Traditional festivals and folk activities mainly include the New Year celebrations in the first month of the lunar calendar, the Dragon Festival, the Rice-Opening Festival, the Dragon Festival, the Dragon Festival, the Sheep God Festival, the June Torch Festival, the Ghost Festival, the Moon Festival, the New Rice Festival, the Earth God Festival, the Mountain God Festival, and the Winter Pig Killing Festival. They have primitive beliefs, believe that all things have spirits, and worship nature and ancestors. In addition to worshiping ancestors, there are also activities such as worshiping heaven, dragons, and mountains. The national musical instruments of Mayouping are mainly gourd sheng and flute, as well as erhu, yueqin, sanxian, mouth string, bamboo strips and leaves. Whenever there are entertainment occasions such as playing and jumping, gourd sheng must be played. There are at least five or six hundred local gourd sheng artists, and about one or two hundred of them have excellent playing skills. The marriage and love customs of the Yi people in Mayouping are simple and interesting. They still continue the traditional way of young men and women freely falling in love, "visiting the girl's room". (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)