A 260-year old mural featuring gala celebration activities of the Yi Ethnic Group, earliest of its kind in China, was found recently in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan Province.
According to local archaeologists, the painting was painted on the stone pier of a local bridge at the Weibao Mountain, one of the country's fourteen most famous Daoism shrines, in the Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County.
The painting features 30 Yi ethnic people, men and women, young and old, who sit around a fire celebrating their traditional holiday by drinking, singing, dancing and playing musical instruments.
Yi ethnic people have a long tradition of colorful celebration activities for holidays going back 1,000 years.
The painting will provide valuable clues for study of culture, life episodes and folk custom and dress of the Yi ethnic group in ancient time, said an archaeologist.
(Xinhua 01/21/2001)
