Guizhou Miao New Year Festival

The Miao New Year is the most solemn traditional Miao festival, observed across Qiandongnan Prefecture with timing that varies by village from September through the following January, most commonly in the tenth lunar month. Households prepare glutinous rice cakes and rice wine, worship ancestors on New Year's Eve, and celebrate publicly with Lusheng reed-pipe music, bullfighting, horse racing, and women parading in elaborate silver jewelry and embroidered dress.

Timing for the Miao New Year varies so much by village that no single fixed date applies across the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, the festival's main concentration, with celebrations generally following the rice harvest and running anywhere from September through the following January depending on local custom, though most communities mark the occasion in the tenth month of the lunar calendar.