The five-colored glutinous rice is a kind of sacrifice to their ancestors for Buyi ethnic group. After the third day of Marchin Chinese lunar year, a traditional festival of the Buyi ethnic group which is also named as the Double Third Festival, Bouyei people will gather a few kinds of wild plants which would be made into various colorant. The glutinous rice will be soaked in the colorant until the colorhas been translated.  After cleaning and drying, the colored glutinous rice will be steamed, it is the five-colored glutinous rice then.

There is a legend about the five-colored glutinous rice and the Double Third Festival. Once upon a time, the ancestors of the Buyi ethnic group, the Tong ethnic group and the Dai ethnic group used to be brothers,  they decided to find a place to build their own home when they grow up. When the day came, the two old brothers decided to leave and let the youngest  who is the ancestor of the Buyi people to succeed the already accumulating homeland. The day they went away is the third day of the March, and the three guys agreed on that their children would return tothe homeland when they grow up together to celebrate and pray for a better life, it had evolved into the Double Third Festival now.

The five-colored rice is a way to express their gratitudes of the happy life they have by Buyi people, and their best wish for the future.

Time: 2017-02-16 

Source: travel.sina.com.cn