Knife-Pole Festival (Lisu)
26 March 2026 · movable holiday — Step by step, straight to the stars – courage shines!
The Lisu are a mountain people living mainly in Yunnan, in south-western China, especially in the Nujiang area. The Knife-Pole Festival (in Chinese, Daogan Jie; the ritual itself is described as shang daoshan, xia huohai, roughly “up the mountain of knives, down into the sea of fire”) is held on the 8th day of the second lunar month, so its date follows the lunar calendar rather than a fixed solar date. Tradition links it with courage and with hopes for protection and well-being of the community. Trained men climb barefoot up a tall ladder whose rungs are sharp blades set edge-up, and, as part of the custom, also walk barefoot across a bed of embers. The performance takes years of training and discipline and must never be imitated. The custom is recognised on China’s list of intangible cultural heritage. In our sky the climber is made only of light: a ladder of stars, with no danger and no wound.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure of a nimble climber made of luminous dots and thin lines, like a moving constellation, ascending a tall ladder of glowing star-blades toward the stars
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