The “Hell-opening Ceremony” ( 開地獄會 ) which integrates “Religion, Festival and Custom,” on the first day of the seventh lunar mouth is one of the Acarya Sect ( 阿吒力教 ) grandest ceremony of the Bai people ( 白 族 ) in Jianchuan. “Hell-openng Ceremony” is held in Dongying Village. The Ritual of “Hell-opening Ceremony” embodies the religious purpose of the transformation of Yin and Yang ( 陰 陽 ), the prayer for the living and transcendence for the dead, and it also embodies the national, regional, “great” and “small” traditional interaction characteristics of the ceremony. Centered on sacrifice to the dead, the ceremony of “Hell-opening ceremony” maximally integrates the regional differences with the belief of “Ji Nong Wu” ( 己 弄 吾 , tɕi31nɔ55v42) in Jianchuan and even in the northwest of Yunnan and to carry out unity and cooperation under this religious theme. The in-depth analysis of the ritual function of “Hell opening Ceremony” shows that the Bai people in Jianchuan and in the area of northwest Yunnan eliminate individual life anxiety, collective social anxiety to safeguard social order and power structure though the shared ceremony.
