This Chinese village celebrates dogs by worshipping, parading them on thrones

The Yulin Dog Meat festival held every year in Yulin, China, has become common knowledge by now due to its brutality and the severe criticism it continues to face from people all over the world. Attendees feast on dog meat during the festival, which is held every year during the summer solstice.

However, there is another dog festival in China, which has recently been making headlines. This festival, known as the Dog Carrying Day, is also celebrated every year in China by the Miao people at the Jiabong village of Ghinzou province.

The villagers dress up a chosen dog in tailor-made clothes and accessories, carry it in a wooden sedan chair and worship it. The 19th-century practice of carrying an individual in a sedan chair was only reserved for the Chinese royalty or nobility, meaning that the same respect and love is now shown to these dogs. The procession also includes participants beating drums and dancing to the tune.  The parade is led by a shaman and participants have mud thrown at them as they wish for prosperity and peace.

The festival dates back to quite a few generations and was first celebrated as a tribute to a dog that had saved the first settlers of the Jiabong village from dying of thirst by directing them to a water source. The topography of the area is such that it results in a shortage of water.

However, as far away from the Yulin festival as it might seem, the Dog Carrying Day has also received its fair share of criticism for the cruel treatment of dogs and their discomfort. In the pictures of the festival that have emerged, the dogs can been seen chained down to the sedan chair. Some people have even compared it to the Yulin festival.