Abstract:Water splashing in the engagement ceremony is an important part of the wedding custom of Yi people, which has rich cultural connotation. Taking the engagement ceremony of Yi people in Tongan town, Huili City of Sichuan Province as an example, and combining the theory of anthropologist Victor Turner, this paper analyzes the origins of water splashing in engagement ceremonies. In the Yi engagement ceremony, there are " structure" and " anti-structure" factors in the female -dominated water splashing activities. Through analysis based on the theory of ritual process, it is proved that the phenom ̄ enon of the female group confronting against the male group is reasonable in the ritual. But when analyzing the reasons of the formation of rituals, we should not only discuss them from the aspect of structural tension, but also explain them from principles outside the social structure, such as water worship, playful behavior, and resistance and acceptance, in order to explore the deeper connotations of the engagement customs of Yi people.