Vietnam Travel > Country and People > Central Cities and Provinces > Gia Rai > Cultural Festivals and Travels
Cultural Festivals and Travels
Time: Not fixed, often lasting from 3 to 7 days in spring time
Place: The cemetery
Objects of worship:The deceased people
Characteristics:Rituals of sacrifice offerings, eating, playing of the whole community beside the tomb house.
Unlike other ethnic minorities in Vietnam, some groups in the Central Highlands, including E de, Gia Rai, Ba Na do not have the practice of worshipping their ancestors and deceased persons. The bereaved only look after the tombs of the deceased for a period of three, five or seven years, and thereafter perform a “leaving the tomb” ceremony to bid farewell them to the village of the death, and the tomb is left unattended. The “leaving the tomb” Festival is the most important one reserved for the deceased held by their family members. All the local villagers attend the festival that lasts for three or four days. It involves two to three slaughtered buffaloes and hundreds of small jars of liquor.
The meaning of the "Leaving the tomb" festival is to see off the spirits of the deceased to their permanent world so that they can reincarnate and continue a new life. As for the living, they finish their duties and are free to remarry.
The festival is associated to the cycle of agriculture. It is held in the lunar first months that is the transition time between the two cycles of production. The festival is also an opportunity for farmers to give thanks to the gods and pray for a new bumper crop.
Although this ceremony is associated to the death, it is very cheerful, bearing the nuance of a festival. The festival includes three steps: taking the tomb to pieces, erecting the new tomb, and seeing off the death’s spirits to their world and treating the villagers with a feast.
Location: In Ia Mo Nong Commune, Chu Pah District, Gia Lai Province.
Characteristics: It is a beautiful site along Se San River. A new hydro-electric power plant was built at Yaly Waterfall and has a design capacity of 720 MW.
Process of construction and operation of Yaly Hydro-electric Power Plant affected strongly economy, culture, society… of Central Highlands in general and Gia Lai Province in particular. Especially it has supplied power with villages and contributes to raise cultural standards of the people.
In the future, four hydro-electric power plants expected to build are Se San 3, Se San 4, Plei Krong and Thuong Kon Tum. Se San 3 and Se San 4 are in lower section of Yaly Hydro-electric Power Plant.
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