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Cultural Festivals and Travels
Time: 9th day of the seventh lunar month.
Place:Dao Xa Commune, Thanh Thuy District, Phu Tho Province.
Objects of worship:Hung Hai Cong and three Royal Highest mandarins who had merit of helping people control floods, Princess Que Hoa.
Characteristics:Praying for water ceremony, after worshipping take trai down and race boat at night.
Objects of worship: Hùng kings
Time: the 8th to the 11th day of the third lunar month, main festival day on the 10th day of the third lunar month.
Place: Nghia Linh Mountain, Hy Cuong Commune, Lâm Thao District, Phú Tho Province.
Characteristics: The national ancestral worshipping day, the incense offering ceremony is held simultaneously at Hùng temples in Phú Tho, Hô Chí Minh City, and Nha Trang City (Khánh Hoà Province) as well as in many other localities.
Legend: 18 generations of Hùng kings established Van Lang State, the predecessor of the present - day Vietnam.
Main activities:
The procession of 3 local communes from the communal houses to the foot of the mountain.
The incense offering ceremony.
Xoan singing, bronze drum dancing
Describing the festival
The festival begins with a palanquin procession performed by three villages of Cô Tích, Vi Cuong and Triêu Phú. The procession carries bamboo elephants and wooden horses symbolizing the submission of animals to the Hùng kings and the wedding of the Mountain Genie and Princess Ngoc Hoa. Bánh chung (square sticky rice cake) and bánh giây (round sticky rice cake) are indispensable offerings in the procession in order to honour the merit of the Hùng kings who taught people to plant rice and to remind people of Lang Liêu who invented these cakes.
The worship service is held on the 10th day of the 3rd lunar month and commences with a flower ceremony with the participation of state representatives. Held in Thuong Temple, where the Hùng kings used to worship deities with full rituals, the ceremony is conducted with the traditional rituals representing the whole nation. During that time, the nhà to Do Ngãi guild performs singing and dancing to welcome visitors.
The children of the Hùng kings throughout the country converge on the temple to offer incense. The procession includes the state representatives, one hundred young men and women in traditional costumes symbolizing “children of the Dragon and Fairy” and pilgrims.
The procession marches are followed by a Xoan singing performance (a kind of folk song of Vinh - Phú region) in Thuong Temple, ca trù (a kind of classical opera) in Ha Temple, and other activities including bamboo swings, ném còn (throwing a sacred ball through the ring), chàm thau (beating bronze drum), dâm duông (pounding rice).
Hùng Temple Festival not only attracts visitors from all over the country because of its special traditional cultural activities, but it is also a sacred trip back in time to the origins of the Vietnamese nation. People usually show their love and pride of their homeland and ancestral land. This religious belief deeply imbedded in the minds of every Vietnamese citizen, regardless of where they originate.
Time: 5th day of the fifth lunar month.
Place: Phu Ninh Commune, Phu Ninh District, Phu Tho Province.
Objects of worship: Hung King and his generals, the village's tutelary god.
Characteristics: Buffalo fighting performance to commemorate Hung King. According to the old tale, Hung King went for hunting to pass this area, he already killed two tigers that were fighting.
Time: the 12th day of the second lunar month.
Place: Phu Ninh Commune, Phu Ninh District, Phu Tho Province.
Objects of worship: Kings Hung.
Characteristics: Offering raw cock (slaughter and pluck feather), the insides of the cock is boiled and rolled by pickled scallion (according to the old tale, My Nuong came there and found a kind of sweet-smelling grass, good eating, offered the king, that is pickled scallion).
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