The Dao ethnic people’s early spring festival to pray for a bumper harvest.

The event takes place from the 10th to 15th day of the first month on the Lunar New Year calendar, with a grand ceremony held once every three years, while smaller ceremony runs annually. Both are organized at shrines worshiping the God of the Soil and the Ground in their villages.

Before the festival, villagers clean up their houses, particularly altars inside, and the local shrine. Offerings are contributed by villagers, with each family giving a chicken, a bottle of alcohol, a bowl of rice, and 100,000 VND (4.4 USD). The head of the village and the village’s oldest person are in charge of organizing every step of the event.

Shamans in practice.

Three shamans are invited to perform different rituals – one calls up the Jade Emperor, another prays to the God of the Soil and the Ground, and the last one dances. The ritual uses wooden knives, hammers, and pickaxes, with prayers asking the emperor and the god for a year of blessing weather, thriving crops, and happy life.

The shamans instruct the ritual in the form of “Pao dung” singing – a ritual folk singing of Dao people. The praying ceremony lasts throughout the festival’s course. During the ritual, the shamans read out loud the “Ban Ho” story, a poetic folk legend on the origin of Dao ethnics. Throughout the course of rituals, villagers eat only vegetarian food to show respect for the ancestors and gods. Only when the rite is done, offerings are served to the whole village and people sing together for a jolly new year ahead.

Dao women make cakes for the ceremony.

During the festival, there are traditional “Hat Do” activities for young people where they sing not ordinary songs but riddles about everyday life or things such as the weather, animals, flowers or seasons in a year.

In the warm Spring air and the peaceful atmosphere of the mountainous area, the rhythmic and earnest Pao Dung singing in harmony with the sounds of flutes makes the ceremony a unique cultural feature of Dao people. The festival reflects a strong sense of ethnic root and the passing down of a traditional culture through generations.

Thu Huong