The festive festival of Dao Quan Chet people in Tuyen Quang

The Dao Quan Chet ethnic group in Tuyen Quang resides mainly in Thanh Phat, Hop Hoa, Khang Nhat and Phu Luong communes, Son Duong district. In the traditional culture of the Dao Chet, there is a celebration of the Nhi Dao festival (meaning the Tet dance). This is a ritual expressing the conception of beliefs and has been maintained for a long time in the spiritual and cultural life of the Dao Paracels.

The totem dance (Tet) is performed over a period of three consecutive years, when the family is eligible to have a picture set to worship Tam Thanh. First year (Wickedly unlucky): Before the ceremony, the family asked the worshiper to see the good day for the ceremony and thanks to the priest, some young men helped the family dance their sonic exercises while performing the ritual. ceremony. Items such as swords, swords, knives, and hammers to train sounds were made the day before the Chinese New Year dance. During the Lunar New Year festival in December, the family will combine ancestor worship to pay back, tell the ancestors who have passed the old year and ask for blessing for a new year of good harvest, healthy offspring. . The day of the ceremony will be worshiping in the afternoon, and at night it will begin to make Tet dance. At the beginning of the worshiping ceremony, the elder master prayed to the gods for permission to hang worshiping pictures and set up an altar.

For the Dao Quan Chet, in the concept of ancestors divided into hierarchies, the highest is Huong Hoa, then to Upper, then Central and finally Lower. When performing rituals of ancestor worship, Huong Hoa is offered on the ham table while Thuong to, Trung and Ha ancestors are set up in separate flocks in the middle of the house, in front of the ham table. Before performing the worshiping ceremony, the sorcerer invites the ancestors to come to the end of the year to witness the ceremony, the great wish, now the descendants dissect pigs, chickens, make cakes ... to repay the ancestors who have blessed them throughout the year. ... This repayment ceremony was promised by the descendants in the spring ceremony from the beginning of the year, now returns. At the same time, I pray to the ancestors that the children have chosen a good day to celebrate the first year of the dance to tell the patriarch, the family has completed the procedures to have a painting set, If the ancestors ask for blessings for their descendants, then the ancestors remove them, so that their children do not stumble. At the end of the Lunar New Year festival, two worshipers and bronze teachers were asked to do Tet dance to prepare for the ceremony. The priest would wear a vest and then go to incense, arrange a blade, a knife and a sword to worship his holy spirit and ask him to make Tet dance. Teacher co-entered, reported to see if this family has any problems or not. Then he worshiped for Tam Thanh and prepared to dance deeply.

The deep jump takes place throughout the night, dancing seven times (the seventh dance three times, each time dancing twice) and once three turtles (one dance yin and once yang). The first dance, known as hypnosis, is performed to encourage the soldiers. Rituals are accompanied by two worshipers and young people in the village. When dancing, the instruments used are bells, cymbals and porridge. The second time was tails, teachers, and young men holding swords, swords, hammers, and dances to send troops to practice. The third dance was repeated as the first, to continue encouraging the soldiers. By the fourth dance called pia peng by two priests and young people (no control of the number) performed with the meaning of a secret move. The fifth time is again the same as the first and third time. For the sixth time, The priest and the young men hold swords and dance like the second time to bring their soldiers to practice. For the seventh and last time, the dance was a combination of abusive dance and tails, pia pengs in sequence when the six dances were mastered to motivate the son of a soldier and send his troops to practice. episode.

During breaks between dances, the teacher will enter any break, and the teacher and the young people will have to dance and dance (tortoise). When a teacher enters the field, then he will call his ancestors to let his children know if the process of doing the ceremony is right or not, are there any shortcomings? When entering the field to place a nia in the middle of the house, the statue is a shuttle for ancestors, the teacher asks if yin and yang, if he is yin, he must dance three and three yang, if he is yang, he must dabble, but in mandatory ritual must ask for one negative jump, one positive jump. If asking for yin and yang has an obstacle, according to the concept that it has not been allowed by the gods, the ancestors must bridge the middle of the door so that the gods and ancestors return. In order to dance and dance, the priest must choose among the young people who come to help each one of them, those people must have an old family, have passed the cultivating rituals. At the end of the dance, the two teachers wore ethnic clothes to dance Zhou recovers. This dance is to create a sense of fun for the monks who prepare to worship on Datong. In order to make offerings to Datong, the offering ceremony has 2 bowls and a jar of wine for the monks to invite Tam Thanh, Huong Hoa, the saints to eat bread, drink wine to integrate Datong, to share joy, drink wine and bless their children. grandchildren. After that, he worshiped and turned gold and silver to Tam Thanh, Huong Hoa and the saints. Offering and turning gold and silver, he worshiped with 2 young men holding 1 cum statue of rice distilled into food, 1 statue distilled into blankets, 1 statue waist turned into clothes, dancing and offering. That is for Tam Thanh. Afterwards, the priests asked the gods to collect paintings. When he finished collecting the paintings, he worshiped to worship a "ghost" in the village temple, giving thanks to the god.

By the second year (Tet dance called Ta Nhay dance all wanted). In time, the ritual sequence is done by the family as in the first year, but the deep dance takes place in the same order as the first year but does it twice. This makes sense when the 2nd year the army of the gods will be trained harder than the first year.

The dance of the third year (taam pham pua ​​desi) takes place in the same order as the first and second years, but when performing deep dancing, it will be performed three times. This means that the army of the gods will be trained hard, matured. After the worshiping ceremony for the gods and ancestors to integrate into the General Assembly, the priests will perform the ritual to invite the Jade Emperor to witness the family's Tet dance (Nhi dang chao). Report to Ngoc Hoang that the family has finished the dance festival, from now on, there is a root for everyone to know, please give Jade Emperor blessing for family members to be healthy and prosperous. After that, the both of them bridged (made of cloth strips) to perform the ceremony to bear the fat and ransom the soul of the rice, pray for the family to sow the seeds to sprout quickly, the root of the rice will be good, the sun will be fresh and dry until the rice is green. Bumper.

The worshiping ceremony is carried out when the family has to go through rituals prescribed by the people themselves, affirming respect for ancestors, reminding children and grandchildren to always remember their ancestors and roots. In addition to the spiritual elements, the ritual contains folklore features in the dance, along with the separate elements shown on the costumes, musical instruments ... making Nhi dilemma become a bold ritual. Unique culture of the Dao Chet. From the ancient tradition up to now, the festival has been maintained, this time, it does not cause the child to go up for 3 years but to combine them into a year and work for three days, some continuous procedures. The rituals have been shortened, but still retain the unique cultural identity of the Dao Chet people.