| Description |
Khô già già is a harvest-praying festival, the biggest festival of the year for the Ha Nhi Den people, held in the first 4 days of June, starting on Dragon Day and ending on Goat Day, to give thanks and pray to the gods to bless them.
The worshiping ceremony is held in the sacred forest. On Dragon Day, people build a house in the style of a miniature stilt house (about 12 - 14 m2 wide), with a thatched roof. The important ritual is slaughtering buffaloes for sacrifice. The male, pure black, unplowed buffalo must be used as the sacrifice. The village youths kill the buffalo early on the day of the snake and poke its fluids as far and wide as they can in order to disseminate them as much as possible. The buffalo's head and internal organs are preserved as sacrifices to the gods. Families split up the buffalo meat equally to take home and give to their ancestors. The offering tray to ancestors and kitchen gods includes boiled buffalo meat, a bowl of ginger water, a round sticky rice cake, a bowl, and a pair of chopsticks. Then, each family prepares a tray of 8 dishes (boiled buffalo meat, day cake, ginger sticky rice cake, drift cake, sticky rice, sticky rice wine, beans, taro). The shaman's family must prepare 12 dishes (plus dishes made from the head and intestines of the buffalo) and bring them to the sacred forest to worship the gods. After the offering is completed, all participants receive blessings.
Horse and Goat Days are festival times with swing activities, love songs, circle dances, blanket dances, group dances, and couple dances. In the custom of "wearing a red blanket", the boys prepare to herd the sheep, the girls prepare dry food, then take each other to the forbidden forest to sit and talk or cover the sheep to confess their love. |
