ALL
spears
ICH Elements 5
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Thượng Liệt Village Festival
Thuong Liet village festival, also known as Gieng festival, is held from the 10th to the 12th of January (lunar calendar), at the communal house - pagoda - mausoleum complex of the village, to commemorate the merits of Princess Tran Thi Quy Minh. On the morning of the 10th, Thuong Liet village festival begins with the ceremony of carrying Buddha's offerings from Thien Duc Tu pagoda, going around the village, and finally returning to the communal house. In the afternoon, the female worshiping delegation performs the incense offering and proclamation ceremony. The most special is the procession of the teacher, the female worker and the flag and fan spear dance. The teacher and the female worker are selected according to traditional regulations. On the morning of the 11th and 12th, the villagers organize the procession of the female worker of the two villages of Dong Thuong Liet and Tay Thuong Liet. Previously, Thuong Liet organized the procession of the teacher, but in recent years, the teacher has not organized the procession, only the female worker. The teacher has the responsibility of welcoming the ceremony, the ceremony, the female worker used to teach the children to dance, but now she does not have to teach the dance, she only supervises the children's dance. According to the village rules, a person can be a teacher many times, but a worker can only be a worker once in a lifetime. The master of ceremonies performs the Saint ceremony and starts the Spear-flag-and-fan dance. During these 2 days, there is also a ceremony to bring offerings from the villages and hamlets in the commune to the Saint. At the same time, the Spear-flag-and-fan dance team is selected - "Miss Len". The Spear-flag-and-fan dance is an ancient dance, associated with traditional rituals that appeared in Giang village since the Tran Dynasty. During the ceremony, the two ladies wear ceremonial costumes, sit in hammocks, and command and supervise the dance groups on the East and West sides of the communal house. This is a form of collective folk dance combined with a couple dance. The content describes the princess's mood before going far away to say goodbye to her father. The dance team consists of 40 - 50 people. Each of the Miss Len (dancers) holds a small flag and a paper fan to fold during the dance. In some dance classes, there is also a rông reader and a troupe leader. There are about 36 different dance levels. The dance movements focus on depicting rural life. When dancing, the flag and fan hands are sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, changing the flag hand to the fan hand, often called "trao co, trao fan", the local pronunciation is "giao". Besides the rituals, procession and dancing with flags, spears and fans, the festival also has folk games and entertainment such as cockfighting, chess, tug of war, wrestling... Thuong Liet village festival has profound historical value, associated with the story of Mrs. Tran Qui Minh, who reclaimed the land, established the hamlet to create today's Giang village. With its typical value, Thuong Liet village festival was included in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2018.
Viet Nam -
Hào Xá Pagoda Festival
The festival is held on the 5th and 6th of January at Hào Pagoda, associated with the merits of Buddha Emperor Trần Nhân Tông and three tutelary gods including layman Nguyễn Danh Quang, Nguyễn Danh Nguyên and Lý Đình Khuê. The villagers organized a procession of Saint tablets and offerings from the 5 villages to the pagoda, offering incense and worshiping the Ancestors. In the past, each family had a palanquin to receive communion. Nowadays, it is replaced by procession. The feast is elaborately prepared and presented with many regulations. Early in the morning of the 4th, dragon palanquins carried the conferments from Hào pagoda to Đụn communal house to hold the ceremony. On the 5th, the procession of ordained people returns to the pagoda and continues the ceremony. There are 16 men participating in the sacrificial team, distributed according to zodiac signs. Weeks of worship include offerings of flowers and incense and thanksgiving. On the 6th day, the village takes the conferred ordinations to the temple to worship the three tutelary gods to worship. In the procession, 8 people carrying swords and spears will dance movements according to martial arts positions, reenacting the story of three laymen who fought left and right, commanding soldiers to fight the Mongol invaders. Festival: The unique feature of the Festival is the swimming competition, associated with the anecdote of King Trần Nhân Tông stopping by to visit the pagoda on his way. In particular, the first and second-best swimming teams will participate in duck-catching and rice-cooking competitions on the river. The rice cooking contest took place enthusiastically amid the cheers of the audience: the contestant sat on a boat with a firewood stove cooking rice; Both keep the rice cooking fire and rice cooker safe and prevent other boats from cooking rice by splashing water, however, do not fall directly into the kitchen. The team wins when the stove does not collapse, the rice is cooked first, and it tastes better. The duck-catching game is also unique: the person who catches the duck still has to dive underwater, use their hands to dig out the duck's gizzard, and then hold the gizzard in their mouth before emerging.
Viet Nam -
Riddles
Riddles are the work of folk oral poetry with short phrases and often deep and humorous contents which test one’s intellectual capacity and intend to develop one’s speculative thinking. The riddle usually consists of 2 to 4 lines of verse, although it has a potential to test one’s multiple intellectual activities of comparing, analyzing, combining, reasoning, describing and abstracting. Mongols used to say the riddle for guessing by children and youth from the teenage time and it was giving special contribution to the development of their thinking. For instance: Tuntger ovgon tumen jadtai. The fat old man has many spears, what is this? The answer is “A hedgehog”.
Mongolia -
Traditional martial arts of Bình Định
The heritage originates from Bình Định - a place famous for traditional martial arts and famous historical figure King Quang Trung in the resistance war against foreign invaders. Binh Dinh traditional martial arts has many sects covering all provinces and cities across the country. This heritage has also been introduced abroad. Its practice became popular as a sport in many countries. Vo Bình Định has a high performance and combat ability, expressed in the forms of movement with bare hands, sticks, swords and spears, great knives, axes and shields. The combination of hand and stone techniques makes it a delicate, unique art form. The typical forms of Bình Định martial arts include Ngoc Tran Phap, Bach Dieu Thao Phap, Quyen Tu Hai, Thao Truc Chi, etc. Although it used to be a tool to fight foreign invaders, the people who do traditional martial arts in Bình Định always uphold the spirit of sport and its benefits to the lives of Vietnamese people.
Viet Nam -
Hoàng Công Chất Temple Festival
The festival is held at Bản Phủ temple (Bản Phủ citadel) on February 24 to 28 every year to commemorate the merits of "Then Chất" (Hoàng Công Chất - Leader of the peasant uprising during the Lê - Trịnh dynasty) and Thái generals who were instrumental in suppressing the Phẻ enemy. The festival consists of two parts: the ceremony part and the festival part. The ceremony begins with a palanquin procession from the intersection of Noong Hẹt market to Bản Phủ temple. The procession is led by a Thái woman, followed by 16 young men symbolizing the insurgents in conical hats, brown shirts, yellow belts, neat swords and spears, and finally a palanquin carrying the sacred relics. At the Temple yard, 16 young men recreated the image of insurgents dancing with swords and spears to defeat the enemy, followed by a dragon dance, and then the ceremony of reading death anniversary wishes. The palanquin procession includes lion and dragon dance team (men), a gong and drum team (men), a parasol flag team (women), an offering team (women), a palanquin carrying team (women), and a sacrifice team (women world), government representatives and people. When the palanquin procession arrived at Hoàng Công Chất temple at Bản Phủ Citadel, the female priesthood team conducted incense offerings, and sacrifices, and read written wishes about the struggle against the Phe invaders led by General Hoàng Công Chất. The female priesthood team consists of 27 Thái and Kinh members. In particular, during the ceremony, there were 4 Thái women representing the indigenous people offering flowers and offerings. The festival includes many entertaining activities such as Xòe dancing, bamboo dancing, shuttlecock throwing, pipe coaxing dancing, stick pushing, sack dancing, tug of war, etc.
Viet Nam