Lively village festival

Many generations ago, few people in the highlands imagined that one day their traditional rituals would become a tourism product, serving as an experience for visitors, like now.

The Co Tu community in Ta Lang village (Bha Leê commune, Tay Giang) will open a village integration festival to welcome tourists at the end of 2024. Photo: DANG NGUYEN

Enjoy the Porngooch Co Tu festival

Gongs and drums sounded. Co Tu boys and girls dressed in traditional costumes, forming a circle around the X'nur pole (the flagpole) swaying to the dance of "tung tung da da". Leading the way were village elders, prestigious people in the community - holding umbrellas, wearing feathered hats, joining in the fun with the ta'rooh dance expressing joy in the common festival of the villagers. After the reenactment of "greeting new friends", a space for talking and singing was set up, the village elders set up a common covenant for the community to carry out.

Mr. Alang Cronh, a prestigious person in Ma Cooih (Dong Giang) said that this was the first ritual performed in the Pơrngooch festival (brotherhood) organized by the two communes of Ma Cooih and Ka Dang.

Through this festival, in addition to connecting and creating opportunities for meetings between the two communes' communities, it is also an opportunity to promote cultural preservation, aiming to turn the unique rituals of the Pơrngooch festival into a tourism product.

In addition to promoting the spirit of community cohesion, the village cultural space also opens up opportunities to create unique tourism products for visitors to experience. Photo: DANG NGUYEN

“The Pongooch Festival aims to resolve conflicts arising in life among the Co Tu community. From there, it builds solidarity, creates a harmonious living environment, and contributes to preserving the long-standing traditional culture of the local people.

This year, the festival is even more meaningful because the two communes' governments have been arranged into a common administrative unit. From now on, all people in Ma Cooih and Ka Dang communes are brothers and sisters, working together to build their homeland" - Mr. Alang Cronh shared.

Acting Chairman of Dong Giang District People's Committee Do Huu Tung said that this Porngooch festival is considered the starting journey for the goal of turning the traditional rituals of the Co Tu people into a unique local tourism product.

This continuation is expected to be a meaningful highlight, creating further spread and replication in localities in the district, especially during the preparation period for implementing the policy of merging commune-level administrative units.

“Previously, we also organized a pilot project to recreate the twinning ceremony between Co Tu villages. With the help of many village elders and people who understand traditional culture, the large-scale performance of gongs and drums combined with the Tan Tung Da Da dance has contributed to making the Pơrngooch festival a typical cultural space for tourists to visit and experience.

According to the general orientation of the locality, after merging the new administrative unit at the commune level, we will continue to maintain and organize many unique festivals to create special tourism products, contributing to promoting Co Tu culture closer to domestic and international tourists" - Mr. Tung said.

Tay people in Dong Ram residential area (Thanh My town, Nam Giang) recreate the Long Tong festival space in early 2025. Photo: DANG NGUYEN

“Travel Party”

In order for mountain tourism products to soon revive and truly become a "feast" for tourists to choose from, recently, many localities have begun to consider opening and recreating traditional rituals of ethnic groups living together at the foot of the Eastern Truong Son Range.

Mr. Tran Ngoc Hung - Head of the Department of Culture - Science and Information of Nam Giang district said that recently, the locality recreated the ritual of going to the fields, through the Long Tong festival of the Tay community living in Dong Ram village (Thanh My town). In the 1990s, a small number of Tay - Nung people from the northern provinces migrated to live, contributing to the unique and rich cultural foundation of the wonderful land of Nam Giang.

The Long Tong ceremony is one of the most important community festivals of the Tay people and is often associated with agriculture . It is held annually to express wishes for prosperity and to mark the beginning of a new crop season.

When the offerings are arranged to be presented to the gods, the celebrant (usually a shaman or a shaman) stands in front of the offerings and prays to thank heaven and earth and the gods for their protection of the villagers.

After praying, the celebrant sprinkles water around, implying that the sky is sending rain, and the villagers catch the drops of water symbolizing good luck. Then, the celebrant takes seeds from the offering trays and sprinkles them around, and the villagers mix those seeds with the seeds on their offering trays to sow...

“The Long Tong festival of the Tay people is closely linked to the belief in agriculture, a form of folk cultural activity that has the meaning of community solidarity. With the beautiful natural scenery at the foot of the limestone mountain, we expect and believe that the Long Tong festival will become a unique tourism product, adding color to the journey of discovering Dong Ram community tourism in the coming time” - Mr. Hung expected.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/hoi-lang-song-dong-3157198.html