“Gau Tao” Festival - the spiritual and cultural beauty of the Mong people

YenBai - The "Gau Tao" festival has a long tradition, associated with the Mong community residing in Tram Tau, Mu Cang Chai districts and some highland communes of Van Chan district, Yen Bai province with the key space in Tram Tau district. On August 9, 2024, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Decision No. 2318 recognizing the "Gau Tao" festival of the Mong people in Tram Tau, Mu Cang Chai, Van Chan districts, Yen Bai province as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage. The ceremony to announce the decision and award the certificate of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the "Gau Tao" Festival will be held on February 14-15 at Tram Tau District Stadium.

Panpipe dance in the "Gau Tao" Festival of the Mong people in Tram Tau district

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As a mountainous and particularly difficult district, Tram Tau has 12 ethnic groups living together, of which the Mong ethnic group accounts for the highest proportion of 79%; the Thai ethnic group accounts for 13.11%, and the rest are other ethnic groups.

With a large population and many unique community cultural activities, the Mong people in Tram Tau have organized many unique traditional festivals, clearly showing their cultural characteristics, beliefs and customs, including the "Gau Tao" Festival (Tsang Hâur Tox). The "Gau Tao" Festival is the largest festival, with the most participants, considered the most typical and unique festival, a beautiful spiritual culture of the Mong people.

Folk artist Giang A Su said: "Gau Tao" festival has appeared for a long time in the life of Mong people. Initially, it was only held within the village with the wish to pray for children, pray for fate and pray for blessings. Pray for the villagers to be full, prosperous, have full fields of rice, bountiful harvests, full barns of livestock and poultry... Nowadays, "Gau Tao" is held at the beginning of the new year from the first to the fifteenth of January.

The "Gau Tao" festival is usually started by the people by choosing a good day, cutting down and erecting a pole with a red cloth and a Mong flute on an empty lot. After the pole erection is completed, the villagers near and far all know where the festival will be held. The pole is quite revered by the Mong people, considered a sacred tree, a symbol of eternal life. Therefore, it is the soul of the "Gau Tao" festival.

To prepare for the worship ceremony, the celebrant and everyone will set up the altar and display the offerings at the foot of the pole. The offerings include: offering paper, a bowl of rice, a bowl of water, a gourd of wine, eight cups divided equally and placed at the four corners of the altar table, especially the indispensable offering is a rooster. To begin the worship ceremony, the celebrant will light incense, bow to the four directions and then proceed to pray for fate: "The old year has passed, the new year has come, the homeowner and the villagers organize a festival to pray for the mountain god, the sky god, and the gods to bless the homeowner and the villagers in the new year with good health, no illness, disease, development of production, livestock raising, full barns, full bags of rice and corn. I thank the mountain god, the sky god for good wine and a rooster to show my gratitude...", Artist Giang A Su shared about the worship.

Gau Tao Festival consists of 2 main parts: The ceremony part with many sacred rituals and the festival part is a time for fun and entertainment, organizing attractive sports activities and games such as: Rice cake pounding competition, spinning top, tug of war, stick pushing... exchanging chicken badminton, throwing pao and many cultural and artistic activities such as: Khen dancing, flute playing, two-stringed fiddle playing, duet singing, love songs, mouth harp, leaf trumpet... The sounds of Khen, flute, folk songs... resounded excitedly throughout the village, signaling the arrival of a new spring and also promising a new year of bountiful harvests, a warm, prosperous and prosperous life.

Ms. Duong Phuong Thao - Head of the Department of Culture and Information of Tram Tau district said: The "Gau Tao" festival of the Mong people is a unique spiritual and cultural beauty of the people in the highlands. It is not only a place where Mong people place their faith and hope for a new and better life, but also one of their unique religious customs. The festival is also a place to connect the feelings of the people, an opportunity for those who live far away to reunite with their families and villages. It is a space for healthy entertainment and recreation after months of hard work. Nowadays, the "Gau Tao" festival is increasingly expanding on a large scale to maintain and preserve the traditional culture of ethnic minorities, and is also an opportunity to spread the culture of the highlands to tourists from all over.

"This is a representative intangible cultural heritage, converging many typical cultural values, a product of common ownership of the people, carrying very unique values ​​of Mong culture. Each step of heritage practice shows the community's conceptions of the world view, philosophy of life, expressing beautiful ways of behaving of people towards people, people towards nature, towards life, towards history, towards the spiritual world. Through the festival, the beliefs and spiritual and mental needs of each individual and the whole community are satisfied, contributing to the sustainable existence of the heritage," Ms. Thao shared.

The "Gau Tao" festival is a synthesis of typical material and spiritual cultural values ​​of the Mong people, from cuisine, costumes to related intangible cultural heritages of social customs and beliefs, folk literature, language, writing, performing arts, traditional crafts and unique folk knowledge. All are created from the ethnic group's typical living environment as well as traditional spiritual thinking and beliefs.

"Gau Tao" is the largest and only community-scale festival, associated with the spiritual and mental life of the Mong people in Yen Bai province. Heritage always plays a particularly important role in the life of the local ethnic community and has a strong influence on neighboring communities. The belief and spiritual and cultural needs of each individual and the whole community are satisfied, which is an important factor contributing to the protection and maintenance of the festival. Moreover, the "Gau Tao" festival is a heritage space that preserves the historical and cultural characteristics of the Mong people expressed through rituals, games and many other folk performing arts, so it has a fairly sustainable vitality in the community.

Manh Cuong

Source: http://baoyenbai.com.vn/226/345978/Le-hoi-Gau-Tao---net-dep-van-hoa-tam-linh-cua-nguoi-Mong.aspx