Min Loong Phat – Tet ends the harvest season of the Cong people in Nam Nhun

NDO - When the celosia flowers (Min Loong Phat) bloom in the fields, dyeing the villages pink, it is also the time when the Cong ethnic people in Nam Cha commune, Nam Nhun district (Lai Chau) eagerly celebrate the Min Loong Phat Tet - Celosia flower Tet or as people often understand it, the Tet ending the harvest season of the Cong people.

Like many families in Tang Nga village, Nam Cha commune, Mr. Ly Van Hac, a villager, said that this year, like every year, his family and other households are urgently preparing for the traditional New Year after the end of the harvest season (usually in the 11th lunar month).

The Cong people's village in Tang Nga, Nam Cha commune, Nam Nhun district on the "Min Loong Phat" festival day.

This Tet holiday, the harvest has finished, the Cong village is bustling again, everyone has time, families and children gather, relatives living far away also have time to visit each other. Therefore, Tet is not only meaningful in completing the harvest season, but also an occasion for everyone to sit down together to have a family meal, review the results of the whole year's work and pray for a new year of production and labor to come.

Tet is the time when the harvest is finished and people have time to rest after a year of hard work.

The Cong ethnic group in Nam Cha commune, Nam Nhun district (Lai Chau) is one of the few ethnic groups with a population of less than 10,000 people in our country. The Cong people here still preserve the traditional cultural values ​​of their people, clearly expressed in customs, rituals, festivals, and agricultural practices.

The Cong people still preserve traditional cultural values ​​clearly expressed in ritual customs...

In the past, the “Min Loong Phat” Tet of the Cong people in Nam Cha commune was celebrated separately in each family. Nowadays, Tet has become a common festival of the village, this is an occasion for the Cong people to thank the gods for blessing the crops with good harvests, and also an occasion to have fun after months of hard work and busyness because of earning a living and the crops…

Nowadays, Min Loong Phat Festival has become a common festival of the village.

According to Mr. Ly A Chem, Head of Tang Nga village, for this Tet, anything can be missing, but "cockscomb" is an indispensable flower. The Cong people believe that this flower was given by ancestors and gods to be a friend to the plants grown on the fields, protecting them from pests, birds, squirrels, and wild animals.

Celosia is an indispensable flower, it is the sacred symbol of the Cong people.

Early in the morning of the "Min Loong Phat" New Year's Day, every member of the family and clan wakes up early to go to the stream near the village to bathe or wash their hair, because the Cong people believe that doing so will wash away bad luck, illness, and hardship to prepare for a new day of the year.

On Tet holiday everyone gets up early to go to the stream to bathe and get water to bring home.

Each member brings home some clean water in the hope of praying for good luck, then the Cong people prepare a tray of food to worship their ancestors at the end of a crop season. When worshiping their ancestors, all members of the family and clan must be present. And only after the worship of their ancestors is finished can products such as rice, corn, potatoes, cassava, ginger, and squash be brought home for use.

Everyone who goes to the stream brings back some clean water with the hope of praying for good luck.

During the ceremony, all offerings are displayed on trays and placed in the ancestral altar. Offerings include pigs, chickens, fruits, squash, pumpkins, taro, ginger, sweet potatoes, jicama, grilled stream fish, sticky rice, white wine, etc. And especially there is a bamboo tree woven into a fox-shaped screen, on which are solemnly attached layers of cockscomb flowers; the flower tree is the mascot symbol of the holiday.

Offerings to ancestors are products produced by the people's labor.

The celebrant must be a male, a person of prestige in the community. When the celebrant makes the offering, all the villagers take turns kneeling behind him and bowing. After the celebrant finishes reading the prayer, he will signal by holding a bunch of ginger and hitting the gong once to signal that the ceremony is complete. Then the whole village will join in the festival, dancing xoè, participating in folk games, drinking rice wine, playing drums, gongs and singing and dancing.

In particular, in this festival, each person brings a little rice that can be thrown at each other or spread around to thank their ancestors and the gods for giving them a full and bountiful harvest, healthy people, and the growth of all things... then they eat a common meal together to unite the community.

Some pictures of the Cong people's cockscomb festival:

After the ceremony, everyone had fun and danced.

Let's drink wine together.

They throw rice at each other for good luck.

They ate a communal meal together.

Nowadays, in addition to the locals, people from other places also come to attend, watch the ceremony and join in the fun.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/min-loong-phat-tet-ket-thuc-vu-mua-cua-nguoi-cong-o-nam-nhun-post848143.html