Nang Hai Festival

Featured Nang Hai Festival Nang Hai festival (also known as Mother Moon) of the Tay people in Cao Bang province is one of the traditional folk festivals, imbued with the traditional beliefs of the ancient Vietnamese people. This festival was created from the daily life and productive labor of mountain farmers. Nang Hai Festival is carefully preserved by the Tay people in Cao Bang, becoming a unique national identity.  Nang Hai Festival begins in January and lasts until mid-March. According to Tay ethnic folk beliefs, on the moon there is Mother Moon and twelve fairies, her daughters. Mother and her sisters every year take care of protecting crops for people on earth. The Hai Nang Festival is organized with the symbolic meaning of mothers on earth journeying to heaven to welcome Mother Moon and fairies who come down to visit the earth and help the earthly people in their business to make a living. In addition to being a great harvest festival, Nang Hai Festival also reflects the custom of worshiping the Mother in the beliefs of the Tay people. Originating from the mindset of promoting the role of women in agricultural production, the original myth about farming of the Tay people is the legend of Pu Luong Quan with the legend of the giant couple Bao Luong (big boy), Sao Cai (big girl). In particular, the role of Sao Cai mothers is especially emphasized along with the emergence and development of farming through a series of related places.   Perhaps stemming from traditional concepts of the Mother, combined with the folk concept of considering the moon as the subject of eunuchs (femininity), the Tay people have associated the moon with the role of a great mother who governs the world over many things, especially in agricultural production. Therefore, in the mythology of the Tay people, the Moon Lady is the daughter of the Heavenly King, assigned by her father to take care of farming work on earth. To prepare for the Nang Hai Festival, the Tay ethnic people chose a spacious, flat ground as the place to hold the festival. On the beach, fabric is stretched and tents are set up, called chit-curtain camps. The place where Nang Hai sat for the ceremony was placed in the center of the yard covered with floral fabric and spread with flower mats. The tent is built with poles and covered with flowered fabric, forming a U-shape around the festival yard. At the beginning and end of the village, a large welcome gate is built to welcome guests. Families in the village prepare savory trays of traditional dishes to welcome guests to the festival and to compete on the day of the festival. The festival consists of 3 parts: Hai welcoming ceremony, Hai praying ceremony and Hai welcoming ceremony. Each part of the ritual will have different offerings. The first ceremony is the welcoming ceremony for Hai. At this ceremony, the buddha (priest) will go to the earth temple to ask the earth god to invite Mother Moon to come to earth. When the buddha begins to murmur an official prayer to invite Mother Moon to come down to earth to help the people in the fields and pray for blessings for the villagers, the 12 girls chosen to act as the 12 Hai ladies will also begin to dance and sing according to the buddha's words. And from that moment on, the girls were considered to have become Hai girls who came down to help pray for good harvests and blessings for the villagers. The second ceremony is the Praying for Hai ceremony, which takes place at two places: the Earth Cong temple and Hai shack. In this part of the ceremony, the priest will in turn worship the 12 Moon Mothers, represented by 12 girls representing the 12 Moon Mothers, symbolizing the 12 lunar months of the year. According to the Tay people's concept, each Moon Mother will take care of the blessings and each different part of the farming work. The last ceremony is Hai's farewell ceremony. This is quite an important ceremony, attracting many people from neighboring areas to attend. The ceremony to welcome the Hai shows the attachment of the Moon Mothers and the Hai girls before returning to heaven, with songs of advice and promises to meet again next year, demonstrating the strong belief of the local community in the blessing of the Moon Mother associated with the good wishes for a peaceful, prosperous life of the Tay people in the mountainous region. Nang Hai Festival represents the aspirations of the Tay ethnic people to pray for good weather, solidarity and respect in the community, which is a very cultural behavior of the Tay people. This is also an opportunity for people to meet and exchange, strengthening the intimate relationship between people in the area. Through responding to Nang Hai, people are not afraid to reveal their hearts to share their sadness, joy, and problems. Through Nang Hai's voice, people can find the sympathy of friends' voices.