Tet in Cu Te area

Tet in Cu Te area of La Chi people Every year, on the occasion of the 7th lunar month, when farming is less busy, La Chi people organize the Cu Te Tet Festival to express gratitude to grandparents and ancestors who have publicly painted and destroyed rocks, praying for prosperity and happiness in the village, for corn to produce corn, and for rice to bear flowers. Te Cu Te is the biggest traditional Tet of the year for the La Chi people, organized according to clan and village. The La Chi people live mainly in Si Man and Hoang Su Phu districts, Ha Giang province, and Bac Ha district, Lao Cai province. In a year, the La Chi people have 4 Tet holidays including: Rice transplanting festival held in March or May, New rice festival held in September, warehousing Tet held in November and Khu Cu Te Tet - the biggest Tet of the year held in the 7th lunar month. Khu Cu Te means Tet in July ("Khu" means worship, "Cu" means wine; "Te" means ta, also means seven). Khu Cu Te Tet is also known as Cu Cu Te Tet. The time to celebrate Tet in Cu Te area is decided by the council of village elders and village chiefs, but must not exceed 15 days. If there is a leap year in April, the people will celebrate Tet in Cu Te area in the 6th lunar month. The person nominated to preside over the worshiping ceremony must be married and have children, have a happy family, not violate the laws and regulations of the community, have reputation in the community, have no sick people in the house, and the family is doing well. The La Chi people believe that "so is the world, so is the yin". When people die, in the afterlife they still have to work and live like on earth, so the living offer sticky rice so that their ancestors can have rice to grow, and offer chickens, fish, and pigs so that their ancestors can have more cattle and poultry to raise.  Indispensable items in the offering tray of the La Chi people include: buck wine, buffalo horn and ginger root. The wine is made by the families themselves using fermented sticky rice and natural leaf yeast, so the wine has a cool, sweet taste and is not spicy. "The elders who were invited liked to drink sweet wine. If they were given spicy wine, they would go away angry." Buffalo horns are used as a cup to offer wine to the souls of the deceased. Horns are only taken from healthy buffaloes, not sick or fallen into holes, and not from buffaloes used in funerals. The buffalo horn is washed, then dried in the sun, the end of the horn is cut shorter, a hole is drilled in the sharp part of the horn, and a string is used to hang it. The buffalo horn is hung with a basket and a ginger root in the altar of the house. Ginger root is considered a connection between humans and the supernatural world in worship ceremonies. During the ceremony, the shaman will tie the ginger root onto a thread, then look at the direction of the ginger root's movement to predict whether the souls of the deceased have returned home or not.  "When the ancestors come back, they will swing back and forth. When they come back, if you open the door wide, the ginger root will shake quickly, then return to the tray. But when it rotates in a circle, the ancestors do not come back," Mr. Ly Hieu Xuan, Ma Pho village, Nam Khanh commune, added. When enough souls have returned, they will appear in the shaman and his assistants to eat sticky rice and drink deer wine. At this time, the shaman will tell the spirits: "Please stay and celebrate Tet with your children and grandchildren, bless them with good health, good business, lush trees, and good harvests." In particular, in the offering tray of the La Chi people there must be a mouse. "The rat ate our rice and crops, so we had to catch it and present it to our ancestors to judge its crime, so that it would no longer harm our people's crops," Mr. Vuong Duc Thanh said. In the beliefs of the La Chi people, they worship for 3 generations for men and 2 generations for women. "The souls of the deceased men will be offered wine with buffalo horns, and the souls of women will be offered wine with bowls." The Khu Cu Te Tet of the La Chi people is an opportunity for clansmen and communities everywhere to gather and reunite, to remember their ancestors who have publicly painted and destroyed rocks, and to pray for a new year with good harvests, prosperous families, and happy villages. Tet in Cu Te area truly and fully reflects the cultural elements of ancestor worship and typical beliefs of agricultural production. When the worshiping ritual ends, everyone will have fun together at the reunion dinner table, wishing each other good wishes. Then they went to the yard together, mingling in song and song to review the legends of their people, playing folk games together such as pushing sticks, swinging, walking on stilts, throwing shuttlecocks, singing ní ca...