Exploring Ha Giang A-Z
Jun 11, 2024
Ha Giang, the land at the head of Vietnam, has many attractive tourist destinations as well as many cultural festivals with the presence of more than 20 ethnic minorities. The top 8 festivals in Ha Giang below help visitors have a comprehensive and unique view of the culture here.
The Lo Lo ethnic group mainly lives in Dong Van and Meo Vac districts of Ha Giang province. Although people’s lives are increasingly developing, the Lo Lo people still retain their own unique cultural features.
The rain praying festival is often held in years of harsh weather and is held on the 15th, 17th, and 19th of the third lunar month every year to pray to the gods for favorable weather, good crops, and a prosperous life for the villagers.
The local people prepares the offerings together, using musical instruments such as the two-stringed fiddle, the flute, the trumpet, the cymbal, the bronze drum, etc. to blow and beat the rhythms of the dances and sing folk songs and offerings. Each part of the ceremony in the rain-praying festival usually lasts about 2 hours. The shaman will perform the first offering, inviting the gods of the four directions to witness the villagers’ rain-praying ceremony, asking the gods of the four directions to bless them with favorable weather and good crops.
Buckwheat is a very beautiful flower, with tiny pink flowers, petals gathered into a cone shape, with three triangular sides, holding a precious buckwheat seed in the middle. After the rice harvest season, people in Ha Giang start sowing buckwheat seeds, and by the end of November and the beginning of December, they begin to harvest. The Ha Giang Buckwheat Flower Festival is expected to take place from November to the end of December every year to honor the value of cultural heritage and the resilient, strong vitality of the people of the highlands.
Coming to the Ha Giang Buckwheat Festival, visitors can admire the sparkling flowers blooming on the rocky plateau, participate in exploring the culture of ethnic minorities in the highlands through cultural and artistic activities and folk games of the H’mong people. In particular, coming to the buckwheat flower festival, you must enjoy dishes made from this buckwheat plant such as buckwheat cake, corn wine.
This is also the right time for you to travel to Ha Giang and attend the buckwheat flower festival, visit and learn about the cultural life of the indigenous people and explore attractive places here.
The Pu Peo people are an ethnic group that only lives in Ha Giang province and are most concentrated in Pho La commune, Dong Van district. In addition to the New Year holidays, the Forest God Worship Ceremony, held on the 6th day of the 6th lunar month every year, is the most important for the Pu Peo people. Protecting the forest, considering the forest as a friend, and being attached to the forest is the common consciousness of the Pu Peo community. Wherever the Pu Peo people live, the forest is often very well protected, the protection of the forest to have water for farming and wood for building houses has always been passed down from generation to generation.
The ceremony took place in the forbidden forest – the sacred forest at the beginning of the village, the shaman respectfully placed his face on a large tree trunk on behalf of the villagers, kneeling in the four directions of the sky and eight directions of the earth twice, each time three times to pray for the Forest God and the Water God to protect the village. The worship ceremony shows the respect of the Pu Peo people to the Forest God, the Sky God, the Earth God, the Water God, inviting them to witness the worship ceremony, enjoy chicken and goat meat and bless the people here with good health, favorable weather, good crops. Pray for the forest to become greener and greener to protect people.
Coming to the Pu Peo ethnic forest god worsh ceremony, people can also enjoy traditional sports competitions such as stick pushing, tug of war, playing “ao”, jumping frog. In addition, there is also a program of singing and dancing folk songs, singing and responding, and love duet performed by the commune’s folk artists, showing the daily life of the Pu Peo ethnic group.
Long Tong festival is often called the festival of going down to the field. It is a festival of the Tay ethnic group, and also a gathering of the most typical cultural nuances of ethnic groups such as Nung, Dao… The festival usually takes place in the first days of January, lasting until the beginning of February of the lunar calendar every year. This is a religious activity praying for favorable weather, good plants, bountiful crops, and a prosperous life. The festival is held in a large area of land, or on a flat field.
In the middle, people erect a pole made of apricot tree trunk, about 20-25 m high, on top of the pole is a bull’s eye, where there are two high and low circles, symbolizing yin and yang, the origin of the universe and the birth of all things. The ceremony takes place with the monk’s worship rituals such as prayers to the God of Agriculture, the God of Mountains, the God of Streams… the gods who protect the crops and the health and peace of the villagers. The festival has many cultural activities such as Then singing, Coi singing… many sports activities, folk games such as Con throwing, pole climbing, blindfolded drumming, tug of war, stick pushing, plowing competition…
The Gau Tao Festival of the H’mong ethnic group usually takes place at the beginning of the year to pray for good health for families in the village, less illness, healthy children, both boys and girls, good harvests, favorable weather, and development of livestock.
The first part of the ceremony is to erect a pole to represent the eternal vitality of the H’mong village on the rocky plateau. Then comes the part of worshipping the gods and thanking heaven and earth. At the end of the ceremony, everyone in the village gathers around the pole to have fun together. Coming to the Gau Tao Festival, visitors can enjoy folk games such as swallow fighting, martial arts, crossbow shooting… and artistic entertainment such as panpipe dancing, flute playing, singing and responding… The Gau Tao Festival is also a means to strengthen and develop relationships between individuals, families or village communities to strengthen solidarity.
For the Tay ethnic group, folk beliefs always believe that on the moon there is the moon mother and 12 fairies (her daughters). The moon mother and 12 fairies always take care of and protect the crops for all people. For generations, with this folk festival imbued with spirituality, the Tay people in Ha Giang. On the full moon day of the eighth lunar month, when the moon mother rises above the mountain top, all the people gather in the yard to perform the ceremony.
The shaman worships the local god and the gods, the artists perform the ritual dance around the altar when the moon-welcoming festival opens, praying for favorable weather and wind; chasing away destructive animals, locking up harmful insects and bugs, asking for good seeds so that the crops in the coming year will continue to be bountiful; people pray to avoid disasters and diseases… Through organizing the moon-wishing festival, the Tay ethnic people also teach their children and grandchildren to be proud and preserve traditional cultural values, imbued with the national identity. When coming to the moon-wishing festival, not only can you listen to folk songs and folk games, each visitor can also enjoy traditional culinary dishes of the Tay ethnic people such as bamboo-tube rice, wild vegetable dishes, pork sauce, field carp sauce, salted plums, five-color sticky rice, sour bamboo shoots, black plums dipped in sesame salt.
The Cap Sac ceremony has long been a traditional festival of the Dao ethnic village in Nam Dam, Quan Ba commune, Ha Giang. Every year, during the off-season at the beginning or end of the year, the Cap Sac ceremony is held according to the traditional rituals of the Dao people.
Cap Sac Ceremony, also known as Tu Cai Ceremony, is used to give a new name to an adult son. This is an important ceremony in the life of a Dao man. Anyone who has not performed the ceremony is considered an immature person and is not allowed to attend meetings to discuss important matters of the family. The ceremony is held and lasts for 3 consecutive days. The lamps are also lit for 3 consecutive days with the idea of inviting the gods and ancestors to witness the young man becoming an adult.
Fire dancing is a unique ceremony, imbued with the mysterious and wild features of the Pa Then ethnic group. The festival usually takes place at the beginning of the year to celebrate the new rice crop, wishing for a healthy, prosperous and bountiful year. The festival is held on a large, flat piece of land, each participant in the fire dancing brings firewood to join in the fun.
A large fire was lit and the shaman began to perform the ceremony for about 2 hours. When the shaman struck the instrument and performed the ceremony, each young man would sit opposite him and that was the moment when the fire dancer would enter the trance. When the shaman struck the instrument and performed the ceremony, each young man would sit opposite him and that was the moment when the fire dancer would enter the trance. They began to jump up and jump near the fire. The time they jumped on the fire depended on the strength given to them by the gods. When they ran out of strength, they were pushed out of the fire, returned to sit and worship and swayed to the music again, waiting for the gods to give them strength for a new jump.
In the fire dancing ceremony, visitors can also explore the fascinating cultural features here through brocade weaving competitions, croissant wrapping… or folk games such as stick pushing
Let’s explore the villages as well as the typical festivals in Ha Giang with Pyx in the tours that Pyx is providing!
© 2023 Allrights reserved Pyx Tours
Facebook 
Pinterest 
Instagram 
Youtube