Published:  00:20 Wednesday - March 21, 2012

The religious belief of Tu Di people is the combination of three traditional religions in Vietnam (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism) and the remnants of original belief, typically the ceremony of sweeping village – the only annual belief activity held in community.

As a local group of Bo Y ethnic minority group, the customs and habits of Tu Di people in Muong Khuong district, Lao Cai province has many similarities with Giay people and Nung people while it still retains its own identity.

Derive from a legend

Tu Di’s legend told: “Once upon a time, Tu Di people were living in villages peacefully when a pandemic rushed into the villages. The pandemic not only killed pets and animals, dried up crops, but also robbed the life of a lot of villagers. Fortunately, a shaman named Tong Chong Su set up an altar to worship and used enchantments for each household in the village. The pandemic therefore was dispelled and the community was brought back the peace. Since then in every lunar February, Tu Di villages organized rituals to ward off spirits, demons and diseases and wishes for every smoothly thing”.

The sweeping ceremony of Tu Di people includes four rituals: Setting up an altar ritual; burning incense ritual; Sweeping villages’ ritual, gods and deity’s farewell ritual, the two former rituals are taking place first, and the main ritual is sweeping villages, the last is thanksgiving ritual.

Set up altar 

In the early morning of the main ceremony day, representatives from households gathered in the Earth God shrine. The shaman decides to set up an altar, display offerings on it and pray for inviting the supreme gods (Jade Emperor, God of Thunder…) and gods controlling the villages (God of Mountain, God of Earth…) and ancestors of each household to take part in the ceremony. After that, the main Sweeping Villages ritual officially starts with an opening up bible reading.

The shaman ends up the bible reading by three rounds of buring incenses to officially invite the gods in all the three religions. Finally, the shaman does magic to request ghost soldiers and kings to prevent disasters and epidemic in the community.

Burning Incense Ritual

The shaman begins this ritual by three rounds of serving wine. In the first round, the whole village sincerely invites wine to all the participating gods; in the second round, they pray for peace, serenity without disasters and diseases; in the third round, they express thanks for teaching the people to cook the alcohol.

After three rounds of serving wine, the shaman offers dragon boats to the gods so that they can use this vehicle to catch the spirits, demons and diseases out of the villages, confine them in the nine clouds layers and thrust them into the hell. After that, the shaman reads the petition names of households and keeps inside each house in the village to prevent the demons, spirits and ghosts run away and prepares for the main ritual.

 Sweeping Village Ritual

When every house in the village is set charm, one person will be assigned to cut off the sacrified dog’s tail and drag the bloody dog around the village. Following the blood trail, the “Catching ghosts” group of people will start their work in every household. The people will put in front of their house a red water bowl containing a coal and grains (rice, corn, soybeans, peanuts, sorghum). When the “Catching Ghosts” group arrives, the house owner withdraws four grass leaves in four corners and puts into the water bowl and burns the incense near the bowl. The group stops so that the shaman commands the ghosts soldiers and kings to blockade the ghosts, burn the ghosts.

The shaman reads the marginal note and turns around on every directions in front of the house. Whatever direction the shaman turns on, the villagers will sprinkle water, throw pieces of chinaware, pottery… towards that direction in order to sweep out the demons.

After the catching ghosts’ ritual outdoor, the group breaks into the house and perform the above rituals again. Finally, the shaman approaches the altar to inform the ancestors about what he has done to wade off demons and diseases…

After catching all the demons and epidemic out of every household in the village, the group carries the dragon boat straight to the streamline at the end of the village to do the farewell ritual.

Farewell ritual

In the farewell ritual, the shaman sees off the dragon boat, bringing diseases confining in the Marble Mountain, demons in the THanh Duong Mountain in Duong Chau to be the baits for tigers.

The Sweeping Villages of Tu Di people is a community cultural activity, reflecting the religious belief of the people. The praying writings is a precious document for the folklore researchers to investigate the traditional cultural identity of a minority ethnic group with less than 5000 people.  

Editor: Minh Tri