The Buffalo festival

Quang Nam province in Central Vietnam is home to a number of ethnic minority groups, many of whom have retained their unique cultural traditions. Nguyen Dinh attends a special festival in the Tra My Mountains. In the Southern Tra My Mountains in Vietnam's Quang Nam province, people of the Caodong and Sedang ethnic groups occasionally organize a Trau Hue (Buffalo Pole) Festival.

Since these events are not held regularly, it is a rare honor to attend one. Trau Hue Festivals are not organized by the village or by the community but by individual families wishing to express their thanks to Heaven and Earth. Cadong or Sedang families sometimes promise the deities that they will sacrifice a buffalo if they are blessed with a good harvest or abundant livestock.

The hue is a kind of festival pole consisting of three connected sticks with a total length of over 20m. A stick of wood, a stick of bamboo and a stick of yellow bamboo are bound together with jungle vines and decorated with impressive red, black and white patterns.

Motifs often include birds, animals, rice fields, houses, suns, moons, and stars and relate to people's daily lives. A tall and beautiful hue pole is considered a sign of the villagers' cleverness. In a perfect hue pole, the joints between the three pieces of wood and bamboo are invisible. When a family celebrates a Trau Hue Festival, the entire village feels honored, since it shows that their village is home to wealthy people. Everyone in the neighborhood will join the festivities and enjoy three days and three nights of feasting, singing and entertainment. The host bears all costs, even giving guests a piece of buffalo meat to take home.

The family organizing the Trau Hue Feast will ask the village's shaman to select an auspicious day. The shaman will decide whether a male or a female buffalo should be sacrificed. The selected buffalo is usually one year old. At 3pm on the first day of the festival, young men will gather at the host's home to decorate and erect the hue pole.

When this is done, the buffalo is led in and tethered to the pole with rattan rope. The men and the host family now gather in the house's kitchen to play gongs and pray. They invite the deities to return to earth to witness their thanksgiving ceremony. They then return home to rest in preparation for a night of drinking and dancing around the hue pole.

Soon it is dark. The village rings with the cheery sound of gongs. Villagers carrying torches walk to the home of the host family. Only one item is served - a dish of tender steamed banana leaf and rice pulp. Some people cook and others eat. After eating, people go into the yard and use hollow bamboo straws to drink rice alcohol from a pot. They dance in circles around the buffalo. They sing, play drums and gongs and dance without rest. The inner circle is made up of the village's female dance team. They follow a lead dancer and dance basic steps. The outside circle features men carrying gongs and big drums. They perform strange moves to attract attention. A Trau Hue Festival is an occasion for young men and women to meet and to confess their love. Many couples begin their relationships after a Trau Hue Festival. A tired dancer is immediately replaced by a fresh one. The villagers stay up all night.

Sunrise marks the official start of the festival. The key rites begin. The host family stands within the inner circle near the buffalo. One by one, they whisper their prayers to the deities, believing that the sacrificed animal will take their prayers to the King of Heaven. Village elders also approach the buffalo and sing sad songs that express their sorrow at having to kill the buffalo in order to build a bridge between mankind and the deities.

In this reverent atmosphere, the host takes a 2-meter-long spear and thrusts it into the buffalo's flank. The tethered buffalo runs around the pole, and young men launch similar long spears into its body. After about 10 thrusts the animal collapses, blood gushing from its sides. Some water is poured onto it and the animal raises its head to catch the water, and then stops breathing.

The host butchers the dead buffalo and divides the meat for the villagers. He retains the head and the guts as offerings. Guests continue to eat, drink, sing and dance. After the festival, only the hue pole remains. Cadong and Sedang people will not remove this pole but leave it until it rots and collapses. They believe that these elaborately decorated poles contain the spirits of their ancestors and form a link between men and gods. A hue pole standing in the yard confirms the host family's wealth and brings honor to the host family and the entire village.