Lookatvietnam – At 6pm, when the sun begins to set, the sounds of drums and clarinets ring through the small village of La Phu, driving away the the last of the winter cold.

Honourable guest: A sacrificial pig is the star of the show at a festival in La Phu village.

The festival, which falls tomorrow is held in honour of the tutelary god of the village, Tinh Quoc - one of the most talented generals of the 18th Hung King. This year, like previous years, 14 of the most beautiful pigs from the village’s 10 communes will be taken to the communal house in the village to be sacrificed to the idols.

Honouring Mr Pig

According to Ta Tung, chief of Tran Phu Hamlet and one of the members of the festival’s organising committee, said the pigs to be sacrificed this year were chosen last year and were raised by the most skilled farmers in the village.

“Early in the morning of the 13th day of the first lunar month, the pigs are brought to the house of a host family in each hamlet to be butchered, with many people in the hamlet looking on,” he said.

Unlike other villages where pig procession festivals parade live pigs, in La Phu Village, the pigs must be butchered and cleaned before being laid out on a bed of bamboo.

Tripe from the pigs, after being cleaned and boiled, are left in a round tray in front of the pig palanquin.

Tung says the most difficult thing when butchering the pig is taking off the thin shreds of fat that cover the pig’s whole body like a thin piece of cloth.

“We dress the pigs up for the procession,” he said. We do their ‘make-up.’ It takes a lot of time. The inhabitants cut coloured papers (green and red ) into the shape of flowers and stick them on the pigs’ ears, eyes, mouth, back and feet.

The last thing to do is to decorate the palanquin with incense and candles. The palanquin is followed by a wooden or cloth protective parasol. Two flags and a big drum lead the procession.

The palanquin is carried or pushed by eight tall, unmarried and well-educated men.

Each pig comes one after another to the communal house. The village’s inhabitants and visitors rush to the village’s main road to see the palanquins. Everyone tries to walk fast enough to follow the procession.

“It’s so original, a lot of fun,” said Nguyen Thi Hoa, a visitor from downtown Ha Noi.

“I’ve heard about the festival from a friend and wanted to see it. I’ve never seen such an interesting pig festival before.”

The village’s communal house fills up with people waiting to see the pigs. At 7pm, the palanquins reach the communal house to a bustling backdrop of drums, gongs and the octet.

At midnight, the sacrificial ceremony begins. They are brought out to the yard so people can look closely and marvel. At six the next morning, they share the pig’s meat between each household in the village.

“The family with the most beautiful pig can win a present. It’s very small, only some tea, betel and areca-nuts, but it has great spiritual value for the whole commune where the pig is from,” Tung said.

Live tradition

No one knows for sure when this festival began. They only remember running as a child with their parents or friends to see the pigs on the palanquins.

Locals believe that the festival is in honour of Tinh Quoc, the hero from La Phu Village from the time of Hung King. He was said to have given a banquet to his soldiers before going to battle. The tradition says that at that time, the region’s inhabitants offered him pigs to show him their gratitude, later making him tutelary god of the village.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News