Buffalo slaughtering ceremony in Nine-room Temple festival
(Baonghean) -Unlike the buffalo stabbing ceremony of the Central Highlands people, the buffalo slaughtering ceremony in the Nine-room Temple festival (Que Phong district, Nghe An) is organized more simply, but has its own meaning.
The Nine-room Temple is a large temple of the Thai people in the Northwest of Nghe An, built in the early 14th century on Pu Cho Nhang Mountain in Khoang village, 5 km west of the current Temple location. The temple worships Heaven (Then Pha) Mang Xi Da (daughter of Heaven) and Tao Lo Y (the person who founded the village and the Muong).
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Every year, the temple has two ceremonies, one in February of the first lunar month and the other in August during the Po Hau Cam festival. During the ceremonies, spiritual rituals are held very solemnly. The first is the buffalo slaughtering ceremony (Phản quái) - an important ceremony held early in the morning of the first day of the festival, right in front of the temple yard.
Unlike the buffalo stabbing ceremony of the Central Highlands people, the buffalo slaughtering ceremony in the Nine-Chamber Temple Festival is organized more simply. According to custom, each Muong contributes a buffalo. The buffalo used in the buffalo slaughtering ceremony is a buffalo brought from Muong Ton (the main Muong of the nine Muongs here):
Create a splint
Butterfly Create run away monster.
Translation:April Create buffalo gong to make wine
In August, Tao killed a buffalo for a sacrifice.
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During the ceremony, the master of ceremonies (mo ca) wearing a ceremonial costume (Xua Tay) performs a buffalo bathing ceremony right at the water wharf at the foot of Pu Quai Mountain in front of everyone. After the bath, the sacrificial buffalo is brought to the temple yard in a solemn procession. The master of ceremonies in a ceremonial costume (Xua Tay) walks three times around the buffalo, which is tied to a wooden pole, while reading a poem in the Thai ethnic language, praying for the peace of “Nine Muongs and Ten Bans”. Following behind are people with positions in society in the Muongs.
Then, the celebrant used a sharp axe to chop straight into the neck bone where it met the buffalo's skull. The buffalo fell down and was then bled. The buffalo meat was cooked in large cauldrons and divided into nine parts to be offered in the nine rooms of the temple along with nine jars of rice wine, which were fed with river water drawn from Ta Tao wharf at the foot of Pu Quai mountain, and brought up in bamboo tubes.
After the buffalo sacrifice ceremony is over, all other sacrificial rituals begin. According to belief, if the sacrificed buffalo falls down after just one strike, that year is considered to have good fortune, all things will flourish, crops will be plentiful, and people will be healthy...
Le Ba Lieu
