Thai Tuong Duong women's custom of washing hair to welcome the new year

(Baonghean.vn) - Thai Tuong Duong women have long had the custom of washing their hair on the last days of the old year to welcome the new year with optimism, hope for many new good things and luck.

Every year, on the last day of the old year, all Thai women from young to old in the mountainous district of Tuong Duong go to wash their hair to prepare for the new year. Unlike washing their hair on normal days, when washing their hair to welcome the new year, people often go to the river or to the stream where there is a natural water source to wash their hair, with the meaning of letting the water wash away and wash away the bad and unlucky things of the old year. The material for washing hair is water soaked in sticky rice, and is stored very carefully in bamboo tubes, reed tubes, or meter tubes. This year, nearly 70 years old, Mrs. Vi Thi Que of Mac village, Thach Giam commune, Tuong Duong district still goes to the stream with her children and grandchildren to wash her hair. Mrs. Que said: According to the ancient tradition left behind on the last days of the year, people wash their hair to be clean and refreshed to welcome the new year with good health. Next year, they will have a lot of luck, full granaries, full pens of buffaloes and cows.

Thai ethnic women go to rivers and streams to wash their hair to prepare for the New Year.

From that traditional custom with unique cultural features, the last days of the year in the Thai villages of Tuong Duong are bustling with pounding rice by hand to get sticky rice to soak and put the water into bamboo tubes, meters for women to prepare to wash their hair. People wash their hair with sticky rice water also has a profound meaning that the result of labor from women's hands poured on their heads is the crystallization of heaven and earth, as a material to wash away the bad luck of the past year. Sticky rice water for washing hair must be pounded by hand to retain the sticky rice starch, the sticky rice starch makes hair soft, smooth and manageable, not tangled. To get sticky rice to wash hair, people must pound rice and soak it at least a week before the day of washing, the sticky rice water must be stored in bamboo tubes, or meters, the longer it is kept in there, the smoother the hair will be.

When washing their hair, people often go together, in groups of many people, showing the spirit of community solidarity. And washing their hair to welcome the New Year is also a criterion to evaluate the virtues of Thai girls in Tuong Duong. Ms. Pui Thi Dinh in Nhan village, Thach Giam commune shared: Since I was a child, my parents taught me that on the last days of the old year, I had to wash my hair with sticky rice water to welcome the New Year for good health and good luck in business. Now that I have become a daughter-in-law and have children, I still have to preserve the tradition left by my grandfather. So every year I take my daughter to the stream to wash her hair to welcome the New Year.

Nowadays, although the lives of the Thai Tuong Duong people have changed a lot, the custom of washing hair to welcome the new year with sticky rice water every year is still preserved and promoted from generation to generation without fading away.

Dinh Ty