Offerings to the Creator.

The Roong Pooc Festival is organized in Muong Hoa Valley in Tan Van Commune, about 10km away from Sa Pa Town. From early morning thousands of people, including the Mong ethnic people from Hau Thao in Lao Chai, the Dao from Ho and Phung Hamlets and tourists from Sa Pa Town cheerfully flock to the festival.

The festival takes place in a rather flat field at the end of the hamlet. To symbolize affluence, a village elderly places a plate of boiled eggs, which has been dyed red, a plate of silver jewellery and a plate of red steam sticky rice, while an unmarried girl places a Con (shuttlecock) on the altar to offer to the deities, thereby assuring a good harvest. The wizard wearing a buttoned long dress burns incense joss-sticks and says prayers in his ethnic language telling the gods that all villagers are go

The wizard holds the worshipping ritual.

ing to the field. He invites the village’s saint to attend the festival and bless the villagers with serenity and prosperity. When the worshipping ceremony finishes, drums, gongs and Pi le clarinets are played to announce the beginning of the games.

A Con tree is erected at the centre of the festival place. It is a high apricot tree with a circle on its top. The circle is covered with red paper on one side to symbolize the sun, and with yellow paper on the other side to symbolize the moon. The Giay ethnic people believe that those who are selected to erect the tree with a sun circle which is also called Con pole will be wealthy and lucky.

The shuttlecock goes through the centre of a paper-covered circle on top of the Con pole, over 20m high.

The game activities start with the Con-throwing. The elderly participants are divided into two groups of men and women. Each group takes three shuttlecocks and both groups throw the shuttlecocks together three times to start the game. After that other villagers will join in the game. The players try to throw the shuttlecocks to pierce the paper on the circle, believing that it signals a year of good harvests.

The tug-of-war game also starts with a ritual practice. A group of men standing on the east side holds the root end of a rattan rope while a group of women standing in the west side holds the other end of the rope. Rolls of drums and clarinets resound. The men’s group (symbolizing the sun) is always the winner and the women’s group (symbolizing the moon) pretends to be the

After the Con-throwing game, Giay ethnic people begin a new crop.

loser. This means the whole village will have good harvests throughout the year. After the ritual, young men and women participate in the game. Foreign visitors can join the activities.

Boys and girls like to seek calm places to court via performance of Dan moi (Jew’s harp), panpipe and singing. When the festival finishes, the village elderly hold a ceremony for praying and removing the Con pole. After that two robust young men controlled two strong and fat buffaloes to plough five lines in the field, signalizing the start of a new crop.