Time:
5th day to 10th day of the 1st lunar month
Place:
Lieu Doi (Liễu Đôi) village, Liem Tuc (Liêm Túc) commune, Thanh Liem (Thanh
Liêm) district, Ha Nam (Hà Nam) province.
Characteristics:
to worship Thánh Ông (Male Saint) (a man with the family name Ðoàn, he gained
feats of fighting against the invaders from the North; he was also the creator
of the wrestling sports here).
History
Lieu
Doi is a place of sporting tradition. There is a famous team of wrestlers here
attracting wrestlers from other places to compete with them. There remain a lot
of legends of the origin of the festival as well as the legends of wrestling
and team of wrestlers.
Lieu
Doi’s legend has it that, a young man of Doan (Đoàn) family has the
extraordinary power and the special ability of martial arts. He can defeat 5
competitors in the stage. One day, in Nuong Cui (Nương Cửi), a bright blue
light ray frightened everybody but the Doan man. He came near it and realized
that the light was from a sword placing in a red scarf. He kowtowed to the god,
then held the sword, tied the red scarf around his waist and fenced in front of
villagers.
Procedures
-
First is the procession of Saint to the stage: The stage is the place where
wrestling contest is celebrated, the procession of Saint to the stage is to
bring Saint Palanquin to the stage. Offerings consist of some truncated cones
of sticky rice, some bananas, and a pot of tea (substituting for wine). An old
man holding a mirror walking backwards at the beginning of the procession
starts the worshiping ceremony.
-
After that is the burning ceremony. A huge flame is lit to remind people of the
ancient magic blue light from the burning sword in Nuong Cui.
-
Next are ceremonies of sword delivering and red scarf tying to commemorate the
young man Doan when he got the sword and the red scarf.
-
Then Mr. Old Trum (Trùm) who is an honorable person and is responsible for
keeping the largest drum delivers the sword from the Saint palanquin to a
wrestler representative.
-
Next comes the war flag dance, which is also called “superman going to the
battlefield dance”. There are four participants in the dance, each holds a red
square flag coming out from the two sides of the palanquin to the stage and
then they dance in the sound of drumbeats. The sound ceremony comes afterwards,
beginning with a roll of drumbeats from the largest drum as well as the sound
from firecrackers, bell, gong, tocsin at the stage and from all temples and
pagodas in the region. All create an exciting atmosphere.
-
After all those rights, the game starts. There are also a lot of other rites
during the game beginning with five sets of wrestling between the youngest
boys. The youngest boys are the two last boys born in the last year. At the
beginning, those two boys are called to wrestlers for five sets. However, they
are, of course, too young to wrestle so their fathers wrestle with each other.
But according to the rule, they only pretend to wrestler and are not allowed to
make the partner fall for the reason that the game is a symbol showing their
wish to villagers and the Saints that the two boys would become wrestlers in
the future. Therefore, they two will be punished if any of them falls. If the
father of the child is not at home, his grandfather will be the wrestler in the
game. Quitting the game is unacceptable. Through this rite, Lieu Doi villagers
want to teach their offspring that every boy has to become a wrestler.
-
The next rite is local wrestlers as the starters, i.e. Lieu Doi wrestlers come
to the stage first beginning the competition as to encourage the wrestlers from
other places. When the wrestlers from other places feel excited, Lieu Doi
wrestlers give the floor to them and stand outside as spectators. The person
who wins 5 continuous sets can go into the second round. The person who wins
all wrestlers in the second round will be given a special prize; the lower
prizes include the first prize, second prize, third prize and honor prizes for
all wrestlers. So, losers can also get prizes. Money from the contribution of
visitors are spent on joss-sticks, the remains are spent on prizes and the poor
if there’s any left. This sum of money is not admitted to be spent on other
things.
-
When standing on the stage, wrestlers have to wear no clothes but a loin-cloth.
All wrestlers avoid taking off or putting on shirts from their right hand first
because that is the hand to hold lances, swords, that hand is their strength
when wrestling. They usually put on the shirt from their left hand, there for
left hands are called shirt hands. On the stage, dangerous trick is forbidden;
who commits this rule will be heavily punished. Rule breakers must stand in the
middle of the stage and was thrown out of the stage by a stronger wrestler.
Five coming generations of theirs will not be allowed to take part in wrestling
festival.
This
article written by Lanh Nguyen from Vacation to Vietnam
For
original article, please visit:
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