In the Ha Nhi community, the worshiping ceremony is considered to be a unique belief, the first worshiping ceremony of the new year, opening the ceremony of worshiping the gods in a year. The worshiping ceremony is an important ritual, so the whole community participates.
Ceremony of Ha Nhi Den people
The black Ha Nhi living in Bat Xat (Lao Cai) said that the bad ghost, the evil spirit was afraid of dogs, so in the ceremony of banning the New Year, the dog is an offering with a very important position. This is because the people believe that dogs are the animals that can stay up all night watching sleep for villagers, driving ghosts out of the village; If you do not want evil spirits and evil spirits to harm you, you must kill dogs and make sacrifices for the gods to prevent them from entering. To perform this ritual, the Ha Nhi Den people often prepare offerings such as: 1 male dog, 2 chickens (one drum, one roof), 1 sticky rice stained with leaves, 1 pipe of vines of sticky rice wine. compost, 1 wooden paddy, 9 bunches of grass (9 bunches each) and 1 bunch of incense.
Ceremony to ban the village is held in the land at the beginning of the village. In the days of worshiping ceremony, Ha Nhi's ancestor had to do a lot of procedures to ask the gods to bless the villagers. The chicken, before cutting off the sacrificial chicken, must wash the ritual from the sacred water in the village, then bring it to the altar to worship. After cutting the blood, the rooster is skillfully skinned by an experienced person so that the skin is whole, with feathers, wings, legs, tail, and head. After removing the skin, take two bamboo sticks to form a cross shape, stretch the bumps and then hang them on the top of the wooden pole buried next to the main road leading into the village. At that time, the skin of the chicken was puffed up, its legs and wings were wide open, its head held high, it looked very majestic, making bad ghosts scared to dare to enter the village anymore.
The black Ha Nhi considers that the soul of this dog will follow the spirit to heaven, it is responsible for watching the house, protecting the owner when traveling, so it also needs to be washed with holy water. of the village before being slaughtered so that the soul is clean and returns to the spirit. The Black Ha Nhi do not offer dog meat and dog blood, but only use a piece of liver and dog bile to make offerings, nor do they not cut dog blood before or near the table. The dog blood can only be used to dye wooden blades, wooden swords hanging on ropes through the roads leading to the village. Ritual rituals ban indispensable for taking fresh ginger pound for boiling water and decant to make water for worship.
When the gifts were prepared, the sorcerer started to pray for the god to always protect the villagers in peace, not to let the evil in the village harm the people, pray for favorable rain and wind, the season. bumper membrane ... After that, the main priest took a piece of grilled dog liver divided into many small parts and put it into a banana leaf in front of the table to worship the god. At the end of the worshiping ceremony, all the attendees were the male representatives in the village who removed their shoes, hats or “congregated” hats, kneeled in front of the altar for the offering of god. . Thanksgiving ceremony is also the time everyone split up to go on the roads leading to the village to install the forbidden post.
They hung the whole rooster skin, along with the dog's tail and genitals, onto the tall wooden pole erected on the main road to the village. The bottom has many knives, swords, guns made of wood embedded in dog blood. When the demons saw these things, they would be scared and not dare to enter the village. Ritual rituals ended, everyone together drinking, eating, talking to celebrate the New Year.
Ritual of Ha Nhi Hoa people
The Ha Nhi people in Muong Nhe call the worshiping ceremony a "solicitation of ghosts". The ceremony is held for 3 days in the second lunar month every year and is started on the day of the Dragon (Lo no). On the first day, under the guidance of the assistants, the young people made the village gate, a bamboo frame about 2.5 m high, 1.5 - 2 m wide. The two sides of the gate let the baskets fill the soil - symbolizing the two full-bodied ladies, wishing that the whole five paddy fields of the villagers could never be exhausted. On these two "buds", people planted a number of weapons such as crossbows, guns, bows and knives ... turning their heads outward to fight against the enemies and some things like: flutes, pipes ... placed facing in for the god. On the two pillars of the village gate hangs two wings of chicken, giving birth to a male and female in mating. After the village gate was decorated, people slaughtered a sacrificial dog, then hung the head and four dog legs on the crossbar of the village gate.
Particularly, the Ha Nhi Hoa people in Sin Ho carried out the construction of the village gate on the day of the Snake (one day later than the other places) and called it the first gate-building ceremony (the booed chicken). In this ceremony, they do not kill dogs but only offer chickens and pigs. After 12 days of performing the ceremony of erecting the second village gate (gô chi ó) in the afternoon of the Snake day. Young people carve some animals and objects related to daily life such as dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, buffaloes, horses, hoes, shovels, knives ... hanging on the gate of the village, then use fibers ropes, chains made of bamboo and tied around the gate. They do so because of the concept of using ropes to keep buffaloes in service of plowing, harrowing, crossbreeding dogs to look after houses ... Currently, there are many Ha Nhi people who do not want to organize twice the village gate construction,
During the worshiping ceremony, Ha Nhi people also give each other the colored eggs wrapped in the sticky rice. Those who live far away in the village can eat that gift, which is considered to be lucky in the coming year. In the day of the worshiping ceremony, cultural activities, folk games are also held in parallel, mainly ferris wheel, throwing longer, tickling ... in addition to traditional dances of Ha Nhi people. All members in the village, regardless of age and age, boys and girls, everyone participated.
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