Dai Mao village festival

Photo (Source: Internet).

Dai Mao communal house is located in the center and was built in the Le dynasty. It worships a Tutelary God, one of the 3 Gods of Lac Long Quan's lineage, who is said to have appeared to help the Trung sisters fight the Han army.

The village also has a Temple of Literature worshiping Confucius and his sages, and a stone stele recording the names of the village's successful people. In the village's academic history, there were 70 people from 6 clans who passed Baccalaureate or higher, including 4 people who passed PhDs and were registered in the Temple of Literature and the one in Bac Ninh. There were 35 famous high-ranking mandarins.

Dai Mao village festival is held on the 10^th day of the second lunar month every year. It is stipulated that in the years of the Rat, Horse, Cat, and Rooster, the village holds a larger festival and organizes a procession to welcome the Tutelary God to Dai Mao little temple in the Duong Cau area. Legend has it that this is where the Trung sisters once set up an altar to pray to the Gods for help. The divine genealogy also records a fierce battle here. Today, people still say that during the festival there is a custom of horse racing between three villages, a form of performance to commemorate the old battle.

The organization of the Ceremony is carried out very thoughtfully and carefully by the villagers. Every year, we appoint 3 Dam mandarins, 8 Trung mandarins, and 8 Bai masters to take care of the village's festivals. Dam mandarins are people 60 years of age or older elected by the village. Each village official is given one acres of field to raise a pig. These pigs are raised very meticulously: the cages are clean, the food is usually starchy substances such as bran, rice, corn... ensuring that the pigs are full and grow quickly.

According to tradition, Dai Mao organizes a pig procession to the communal house to celebrate the Tutelary God ceremony on February 13. This day is called “An Than” day, the pigs are kept in a cage made of ironwood, with a rather elaborate and beautiful roof on top. When carrying out the procession, flags, fans, gongs, and drums go first, followed by red bronze trays for betel and areca, wine, and then the crib. The display tray is brought to the upper palace to present to the God that the pigs have been brought out. After the sacrifice, Dam mandarins bring their cups of wine to water the pigs’ head. Then, they open the crib and let the pig run out to the communal house yard for the villagers to witness.

After everyone finish viewing the pig, the men are assigned in advance to hunt and kill the pig. After the meat is finished, part of the meat is boiled, part is left raw, and then they offer to the altar to make a great sacrifice to the Gods.

During the village’s main festival on February 10, there is the custom of reading Moc Duc, and at the same time, the village’s clans jointly organize the “Spring sacrifice to ancestors” festival on January 10 every year.

The ancestor altar houses of all clans have horizontal lacquered boards and parallel sentences with profound teachings about the origins and ethics of being human. Their ancestor altar houses also have records to teach their descendants, like the Le Doan clan.

Not forgetting the roots and remembering the ancestors’ teachings, today Dai Mao village has many people passing university exams. Each year, there are dozens of students passing high scores. That is the pride of the villagers of Dai Mao - a famous land of "good literature".