In the blazing sunshine and wind of the highlands, the Gia Rai ethnic people in Ya Chim, Kon Tum province, are excitedly holding a festival to celebrate their new communal house.
Several days ago, the village elders gathered to discuss preparations for the festival. The first ritual is to choose a location to plant the pole. They chose a small jar of wine and slit the throat of a rooster to offer to the God, asking for permission to hold the festival. The bowl of chicken blood mixed with wine is a sacred object, so women and children are not allowed to touch it. The village elders brought the bowl of blood to the pole location. The village erected two poles, one to tie a buffalo and the other to tie a goat, both black males. Each pole also had a Po lang tree (a red cotton tree) planted, symbolizing the longevity of the community.
Village elder A Zui, the master of ceremonies, holds a bowl of chicken blood and moves it around the big pole five times: three times from right to left, two times from left to right. According to their beliefs, counterclockwise is the direction of the sun's setting, the direction of the ancestors, and clockwise is the direction of the sun's endless movement. During the ceremony, they avoid spilling the bowl of chicken blood, because they are afraid that the villagers will encounter bad things. The pole is a composite work of art, using only bamboo and wood combined with sculpture and painting, decorated in black, red, and white colors taken from charcoal, soil, and sometimes from the blood of sacrificed animals. On the pole are decorative shapes such as the sun, the god's hand, fern, and geometric patterns. After erecting the pole, young men, under the control of the village elder, tie buffaloes and goats to nooses. Buffaloes and goats are offerings to the gods, so the nooses are also made very elaborately. They kill a small pig to report this to Giàng. Then the village girls gathered to process wild vegetables into many unique dishes. The men prepared a jar of sacred wine.
At this time, the gongs began to play solemnly along with the girls' xoang dances. The first gong song was meant to celebrate the new communal house and invite the gods to witness the buffalo eating ceremony of the villagers. The second song invited the ancestors, and the third song invited relatives from near and far to attend the festival.
Then they performed a spiritual procedure called pre prang. The village elder used a long rope, tied one end to the pole of the pole, and the rope was stretched out. After his command, all the old, young, men and women held hands on the rope. A few minutes later, the end of the rope was moved from the pole where the buffalo was tied to the pole where the goat was tied.
The village elders explained that the villagers were too crowded, there was not enough space for everyone to touch the pole at the same time, so they had to extend the rope, because it was the "spiritual rope" for the villagers to send off the sacrificial animals and inform Giàng that they had contributed their efforts and money to the festival and pray for Giàng's blessings. Village elder
A Zui stood next to the pole with the buffalo tied, praying loudly: "Dear Giàng, the villagers have built a beautiful new communal house. Today, the village is holding a buffalo eating festival to celebrate the new communal house, inviting Giàng to join in the fun, to bless people with health, to make the buffaloes, cows, and pigs grow quickly, to fill the barns with rice, to fill the fields with corn, and to make all hatred disappear!".
Each person was given a piece of pig liver to apply on their neck to cure illness and avoid risks. The village slaughtered another pig, the families contributed more wine and meat, and happily ate and drank together. On the first night of the festival, almost the whole village did not sleep, gathered around the communal house to chat and eat.
At 10 o'clock the next morning, the gong team played a circle around the communal house and then visited each house. The families gave them chickens, wine, gourds, etc. Then the men representing the families brought each person a handful of rice. This contributed rice was considered sacred rice, and was sprinkled by the village elder on the buffalo's back with the meaning of sending the sacrificial animal back to the God. In the bustling sound of gongs, several strong young men, holding spears and shields, stepped out. They danced a vigorous battle dance around the buffalo's tether to the excited cheers of the villagers. This was also the time for the buffalo stabbing ceremony. After that, the villagers cut off the buffalo's tail and hung it on the pole. The buffalo's meat was roasted and divided equally among all the families. The goat was also sacrificed right after that.
After the offering at the communal house, the spiritual string was once again stretched out for the villagers to inform Giàng that everything was completed. On the third day of the festival, the buffalo head was brought to the communal house. A young man carefully peeled the skin and meat from the buffalo head, while the tongue and brain of the animal were minced, mixed well, then wrapped in forest leaves and grilled to bring to the communal house to make an offering to Giàng, asking for permission to use the communal house from now on.
The festival ended when the buffalo head bone was placed in a high corner of the communal house. After that, the village elders sat together to learn from each other about organizing the festival, checking to see if anyone was far away or sick and could not return, then discussed ways to help. Therefore, after the buffalo eating ceremony to celebrate the new communal house, the strength of community solidarity of the Gia Rai people seemed to be strengthened and had a new vitality. The festival to celebrate the new communal house is one of the many unique traditional cultural values of the Gia Rai people, preserved through many ups and downs of history, and popular in the lives of the people of the Central Highlands today.