Et Dong Tet of the Ba Na people

We have been in Kon Tum for a long time, but only now have we had the opportunity to witness the Et Dong (Et Ding Dieng) festival - the bamboo rat festival of the Ba Na people (Jo Lang branch). In Kon Brap Ju village, Tan Lap commune, Kon Ray district, the atmosphere welcoming this unique folk cultural activity is fresh and joyful, completely different from the quiet atmosphere we have seen before.

As the largest unique traditional festival of the Jo Lang people, Et Dong is usually held in early October of the solar calendar every year to pray for good luck and prosperity for the community and each family.

Et Dong is held during the time related to the growth cycle of upland rice: the stage of rice heading, flowering, preparing for the new rice harvest. According to long-standing custom, not far from the time of the new rice harvest, villagers organize to eat the rice seeds kept from the beginning of the season, to pray for good luck and prosperity for the next season.

Village elder A Jring Deng prepares to celebrate Et Dong Tet.

With many spiritual meanings and community values, everyone does not miss the opportunity to celebrate the bamboo rat festival. In the morning of the main ceremony at the communal house, each family has a representative to participate. If there is only one person missing, everyone must wait until they are all present to perform the ceremony. After Et Dong, families can carry out "big things" such as building a new house, repairing an old house, getting married... Especially, during this festival, young couples are also matched.

On the main festival day, first the worship is held at home, then they gather at the communal house. Early in the morning, each family prepares a bamboo rat (boiled and dried on the kitchen rack) and cooks a pot of old rice. The homeowner chooses a grain of rice and puts it on his head, praying to the gods that today the family and the villagers will participate in the Et Dong festival. After that, everyone in the family eats rice with bamboo rat meat for good luck.

At the communal house, the ceremony to worship the bamboo rat takes place in a formal and solemn manner. Each householder brings a jar of good wine and a bamboo tube containing the bamboo rat along with some items for the ceremony (including a few banana leaves, a tube of wine, and a few thatched leaves). For families with small children or grandchildren, when going to the communal house, the homeowner only carries the jar of wine, while the child carries the bamboo tube. The bamboo rat is carefully tied to a le tree, its head facing up, and decorated with a round bamboo strip in the shape of an arc, with cotton and pretty bamboo strips attached.

Perform a fire ritual to pray for a bountiful harvest.

The arrangement of the communal house to worship the bamboo rat has its own unique features. Along the middle of the communal house, a row of sturdy wooden pillars is erected. The village elder’s wine jar is placed at this center to “set the standard” for families to place their wine jars one after another, forming two neat vertical rows. After the main ceremony in the Et Dong festival, the homeowners take turns pulling the rope from the position of the village elder’s wine jar to the position of their family’s wine jar. “Not only does it have the meaning of spreading the blood vessels in a body, spreading the spirit of solidarity of the community, this ritual also vividly demonstrates one of the traditional beauties related to rice. That is to guide the rice grain to each house, bringing luck and good things to everyone” - village elder A Jring Deng (Kon Brap Ju village) noted.

Also in the ceremony to worship the bamboo rat, there is a unique ritual that cannot be missed, which is “hiding rice”. According to Mr. A Met (50 years old), take rice grains (equal to the number of people in the family plus 1) carefully wrapped in pem leaves, placed under the wine jar of each family in the communal house. After the two main days of the festival, the host brings them home and then opens the leaf package. If the original number of rice grains in the leaf package is still there, it is a sign of luck and prosperity. If the rice in the leaf package is unfortunately lost or damaged, it is a "bad omen"; the family needs to take precautions to avoid risks and bad luck.

As a unique and large-scale folk festival, Et Dong is preserved and passed down from generation to generation, creating a proud traditional beauty of the Ba Na ethnic group of the Jo Lang branch. The dossier of this festival is being completed to submit to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for consideration and inclusion in the list of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.