Ethnic Minorities Celebrate New Harvest

Each year the ethnic minorities in northern Cao Bang Province celebrate their crops and show their gratefulness to the ancestors and to god of agriculture and ask them for a good crop next year. The people here will choose a day between September 7 and September 22 to celebrate. The event should take place when the fields are golden brown and the harvest is being prepared. At this time of year the roads to the market in Trung Khanh District's Thong Hue Commune are filled with people in the mornings. Hoang Thi Hanh, a local in Trung Khanh District said, people do not wait for the market to open to start selling goods. If they have something to sell, they bring it, making the usually quiet market a lively place. The holiday has some other features as well. Custom dictates that on the food tray there must be a pot of boiled wheat. Every family member will drink the water from this pot after it has been offered to the ancestors on the altar as a symbolic meal from the new harvest. The elders of Thong Hue Commune say that this ceremony is usually held at night, when family members come home to report the bounty of the harvest to the ancestors. In the afternoon, people flock to the river to prepare their ducks, which is another necessity for the food tray to be served while exchanging stories about the year. Ngan Ba Minh, student of Thai Nguyen University of Agro-Forestry said, "This is an important event for us, so I had to hurry home to celebrate with family." This is also a day for the children to wear new clothes. Many also take the opportunity to make themselves simple toys, such as crude blow horns, which they use to make announcements to the village reminding people that harvest time has come. (www.dtinews.vn Sept 18)