Co Tu people join the festival to open the year of giving thanks to the forest

The Thanksgiving Forest Opening Ceremony is maintained by Tay Giang, becoming a unique festival space of the Co Tu people. Photo: ALANG NGUOC

Recently, Tay Giang district successfully organized the 8th Forest Thanksgiving Opening Ceremony - 2025 with the participation of many local people and tourists. Through many cultural performances, reenacting the forest god worshiping ritual of the Co Tu people, the festival hopes to pray for a year of favorable weather, community settlement and development...

Community cultural values

Mr. Poloong Plenh - Deputy Head of the Department of Culture, Science and Information of Tay Giang district said that the festival has the cultural characteristics of the Co Tu community, usually held at the beginning of the year, before preparing to enter the harvest season with the meaning of thanking the gods, praying for good things to come to the villagers. Therefore, in addition to opening the year to pray for good luck, the forest thanksgiving ceremony is also a promise of the local people to raise awareness of forest management and protection.

According to Mr. Poloong Plenh, following the wishes of local people, starting from 2018, Tay Giang has restored and organized the opening ceremony of the forest thanksgiving year to preserve long-standing traditional cultural values.

Through the festival, Tay Giang encourages people to participate in protecting forests and preventing negative impacts on Mother Nature. Photo: ALANG NGUOC

Since then, almost every year the locality has regularly organized a festival on a district-wide scale, reenacting many traditional forest god worshiping rituals of the Co Tu people. After a period of organization, this unique cultural activity has become a large-scale festival, mobilizing the entire local community to participate.

“In the past, this festival was held by each household or village, with the main meaning of thanking Mother Nature for protecting and giving life to the Co Tu community during hundreds of years of existence. Because the Co Tu believe that all things have gods.

"Worshiping the forest god and considering the forest as a common property of the whole community is the way the Co Tu people educate people about responsibility so that they can protect the forest and mother nature from outside influences," Mr. Poloong Plenh shared.

Tay Giang assigned the hosting task to the People's Committee of A Xan commune for the 2025 Forest Thanksgiving Opening Ceremony with the aim of preserving community values ​​from the grassroots level and promoting the role of the community in the local cultural activities. As expected, when the festival took place, both the government and people of A Xan commune joined hands to respond.

Along with renovating the community cultural house at the Pơmu Eco-tourism Village, after the Lunar New Year, village elders and artisans supported the community in practicing the drum and gong team; participated in setting up tents, decorating poles, organizing folk songs and folk songs, etc., creating a highlight for the traditional festival of the Co Tu people in the locality.

Shaping unique tourism products

According to Mr. Arat Blui - Vice Chairman of Tay Giang District People's Committee, from the cultural significance of the Co Tu community ritual, in recent years, the locality has maintained the organization of the Opening Year ceremony to thank the forest, gradually shaping a unique cultural tourism product for visitors. Through the ritual of worshiping the forest god to thank Mother Nature for protecting and sheltering the "children" under the Truong Son Dong forest.

Tourists visit the heritage pơmu forest on a journey to discover the Thanksgiving ceremony for the forest held in previous years. Photo: POLOONG PLÊNH

Mr. Arat Blui said that this year's festival continues to be held with many accompanying activities to fully and completely recreate the traditional forest god worshiping ritual of the Co Tu people.

To ensure the festival takes place safely and solemnly, local authorities established ceremonial sub-committees, service sub-committees and assigned specific tasks to each participating member.

The role of artisans and village elders is promoted to help the festival become more and more elevated and widespread. The rituals are performed in accordance with the prescribed steps in the cultural traditions of the Co Tu people. Through the festival, we aim to both preserve unique traditional cultural values ​​and promote identity, aiming to turn the festival program into an impressive tourism product for visitors to visit and experience.

“This is also an opportunity to honor and recognize the unique and typical values ​​of the ecological landscape of the heritage forest in Tay Giang. Thereby helping to promote attraction, call for investment and exploit tourism development based on the potential and inherent advantages, creating sustainable livelihoods for local people” - Mr. Arat Blúi said.

Tay Giang currently has more than 2,557 Vietnam Heritage trees, forest cover reaches 72.46% and there are many primeval forests, rare woods such as: ebony, green lim, pơmu, doi, sen, do rhododendron, red pine. Especially the ancient pơmu forest with more than 2,000 trees, ages from several hundred years to thousands of years old; of which 725 pơmu trees have been recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees.

Promoting existing advantages and potentials, in recent years, Tay Giang has expanded the organization of the Opening Year of Forest Thanksgiving Ceremony, considering it an opportunity for the local community to commit to protecting upstream forests and respecting Mother Nature against the risk of external impacts...

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/dong-bao-co-tu-vao-hoi-khai-nam-ta-on-rung-3149170.html