Water supply ceremony on Ka Long river

Along with the proclamation ceremony, bathing ceremony, incense offering ceremony, welcoming ceremony, Xa Tac altar ceremony, and exit ceremony, the water cap ceremony is one of the most important rituals of the annual Xa Tac temple festival (Mong Cai city).

Water is taken from the middle of Ka Long river.

Xa Tac Temple was built in the late 13th and early 14th centuries to worship the Xa Tac Son Ha god (the god of the country), affirming sovereignty over the border. According to legend, the temple was previously just a small grass hut on the edge of Mang Waterfall, on the Ka Long River. Around the beginning of the 20th century, during a big storm, the temple collapsed, the incense bowl and altar drifted to a high mound that the locals called the area Xoay Nguon (also read as Soai Nguon). And at this location, people rebuilt the temple with baked bricks, roofed with yin-yang tiles - a popular building material in the Northeast at that time.

Through the ups and downs of time, the temple has been restored many times, the largest restoration being in the year of Ky Mao (1879). A century later, in 1979, the temple was destroyed, leaving only a few steles and the old foundation. After 1989, the temple was restored but on a smaller scale than the old temple. The Xa Tac temple was most recently restored in 2009, on an area of about 20,000 square meters, including the main temple and some other surrounding areas. The main area of the temple has an area of 308 square meters, including the front hall with three compartments and two wings, two middle compartments and three rear chambers. The temple was built mainly of ironwood, with a roof covered with dragon-scale tiles and brick walls. The temple still preserves many valuable artifacts, such as horizontal lacquered boards, parallel sentences and some stone steles...

With its special location and history, the temple has an important meaning in affirming sovereignty at the national border, and is also a historical and cultural relic, marking the historical mark where our ancestors pacified the border and affirmed the characteristics in the cultural life of the Vietnamese people. Xa Tac Temple is a sacred place for religious and spiritual activities of Mong Cai residents and neighboring areas. Every year, the temple holds 5 main holidays: January 16, May 2, August 16, December 16 and 18. During these days, people in the area are divided into 5 groups. In a year, each group is assigned to take care of a main ceremony.

Before the opening day of the annual Xa Tac Temple Spring Festival, an indispensable ritual of the festival is the water-giving ceremony. In the water-giving ceremony of the Xa Tac Temple Festival, the ceremonial group goes to the water-giving ceremony at the Xoay Nguon junction to get clean water. Then, the water is brought back to the temple to perform the moc duc (bathing statue) ceremony. The water-giving and water-giving rituals are unique cultural features of the Xa Tac Temple Festival, reflecting the spiritual life of the rice-growing farmers with the wish to pray for national peace and prosperity, favorable weather, and good crops. At the same time, it also honors the tradition of "When drinking water, remember its source" of our ancestors, showing gratitude and remembrance of the merits of our ancestors who have contributed to the people and the country.

The water supply and water procession ceremony is performed by both waterways and roads. The water procession takes place in a sacred and solemn atmosphere, the procession walks on foot then gets on a boat decorated with flags and flowers and goes to the fork of the Xoay Nguon River to perform the water supply ceremony. The water taken into the jar must be taken by boat to the middle of the river at the river junction. And people hope that the clean water taken from the middle of the river junction will become sacred water when it returns to the temple for the ceremony, sending wishes for a year of national peace and prosperity, bountiful crops, and people's well-being.

The water procession ceremony preserved in the Xa Tac Temple Festival has created a unique and distinctive cultural feature in the intangible cultural heritage of festival activities in Mong Cai City. After this ritual, there will be other sacrificial activities, taking place from the 1st day of the 2nd lunar month, the main festival day...

Huynh Dang

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