The Xinh Mun and springbuds and flowers

Every year when comes spring, the time that peach and apricot flowers begin to fade, bamboo shoots begin grow. The Xinh Mun minority people organize their Ksai Sa Típ festival from home to home. The Ksai Sa Típ means wishes for better crops, happiness, good heath and prosperity.

Apricot flowers

Photo: Vĩnh Cát

The festival takes place after Tết, family after family, so many households, so many ceremonies.
It doesn’t cost much because it very simple and modest. Each family just prepares a small party: two boiled chickens, sticky rice, 3 pots of rượu cần, areca and betel, two big bowls of soup cooked of bamboo shoots and ban flowers. There is a new-year tree in each house (4-5m high), on it stuck with ban flowers and a few ears of rice, around the tree, there are 3 big pots of rượu cần (alcohol), 3 or 5 musical instruments (made of thin copper plate, vases...). When we strike, it sounds in different tunes and scales as if to encourage everybody to take part in the festival.

At the opening, house-owner sit down and prays, then he first takes the pipe to invite ancestors or gods to drink, then come the village elders, after that, every one can drink to the fill.

Drinking is joined by beating drums and gongs and the musical bands, people begin to dance by Thái minority, lộc hoa dance looks merrier, stronger and heartier. Hand in hand, the dancers make a round trip in the house, sometimes, they are stuck by scarves. After an hour or so, they stop dancing for drinks then continue to dance until dawn, they leave the dance go home only to meet in the evening. The Xinh Mun festival lasts for days.

The Ksai Sa Tip holidays last long but doesn’t cost much. It’s very simple but it’s the cultural identity of the far-away minority living on borders of Việt Nam – Lào.
                                                                                KIM LIÊN

source : http://www.vtr.org.vn/vtr.php?ml=923&pid=613