The ARRIVAL of NEW YEAR
Hits: 512
HUNG NGUYEN MANH 1
Rearrangement of furniture and cleaning-up of the house
Following HENRI OGER and his painter, now we can see an elder woman sweeping the yard of her house.
Actually it was a common thing but in the eyes of Henri Oger it was related to a series of other things in the society. Everything could have its own use from a straw to a broom. But in these last days of the year that work was of ever greater significance as it cleaned and dolled up the house to make it ever more pleasant than usual in anticipation of the Lunar New Year Festival.
Each style of houses had its own measures for cleaning-up and renovating. For a brick house, the owner would repaint the walls.
And here is a picture of a house owner who held two sticks that had been touched by a sorcerer and walked around the house, swinging them from the roof to the ground in order to chase away hidden devils and ghosts (Fig.1)
And here is another sketch showing a bare-back man tidying up his house and “washing his worshipping objects” (Fig.2)
CLEANING THE ALTAR
Usually, the 25th day of the twelfth month is devoted to ancestor worship. On that day the Vietnamese usually light joss sticks and firecrackers. Offering objects made of paper such as trays, gold and silver, helmets and conical hats, fish, dragons… were burnt while other objects on the ancestral altar were washed, cleaned and even replaced if they had been worn out. Henri Oger has left to us a number of sketches of typical articles on the altar. Let’s have a look at joss stick pots made of stone (Fig.3), and of bronze (Fig.3).
Both josstick pots had to be polished carefully. Polishers would have a hard time when they worked on an urn made in the shape of an apricot fruit (Fig.4) or dexterously-sculptured bronze urns (Fig.4).
If the urns were made of stone, not much effort would be required of polishers. Since the urn occupied a very solemn place on the altar its manufacturing also required skilful and diverse techniques as well as excellent materials. We can view these valuable things in (Fig.4) (an incense burner) or (Fig.5) (a round urn).
To specify the value of those expensive urns including the one in picture 4, we should read the inscription written in Chinese characters by artisans who had manufactured it: “This urn is made of bronze and only rich families can afford to have it. The urn is also an article used for worshipping purpose.”
In southern Vietnam, there was always a fruit tray on the ancestral altar in addition to a set of bronze urns and lamp stands. Some round objects were easy for cleaning and polishing though on their top stands a unicorn with wide-open mouth playing with a pearl. However some other objects were not easy to polish due to their rough surface such as “bamboo-eye urns” or “unicorn bamboo urns”.
The Vietnamese often use coconut coil soaked in the juice of sour carambola fruit and mixed with salted ashes to polish bronze urns until they became glossy and shiny.
In general, the Vietnamese took care of the three unit set or five unit set or seven unit set on the ancestral altar then carefully prepared the “offering tray” (Fig.6) for the ancestral worship ceremony. The three-unit set (Fig.6) comprised of one urn and a pair of candle stands. The five-object set includes in addition a pair of oil-lit stands. Besides these things, there was an urn-like bronze pot for containing aquilaria wood (Fig.7) and a bamboo holder of the chopsticks used to handle the fire of aquilaria.2
In the North, in a three partition house, the ancestors’ altar is always set in the middle one, the most solemn place in the house. With well to do families, the altar is ordinarily set at two places: the inner and the outer ones.
The inner altar consists of a gilded red lac ornate bed placed on two high trestles of about 1 meter, the whole thing is set very close to the back wall of the middle partition.
The ancestral tablet (Bài vị) i.e. the dead person’s name tablet (Thần chủ) is placed inside a miniature wooden altar-cupboard (Khám) which is displayed on a pedestal close to the wall. Certain families have the tablet replaced by a worshipping throne (cỗ Ỷ) or by the throne – shaped receptacle of tablets (cỗ Ngai) – symbolizing the rank of such or such ancestor.
When is the worshipping throne called “Ỷ” and when is it called “Ngai”? Actually, “Ỷ” and “Ngai” are similar, except for the only difference between their carving forms. With regard to the “Ỷ”, the two arms are carved into internodes resembling the trunk of a bamboo like phyllostachys, they are called bamboo like phyllostachys arms. The throne head is not carved into a dragon head, if reserved for ordinary people. Only the extremity of the arm of the “Ngai” is carved into a dragon head, if reserved for mandarin’s families, as well as for worshipping Kings, Lords and Genie.
In front of the “Ỷ” are placed two triangular trays with legs. The one inside, close to the wall, is smaller and has on it a mountain-shaped three-dais (tam sơn). The outer one is bigger (about 80cm x 60cm) and is used to display the offering dishes on anniversaries, festival days or at Tết. The inner and the outer trays are separated by a worshipping curtain called “y môn”, made of red silk gauze or fabric. Close to the outside of the “y môn” is a gilded high incense table. At the middle of the incense-table is a porcelain incense burner for holding joss sticks. On both sides of the incense burner is a pair of lamps displayed symmetrically. Right behind the incense burner is a small table on which are displayed three wooden capped worshipping rounds on which are placed three cups of wine.
Formerly, the lamps were lighted with peanut oil, the lamp’s wick was put on a plate, so, finical people bought a pair of bronze (Fig.7) or wooden cranes with their beaks shaped like a lotus leaf to display the aforesaid plate; if not, that plate could be replaced by candles. Beside these lamp plates there was also a latched joss sticks tube with cupped opening to hold joss sticks.
There were also two big flower vases placed on both sides and right behind the pair of cranes. Then, finally, a gilded ritual hourglass-shaped tray, used to hold the five types of ritual fruits, was solemnly displayed at the middle right before the incense-burner; we shall have an opportunity to thoroughly study this article later on.
All these worshipping objects, displayed in order of succession, are aimed at fully materialising the feelings of regret shown by the descendants with regard to their ancestors. But, with families having members that are mandarins, especially the ones with merits or the ones who are recipients of royal brevets, additional displays are required as follows:
– A family appointed by royal decree to be the recipient of a mandarinal hierarchy must have a trunk to hold the royal decree.
– Families having civilian mandarins or members obtaining first class honours in examinations can display additional items such as flags, placards , gongs, drums.
– Families having military mandarins, especially the ones with great merits must display a collection of weapons called a set of “Eight precious weapons” (Bát bửu) – consisting of eight types of weapons (bronze awl, ax and halberd, spear, great stick…). These weapons are made of gilded wood or bronze. However, merciful and noble families still want to further their ways of embodying their familial traditions. For that reason, we still see hung above and before the ancestors’ altar a “Horizontal lacquered board engraved with Chinese characters” (Hoành phi) or a “big calligraphic sign” (Đại tự) bearing engraved Chinese characters such as. “Đức duy hinh” (virtue preserves fame and credit), “Đức lưu quang” (virtue maintains pureness), “Mộc hữu bản” (Trees have roots). There is also, added to the “Hoành phi” and hung above it, a beautiful smaller “hoành phi” shaped like a page of a book with rolled up extremities. Let’s get out of the space reserved for the altar and cast a look around; we’ll see a few pairs of huge wooden columns-constructed accordingly to the old architecture enhancing the respectability, the solemnity and the sacredness of the place. We still forget to mention the parallel sentences praising the family situation or expressing individual impressions, usually hung on pillars bearing sentences such as: (The ancestors’ merits shall remain strong and shall last thousands of years The filial piety of descendants shall everlastingly be marvelous).
Finally, we can see placed before the red silk curtain a lamp called “worshipping lamp” (tự đăng). This is a lantern holding inside it a plate containing peanut-oil and a wick. Later on, after the coming of the French invaders, people replaced it by the 3-string kerosene lamp. In the cities, the worshipping is replaced by an electric light bulb usually lit day and night. Especially on the 3 Tết days, as on such days one feels like one’s ancestors’ souls are present. Commonly speaking, the abovementioned worshipping objects are made of materials such as precious wood, bronze porcelain. The poor people only wish to have worshipping objects made of jack fruit wood, a kind of wood usually used for engraving printing board which is fragrant and is not eaten by wood borers. More sophisticated people would have such things gilded.
A traditional feature of our people requires that, upon stepping into a new year, everything must be new, and thus, on altars in all the families the set of incense-burners and candlesticks must all be well-polished to attain a pure and perfect brilliancy. On such grave and respectful altars, the worshipping objects displayed are similar in all the three regions, while the most important object is the three-piece set of worshipping articles (an incenseburner and two candlesticks).
The incense-burner is placed at the centre, near the edge of the altar, and is fairly laboured and diversified with its empty interior used for holding the ashes, and its lid on which are fixed ornaments such as a peach, an unicorn, a crane… It’s also ornamented with traditional chinese characters such as: Filial piety, Filial son, Blessing, Wealth etc … Along with the fine ornaments are the holed engravings, allowing the incense to spread its odorous smoke.
The candlesticks are placed symmetrically on both sides of the incenseburner. It consists of three parts: base, body and a round dish inserted between the base and the body, aimed at collecting the ashes falling down from the lamp. On top of its body is a round opening used for holding the candle, as for its base, it’s usually round-shaped. People in the South are fond of using the square incense-burner (representing the four virtues), while people in Central and in North Vietnam like the round-shaped type (representing the sun). There exist in various pagodas sets of brass incense-burners as high as 80cm and as heavy as 10 kilos or more than 10 kilos. While, among the broad masses, the 40cm high type is commonly used; it isn’t always made of brass, as it depends on the users, who might be rich or poor people.In days past, in order to have a shinning incenseburner, the descendants had to spend a half-day, using carambola, lemon and sand to polish it, then dry it in the sun three or four times before taking it back to the altar.
Nowadays, we’re living in an industrial and marketing era, so, right at the beginning of December, we can see everywhere numerous workmen with their boxes of tools, ready to polish all kinds of brass and metal objects, especially on the 23rd day of the last lunar month when the kitchen God flies back to Heaven; on such a day, the polishing workmen used to have quite a great deal of works to meet people’s requirements …
On the threshold of the sacred New Year, everything is new and fresh.3
NOTE:
1 Associate Professor HUNG NGUYEN MANH, Doctor of Phylosophy in History.
2 According to BÌNH NGUYÊN LỘC – (The losses and gains of Culture or the Tranquil Tets in the South) – Saigon, Oriental Review, special issues 19 and 20, January and February, 1973.
NOTE:
1 Associate Professor HUNG NGUYEN MANH, Doctor of Phylosophy in History.
2 “Hợp hương dĩ đồng chế” (Urn-like bronze pot for containing aquilaria wood).
3 According to ĐÀO TĂNG “The set of incense-burners at Tết” – (People’s Magazine) dated Jan. 24, 1999 – p.5
BAN TU THU
01 /2020
NOTE:
◊ Source: Vietnamese Lunar New Year – Major Festival – Asso. Prof. HUNG NGUYEN MANH, Doctor of Phylosophy in History.
◊ Bold text and sepia images has been set by Ban Tu Thu – thanhdiavietnamhoc.com
SEE ALSO:
◊ From Sketches in early 20th century to traditional rituals and festival.
◊ Signification of the term “Tết”
◊ Lunar New Year Festival
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for KITCHEN and CAKES
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for MARKETING – Section 1
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for MARKETING – Section 2
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for Dept payment
◊ Concerns of PROVIDENT PEOPLE – Concerns for Dept payment
◊ In SOUTHERN PART of the COUNTRY: a HOST of PARALLEL CONCERNS
◊ Vietnam Lunar New Year – vi-VersiGoo
◊ etc.