Bac Ninh: Striving to preserve some folk game

(Cinet)- Huu Chap Village in Bac Ninh Province has maintained a traditional game bamboo keo co (tug of war) for hundreds of years but now it is being lost amid rapid socio-economic development. It is necessary to maintain some values the folk game.

The village’s tug of war differs from others’ because the two teams struggling to pull each other off their feet don’t pull on a rope, but rather two bamboo trees.

The village slowly lost its keo co game festival tradition, as several wars interrupted it and other religious practices fell by the wayside.

The Bac Ninh People’s Committee has submitted a petition to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to add the game and its ceremonies to the country’s 2014 list of national, intangible culture heritage.

Before, when the religious ceremonies were included, villagers had to start organizing the festival more than a month in advance. As a result, the villagers now try to play the game every two years.

According to custom, on the third day of Tet, the elderly held a ritual to open the village communal house’s doors, preparing it for the festival the next morning.

That next morning, a delegation of villagers marched with ancient tablets, flags and others items from the communal house to a river in the north of the village, where they worshipped and asked permission from heaven and earth deities to get clean water from the middle of the Cau River.

The delegation then brought water back to the communal house. They sprayed villagers with the ceremonial water to protect them, and give them comfort and good health.

Then, in the afternoon, villagers turned their attention toward the tug-of-war game.

The men then shaved the trees’ skin, bore holes in them and linked them together with two shoulder poles, before hanging them in front of the communal house’s doors for worship until the festival opens.

The organizer divided 70 healthy men into two teams. They held on firmly to the bamboo until the organizer gave them the signal to start pulling. The team that won two out of three matches won.

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