As the practice of this belief with Trance ritual (hầu đồng) is at risks of many disguises, under the current conditions, the preservation and promotion of the Mother Goddess Worship heritage is also facing many challenges.
Undeniable values
As a kind of folk belief reflecting the Vietnamese soul, Mother Goddess Worship is characterized by its vitality, resilience and flexibility, suiting to every circumstance of the country’s history. Additionally, thanks to its high ability to integrate into other religions and beliefs, Mother Goddess Worship has always become fond of and harmonized with other religions and beliefs to support and supplement one another in order to preserve the typical values of history and traditional culture.
According to Prof. Ngo Duc Thinh – Director of the Center for Research and Preservation of Vietnamese Cultural Faiths, Mother Goddess Worship is the indigenous belief with the long history, originated from the primitive times. It fulfills the farmers’ desire for fertility and proliferation. Mother Goddess Worship has existed for a long time in the history of feudalism, and met the needs of not only peasants but also urban traders. During the feudal monarchy, especially since Le Dynasty, due to the Confucian thought, Mother Goddess Worship had been classified unorthodox. However, in the Nguyen Dynasty, especially from the reign of Dong Khanh to Bao Dai, Mother Goddess Worship was honored. Today, Mother Goddess Worship has the development potential to meet the needs of market economy development and urbanization and modernization of Vietnam. Mother Goddess Worship has spread throughout the deltas, urban and mountainous areas, as the highlight in the rich and diverse landscape of religion and in Vietnam..
Mother Goddess Worship is characterized by many basic values such as world perception, human values and attachment to nationalism to become the spiritualized patriotism. Mother Goddess Worship – hầu đồng – chầu văn is also a unique artistic cultural heritage …
Since many recent years, the society and State management agencies has perceived and made the more accurate assessments on Mother Goddess Worship. The State has recognized it as a national heritage and UNESCO has recognized “Practice of Three-Shrine (Tam phủ) Mother Goddess Worship of Vietnamese people” as representative intangible cultural heritage of mankind. Such recognition reconfirms the undeniable values of Mother Goddess Worship in the life of the Vietnamese people.
“Performance in stages” and worry of disguises
In the scientific conference recently co-organized by Cultural Heritage Association of Thanglong – Hanoi and Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, many scientists and practitioners have voiced their concern about the disguises within the practice of Mother Goddess Worship causing the pressing among people.
In this regard, Prof. Ngo Duc Thinh, based on the “Trance (Lên đồng) and urban society” article supposes that Mother Goddess Worship itself is a system of beliefs at the different levels of development, from the rudimentary and primitive level such as Goddess Worship to higher levels of Three-Shrine (Tam phủ) or Four-Shrine (Tứ phủ) Mother Goddess Worship. Therefore, it is very complex and contains many ancient features not completely suitable in the current society.
Prof. Ngo Duc Thinh – Director of the Center for Research and Preservation of Vietnamese Cultural Faiths in the Conference
According to Prof. Ngo Duc Thinh, all religions and beliefs exist in the human society but not in the vacuum. The social people not only focus on and honor the belief, but also use them for different purposes. Many people make use of the current worship turbulence to earn their own illegal benefits. Many people get rich by making use of religions or beliefs, contrary to the good nature of beliefs and religions.
Against such existing risks, Prof. Ngo Duc Thinh emphasizes that it is required to extract the good and throw away the bad, at the same time, support and promote the positive aspects to restrict the disguises, negative and obsolete aspects.
In the conference, regarding the worries of disguises of Hầu đồng, one of the matters to be discussed are excessive performance in stages, despite its original purpose of widely introducing the beauty and values of Hầu đồng to the public. Because of such excessive performance in stages, inadvertently, now Three-Shrine Mother Goddess Worship is “deformed” and loses its true value. The reason for that is many people are confused between belief simulation and standardized practice in the worship shrines. If the units are not cautious during their implementation, it will lead to misunderstandings, commercialization of the belief, and loss of the social trust in the spiritual and religious beliefs. According to Practitioner Nguyen Thi Thin (Hoang Hoa Tham, Ba Dinh), Mother Goddess Worship is being practiced quite arbitrarily in many inappropriate spaces such as the temples, pagodas… Ritual practitioners do not comply with the standards of costumes, props, lyrics and dances that discourage the seriousness and sacredness.. Even commercialization, fortune telling, witchcrafts…are included in the ritual sessions… “These phenomena are undermining the good values of the heritage”, said Practitioner Nguyen Thi Thin.
Agreeing with the comments above, the researcher Pham Tu – Deputy Director of the Center for Research and Preservation of Vietnamese Cultural Faiths also believes that in the practice of Mother Goddess Worship, the outbreak of Opening the Shrines leads the emergence of “me-too practitioners” in the community, causing many bad jokes of the heritage’s practice, for example, the convention of twelve-year self-improvement (thử đồng) before acting as an official practitioner is violated, many people acts as the official practitioners (đẻ đồng) after only one year of training and self-improvement, then, self-proclaim as “official practitioners”…
Preservation and promotion of the heritage’s values
The heritage’s values have been recognized. But the worry of disguises is obvious! Preservation and promotion of the heritage’s values faces many challenges. In July 25, 2017, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued the Dispatch No. 3156/BVHTTDL-DSVH on implementing the national action programs to protect and promote the values of “Practice of Three-Shrine Mother Goddess Worship” cultural heritage of the Vietnamese people, emphasizing that the practical actions must be taken to direct the preservation and promotion of the traditional values and cultural beauty of Mother Goddess Worship, and prevent the disguises, superstition and waste in the heritage practice.
In this regard, the researcher Pham Tu – Deputy Director of the Center for Research and Preservation of Vietnamese Cultural Faiths proposes that it is required to enhance the awareness-raising and sense of responsibility for law observance by the practitioner teams as the basis for guiding the activities in compliance with the provisions of law, and prevent acts of taking advantage of the belief and superstitious phenomena during the practice.
In addition, researcher Pham Tu also believe that it is required to study and evaluate regularly to capture both positive and negative changes in this practice so as to take timely measures of promotion or adjustment; firmly handle the acts of making use of the Mother Goddess Worship’s practice for personal interests, which affects the spiritual life and spirit of the believer community as well as the whole society…
Agreeing with the viewpoints, Dr. Le Thi Minh Ly – Director of Center for Cultural Heritage Research & Promotion also believes it is required to establish the research works on the practice of Mother Goddess Worship in the contemporary life to constantly update the practising ways which exist, based on that, to identify the core value, creative inheritance and disguises which may undermine or adversely affect the “creditability” and “form” of the heritage. “Most importantly, the teaching of the practice of Three-Shrine Mother Goddess Worship cultural heritage should focus on raising awareness of the heritage’s values, guiding the practice and protecting the heritage”, affirmed Dr. Le Thi Minh Ly.