Phong Trieu used to be named as Cu Da, in Nom language translated as Trao village, under Tran Dynasty, it had the name as Dang Trieu, then afterward it was called Phong Trieu village, Dang Trieu commune, My Lam district. Nowadays, It has been changed into Phong Trieu, Nam Trieu commune, Phu Xuyen district, Ha Noi.
Gem genealogy of Phong Trieu communal house reads: Since the 18th Hung King’s reign, Dang Trieu area began to take shape residential clusters. The families of Nguyen, Pham, Phan, Luu, Lam, Luong. Tran, Hoang appeared since early era of land reclaimation. In Phong Trieu, there is remaining legends, including one about the 2 dragoneye wells and the other about Hoang Xa and Ngo Cong,..
The festival of Phong Trieu village is often organized at the communal house. It is located in the middle of the hamlet on a land area of over 1000 m2. Going along the highway No1 downward the South, passing Do Xa, Dung, Nghe, and then turn left on the inter-commune road about 2kms, one can get to the communal house. Phong Trieu communal house consists of 4 parts as the front and the back places of worship; the right and left houses. The main hall is designed with 5 halls of worship. Its architechture is of a huge size. Phong Trieu communal house once renovated since Nguyen dynasty (the 9th Khai Dinh year – 1924), has been kept almost intact until now, with 4 structures anciently decorated as Ba Nha playing a musical instrument, De Thich playing chess, La Vong fishing. The communal house has been keeping many old valuable objects like Le dysnasty’s sedan , a spirit genealogy and 2 religious titles.
Phong Trieu communal house is a place of worship for Do Khac Trung – a secret agent of Tran dynasty (1330). His statue was sculptured and placed right in the middle of the haram. At the moment, there are still remaining a number of parallel sentences they read as follows:
The land and people herewith never forget his exploits
Being like a sun, star, river and mountain, his natural spirits eternally exist.
Trieu Phong village festival annually lasts for 3 days, from the 6th Date to the 8th Date of February. The grand festival is held at an interval of 3 to 5 years, depending on conditions of each locality. The process of the grand village festival is as follows:
The ceremony is conducted to open the communal house’s gate on the 6th Date of February. On that day, water-carrying ceremony will be held starting from the communal house to Au pagoda’s well. People will fill up 3 big jars of water and then bring home for use of year round worship.
The water-carrying group will follow the path of the royal snake of about nearly 2kms, around the village and back to the same way..
The sacrifice offerings takes place on the 7th Date of Fenruary. This is really the offical festival. Participating in the festival are the village’s officals, head of the offerings, 2 offerings escorts, 1 forth singer and 1 back singer, 2 rows of civil and military mandarins. Offerings to the village’s tutelary god consist of joss sticks, flowers, sticky rice cakes, liquor, chicken with sticky rice, pig’s head. The pi’s head presented to the village’s tutelary god will be the one pig that has been attended carefully. Previously, Phong Trieu village faced 6 directions: East, West, South, Upper and Lower. On the opening day of the festival, the village will hold the pig carrying ceremony from the directions to the communal house. The pig will be killed and then its head and some of the selected meat will be taken to be boiled and respectfully brought to the village’s tutelary god.
The sedan-carrying ceremony for return of the village’s tutelary god from the shrine is held on the 8th Date of February. It goes in the Royal snake way, around the village and back to the communal house, and ends the festival. In 1943, It was seen as the great year so the festival was hugely organized. By 1995, it was it recovered, but its size and formalites were by no means as big as it used to be.
During the village festival, there are many interesting games and shows such as wrestling (it was once a wrestling ring, but nowaday is dwindling unfortunately), puppet show in fron of the communal house, chess, human chess, duck catching, Cheo traditional opera, Geisha singing.
Phong Trieu village
By Thanh Quy