Title: Pa Than Fire Festival

General Information about Item:

• Material Lore, food recipe
• Language: Viet
• Country of Origin: Vietnam
• Informant: VN
• Date Collected: 11-12-21

Informant Data:

• VN was born in 2002, in Ho Chi Minh city, where she grew up in an ethnically Kinh household. Her mother has lived in the city for many generations, but her father grew up in the countryside before moving into the city, where more cultural traditions are observed. Her wider family lives throughout Vietnam, but her closest relatives all live in the city. VN learned about most of her cultural traditions from her grandparents. 

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: VN credits some of the rituals with a wider Vietnamese cultural belief in a spirit world which either protects or harms them, particularly, as VN argues, in the aftermath for the generation who lived through the Vietnam war. Pa Then, a remarkably small minority group in Vietnam, believes that the Universe was created by a benevolent goddess Quo Vo and an evil goddess Me Quo O, who are both associated with many good and evil spirits. 
• Social Context: QC first learned of the practice from VN when discussing cultural traditions we had learned at school and from our families. VN first learned about the practice in school, when she, as a member of the majority Kinh ethnic group, was taught about the cultural practices of minority traditions: in this case, Pa Then. VN later learned more about the practice when she was present at one such event in the center of Vietnam when she was visiting relatives in the region. The ritual is regular, performed by Pa Then, typically at the end of the harvest season to both enrich the practitioners and protect them from spirits.

Item:

• Held every year at the end of harvest season on the Lunar Calendar (Oct. 16), first offerings are prepared for the heavens, which include a rooster, a bowl of rice, incense, a bottle of traditional wine, and ghost money (fake money to be burned). Then a shaman lights candles and incense and the women of the ethnic group play music, which is meant to call the spirits of the heavens down, who are thought to induce the dancers into a trance. The dancers then run through a large bonfire. This entire ritual pleases the heavenly spirits who follow the good goddess Quo Vo, who, in turn, protects the village and its residents from evil spirits who follow Me Quo O, the underworld goddess. 

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

• 

Informant’s Comments:

• Interest use of fire to entice good, rather than to directly fight away evil.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

• Ritual
• Vietnam
• Fire
• Festival
• Pa Then