The mysterious belief of the 12-lamp initiation ceremony of Red Dao men

For the Red Dao, the coming-of-age ceremony is a mandatory custom for men. Only those who have been granted the title are considered mature men and can participate in important village affairs. If they have not been granted the title, even if they live to be old, they are still considered immature. Those who have been granted the title, even though they are young, can still participate in important family and community ceremonies.

The Red Dao's coming-of-age ceremony has many levels, each level reflects a different meaning and level. Among them, the 12-lamp coming-of-age ceremony is the highest level and they must go through a process of self-study, training, mastering the rituals, procedures of the ceremony as well as the prayers recorded in the Nom Dao book.

The person who has been granted the 12-lamp ordination is the most respected person in the community and will become a high-ranking shaman, with enough prestige to organize important rituals for the village. The Dao people's ordination ceremony has humanistic values, expressed in the teachings recorded in the ordination ordination, which absolutely forbids the recipient from doing evil or bad things.

The 12-lamp initiation ceremony with elaborate cultural ritual performances takes place for 3-4 consecutive days. The 12-lamp initiation ceremony only takes place once a year in November, December or January. The ceremony usually takes place in two main locations: inside the house to perform the evening rituals and the altar area with outdoor rituals during the day.

The mystery in the beliefs of the Red Dao people

As a person who directly witnessed the 4-day 12-lamp ordination ceremony in Van Ho village, Phin Ngan commune, Bat Xat district, Lao Cai province, photographer Duong Quoc Hieu (currently living and working in Sapa) shared: "Through some of my predecessors who took photos, I saw that the photos had a unique identity and many different vibrant colors, so I fell in love at first sight."

“During the days of the coming-of-age ceremony, I had to be there to closely follow the important rituals of the 12-lamp coming-of-age ceremony of the Red Dao people. Because there were so many couples doing the 12-lamp coming-of-age ceremony this time, it was a long time before we could organize it again on such a grand scale and with up to 43 couples,” said the photographer.

The opening ceremony is to inform the ancestors about the reason for the ceremony, the lamp offering ceremony and the procedure of announcing the name and position of the person receiving the title, the army departure ceremony, the vegetarian ceremony (from the time of entering the ceremony until the end of the ceremony, all the people receiving the title as well as the attendees must be vegetarian), the step of learning to be a teacher and the turtle dance. The above rituals are carried out in order, in harmony with the rhythm of drums, gongs, trumpets... After that, the teachers bring the ceremony out to the yard to call the Jade Emperor with the sound of a trumpet to inform the Jade Emperor that the main ceremony of the 12 lamp award ceremony has begun, and then invite the Jade Emperor to witness. Next is the ceremony where the shaman teaches the way of being a teacher to the students with the requirement that being a teacher requires a heart and virtue so that the descendants will have blessings and fortune.

An indispensable item in the ordination ceremony is the lamp. The lamp used in the ordination ceremony represents the different high and low positions of the ordination recipients after receiving the ceremony. The lamp is used with the intention of illuminating the soul and cleansing all sins, so that the ordination recipient is pure.

A ritual that contains the sacredness of the ceremony is to "lead" the students to the underworld to receive soldiers to assist them. Accordingly, those who request the 3-lamp level will be granted 36 soldiers, 7-lamp level will have 72 soldiers and the highest level is 12 lamps, the Jade Emperor will grant 120 soldiers. After the ceremony is completed and the request for the yin and yang is successful, the teachers will lead the students to lie down straight and place a mask and a pair of chopsticks on their faces. The teachers walk around the students three times, praying while walking and removing the masks.

Decoding the origin of the ordination ceremony

Legend has it that, long ago, the Dao people lived peacefully on the mountain slopes. Suddenly, one day, demons appeared from nowhere and caused trouble. They not only ate livestock and destroyed crops, but also killed people. This made the lives of the Dao people fall into misery.

To prevent the demons from running rampant in the human world, the Jade Emperor sent heavenly soldiers down to eliminate the Dao people. Unfortunately, the war lasted for three months but still could not drive them all out. Seeing this, the Jade Emperor ordered the gods to pass on magic to the men in the village, giving them a decree to join the heavenly soldiers in going down to earth to destroy the demons.

Thanks to the solidarity between the heavenly soldiers and the mortals, the demons were completely destroyed. From then on, to prevent the demons from returning to cause trouble, the Jade Emperor issued an order to confer titles on the men who were the heads of families so that they could protect their relatives and their clans. From that moment, the Dao people's initiation ceremony was born and has been preserved and passed down by many generations of ethnic people until today.

The Red Dao people's 12-lamp initiation ceremony is sacred and imbued with national cultural identity and needs to be preserved and promoted. Therefore, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism included the ceremony in the list of National Intangible Cultural Heritage on December 27, 2012.

Phuong Mai is a reporter for Travellive Magazine in Hanoi.

Phuong Mai