A traditional pig slaughtering festival got underway in Nem Thuong village of Bac Ninh city, northern Vietnam, on January 27 as part of activities to celebrate the new-year period.
The festival that has been preserved for more than 800 years is celebrated annually on the sixth day of the first lunar month in commemoration of General Doan Thuong, who has been deified as the patron god of the village. The general is believed to have killed wild hogs in order to feed his soldiers while fighting invaders in the area.
As the village's most important festival of the year, the event starts with a lion dance that takes place in a courtyard.
The pig parade begins at 10 a.m. with villagers carrying offerings, a litter for the general, and two wheeled cages carrying sacrificial pigs.
To prepare for the festival, the pigs have been carefully selected and raised for approximately half a year. Before the parade, villagers bath and dye the pigs red.
The age-old festival has been held on the fifth and the sixth days of the first lunar month each year since 1999.
A wide range of activities take place during the festival, including Quan Ho (Duet singing), wrestling, tug of war, and cockfighting.
The festival aims to strengthen national solidarity, as well as to pray for a prosperous new year ahead.
The slaughtering of live pigs had stirred up controversy over the years, and since 2016 the ceremony has been moved to an enclosed corner of the courtyard.
Vietnamnet.vn
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