LYSON ISLAND DISTRICT AND PARACELS ISLAND’S SOLDIERS FEAST AND COMMEMORATION FESTIVAL.

Nguyen Dang Vu

Some features about Ly Son

Ly Son is also known as Cu Lao Re, which according to the interpretation of the local people is an island with lots of Re trees (somewhat like ginger trees). Located 30km from Sa Ky port, but on a clear day when the sea is calm, standing in the mainland, we can distinctly see five mountains: Gieng Tien, Thoi Loi, Hon Tai, Hon Soi and Hon Vung on the islands of nearly 10 km squares.

Ly Son island has still preserved traces of pre-history people of about 300 thousand years ago on Mount Gieng Tien and Mount Thoi Loi. The archaeologists also found precious artifacts of inhabitant groups of Sa Huynh culture about 2,000 - 2,500 years ago at Xom Oc and Suoi Chinh. And on this island, probably the Cham people once lived a long time before they lived intermingled with the Vietnamese community. Whether the Cham people have gradually integrated completely with the Vietnamese, or some groups of them have emigrated to other lands, but the vestiges of the Champa culture have so far existed in Hang pagoda, Cow temple... Then probably thanks to the merchant ships sailing in the East Sea, the residents in Ly Son Island were also influenced by Indian cultures, Chinese culture. Over thousands of years of development, Ly Son has become a living museum of different cultures, in which the Vietnamese culture is the core. Hundreds of ancient relics on this island have helped us recognize that.

Thanks to the creation of nature, Ly Son is also home to many famous sights, such as Gieng Tien, Thoi Loi, Hang pagoda, Duc pagoda, Cau cave, To Vo archway, Hon Mu Cu... and even the Little Island itself. In addition to The Paracel islands Soldiers Feast and commemoration festival, Ly Son has also annually holds traditional boat race from the 4th to the 8th of January, festivals at An Hai village temple, Thien Y A Na temple, tombs, at temples of Nam Hai whale, White Horse, Five-elements God, Four upland saints, Pham Tien Dieu, Holy snake...
 

Ly Son Island has 03 communes: An Hai, An Vinh and An Binh (on Little Island) with a population of over 20 thousand people, living mainly along the western coast of the island. The local people live mainly on fishing, exploiting other marine products inshore, offshore, and especially planting garlic. Ly Son garlic is not only famous in the country but also in many parts of the world.

Ritual roots

Flipping through the history books, such as “Đại Nam thực lục”, “Quốc triều chính biên toát yếu”, “Khâm Định Việt sử thông giám cương mục”, “Đại Nam nhất thống chí”… of the history bureau under the Nguyen Dynasty, and the pages recorded by Le Quy Don in Phu Bien Tap Luc, by Phan Huy Chu in Hoàng Việt địa dư chí, etc., we were taken by surprise to see that 3, 4 centuries ago, the Nguyen lords began to sense the infinite resources, as well as the early establishment of territorial sovereignty over the waters in the East of the country, firstly in the Paracel islands. Every year the Nguyen lords recruited 70 people with good seafaring residing in the villages of An Vinh and An Hai by Sa Ky estuary and then the people in the wards of An Vinh and An Hai on Ly Son Island to sail with the South wind, ride over the waves to the Paracel Islands. They annually set out in February or March (lunar calendar) and returned to the mainland at Eo estuary (Thuan An) in August to offer to the imperial city of Hue various kinds of precious marine products and things picked up on this island waters, such as bronze, tin…According to the family records, the number of contracts, tax collection volumes, tax documents in Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese language still kept by many family lines in Ly Son Island and what has been handed down in the memories of the elderly, the fixed number of 70 people to go to the Paracel islands and later including the North Sea (Spratly and other islands) were mostly from An Vinh village on Ly Son island. This fixed number of 70 was equally distributed among the family lines regardless of pre- or post-generations, after the revolving principle; the members enrolling in the Paracel island flotilla were normally the second-born children (because the first-born had to stay home for ancestor worship).

The history does not specify when the Paracel team was officially founded, just known that it is right at the “initial ruling dynasty", "in the country building time" (the Nguyen Lords in Cochinchina), probably at the end of the sixteenth century at the earliest, or the beginning of the seventeenth century). If to be temporarily identified, the Paracel team which was later consolidated into the Paracel flotilla (cum managing Spratly islands and the North Sea, recruiting more fishermen from Quang Binh, Binh Thuan, in the villages of Tu Chinh, Binh Co, Canh Duong), had operated continuously for 3-4 centuries, there had to be tens of thousands of people riding over countless roaring waves, typhoons to measure water levels, erect the territorial sovereignty stelae and exploit marine resources at the order of the Nguyen lords and the Nguyen dynasty later.

So far, the people of Ly Son island have circulated the following verses:

Paracel island floating in the boundless sky and vast sea
People go there but rarely seen to return
Paracel islands all surrounded by cloud and water
March (Lunar calendar) is the time for Khao lề thế HoangSa’s soldier Festival

The heart-breaking verses mentioned above is a summary of the fate of the soldiers of the Paracel and Spratly islands flotilla a long time ago – those who were called the "Army heroes" by King Tu Duc. Surely among the tens of thousands who left for the Paracel islands, not many people were lucky enough to return home. The picture of the tombs without corpses of the family lines of Pham Quang, Pham Van, Vo Van... lying under the sun in Ly Son Island is a testimony to the woefulness but full of heroism in the past. The feast & commemoration festival for Paracel flotilla soldiers is the ceremony to pay tribute to these ancient soldiers.

Feast and tribute

Every year on the second of March (lunar calendar), Ly Son people celebrate the Khao lề thế lính Hoàng Sa Festival also called Paracel soldiers feast & commemoration worship. Most of the family lines on the island with children or relatives who joined the flotilla execute these rituals. This is the CEREMONY or the CUSTOM to give a feast to the troops, to worship them alive and also to conduct the rituals for substitution of the lives of the flotilla members to execute the tasks as assigned by the King; on the other hand, the ceremony was also for paying tribute to the Paracel and Spratly islands soldiers who had sacrificed their lives in action.

No body knows exactly when this ceremony began, but surely it could only began when the Paracel team performed the sacred mission in the East sea assigned by the Nguyen lords and later the Nguyen dynasty. Feast is only a custom, a routine annual activity (such as in some traditional ceremonies that some parts of the country still preserved), but worshiping soldiers alive bears religious elements with the belief that the effigies could substitute the lives of the soldiers, because everybody knows that Paracel soldiers are always facing death risks.

As stated in the historical books and what is circulating in Ly Son Island, the Paracel islands soldiers had to take a long voyage sometimes in rough seas for six months only in small boats; so their lives were always at risk of death. To have a chance for their corpses to drift towards their home village, before leaving for the Paracel islands, each soldier had to prepare for his own: a couple of mats, seven bamboo poles, seven rattan strings, one identification tag. If case of death, the mats, the bamboo pole, the rattan string will be used to wind the dead body. The dead body would be floating on the sea with the identification tag. But surely very few corpses were lucky enough to drift towards their home village. The names recorded in history books and the Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese documents such as Team leader Vo Van Khiet (1786), Team leader Vo Van Phu (1803), Team leader Pham Quang Anh (1815), Senior naval team leader Pham Van Nguyen (1835), Senior naval team leader Pham Huu Nhat (1836)...including the girder workers, sailors recorded in the ancient documents of the Dang family line at Dong Ho hamlet, An Vinh village just discovered in 2009, after 175 years of hand-over, storage by the Dang family were those sent by the Tay Son dynasty, King Gia Long and King Minh Mang to the Paracel islands, cum managing Spratly islands not just looking for marine products, measuring water level regimes, patrolling the islands, but also erecting the landmarks, the sovereignty stelae in the Paracel and Spratly islands (typically Pham Huu Nhat) were mostly those who did not have chance to return home.

Although understanding that a chance to return home is really difficult, the people still have a hope even a fragile hope. To foster that hope, before leaving, the families and their relatives prepared fresh offerings, candles, the shaman will model their effigies out of rice flour, paper, or clay. The effigies will be placed by the soul tablets with the names of the Paracel islands soldiers to leave. In the dense smoke of incense, the shaman in loose robe and ritual bonnet softly prayed, say magic words amidst the Octette or five-tone music intermixed with the wooden bell. The ritual worship will last for 2 days. The number of soldiers will be proportional to the number of effigies and soul tablets. The soldiers will have to stand by the effigies and the soul tablets. The soldiers will be standing, praying almost throughout the night to wait on the God with the belief that the holy God will drive away the evil spirits and safely protect them on the voyage.

After the official ceremony, the effigies, the soul tablets and the symbolic things that the soldiers usually carry along with them such as rice, salt, firewood, fresh water, fishing-net will be put on the boat made of paper, symbolizing the boat to the Paracel and Spratly islands then put out to sea together with the prayer for peace. Floating in the rough seas, the effigies are believed to substitute the real lives of the soldiers.

When the ceremony ends, the soldiers are regarded “to have died once" and those “Army heroes” (as called by King Tu Duc) have the right to believe that they will not have to die again even when they have to undergo thousands of mishaps in the sea for six consecutive months each year. So it can be said that this is a ceremony to worship the soldiers alive.

But this is not the only ceremony. Each clan on Ly Son Island and the mainland close to the Sa Ky estuary and some other places also had hundreds of people unfortunate to return. At the worship temples of the family line of Pham Quang, Pham Van, Vo Van... and at some spiritual temples, there are still shamen, sorcerers practicing exorcism and say magic words; there are still also effigies of clay, or rice powder, paper; hundreds of soul tablets fixing on hands of bananas and also symbolic things that the soldiers often bring along with them; all will be solemnly dropped into the sea. But the ceremony now only has the meaning to pay tribute to those who have sacrificed their lives for the Fatherland in the islands and seas.

If the records of the Paracel islands and the North Sea (including the Spratly islands) in the official history of the Nguyen Dynasty such as “Đại Nam thực lục”, “Quốc triều chính biên toát yếu”, “Đại Nam nhất thống chí”… …or in the books entitled “Phủ biên tạp lục” by Lê Quý Đôn, “Việt sử thông giám khảo lược” by Nguyễn Thông, “Hoàng Việt địa dư chí” by Phan Huy Chú…, the Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese documents preserved in some family-lines, are the historical evidence affirming the sovereignty of our country over the East sea three or four centuries ago, the relevant traces relating to the Paracel team in many places along the central coast, especially on Ly Son island and the area by Sa Ky estuary, and together with the Paracel islands soldiers feast and commemoration festival or the Paracel islands soldiers worshiping celebrated every year in Ly Son Island and in a few other places in Quang Ngai province has significantly contributed to defending the national territorial sovereignty.

Vu Dang Nguyen, Ph.D.

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