Incense offering ceremony to Mother Au Co in the New Spring 2024

On February 16 (the 7th day of the first lunar month), Ha Hoa district held an incense offering ceremony to Mother Au Co at Mother Au Co Temple, Hien Luong commune, Ha Hoa district.

The opening ceremony was the Village Tutelary God Ceremony and the palanquin procession, bringing offerings from the communal house to Mother Au Co Temple. The procession took place jubilantly with the echoes of drums and gongs at the festival.

According to the legend, on January 7, Fairy Au Co descended to earth, met and married to Lac Long Quan, then gave birth to a sac of a hundred eggs that finally hatched into a hundred sons, origin of the Lac Hong race. In Hien Luong commune, Ha Hoa district, with charming scenery and gentle people, Mother Au Co stayed there to teach people how to grow rice, raise mulberries, raise silkworms, and weave cloth until she and the fellow fairies flew back to heaven on the 25^th of the lunar December, leaving a silk bib under the banyan tree. Here is the right place that people have built a temple to worship and burn incense to Mother Au Co forever.

At the ceremony, delegates respectfully gave incense, flowers, and offerings to Mother Au Co. In front of the heroic spirit of Mother Au Co, Chairman of the People’s Committee of Ha Hoa district Nguyen Ngoc Anh read a speech expressing gratitude for the merits of Mother Au Co and prayed for the Mother to bless the country and people with good weather, good crops, a prosperous and happy life. The leaders of Ha Hoa district then played gongs and drums to open the ceremony.

After the rituals, the Mother Au Co Temple Festival officially started.

In addition to the ceremony, this year’s Mother Au Co Temple Festival also has many cultural and artistic activities, contests of cooking banh chung, pounding banh giay... to preserve and promote the cultural identity and solidarity tradition of the nation.

Thuy Trang