Hoang Hoa Tham in the Folk Festival

Folk fictions about the love story of De Tham and Miss Can did not diminish the hero's halo in the hearts of the people, but on the contrary, increased a sympathetic view of him from the perspective of ordinary people. The fact that folk meticulously and richly described the love story between De Tham and Miss Can shows that they paid special attention to this relationship. This private corner that historical documents were forced to ignore is where folk imagination is free to create. And thanks to that, later writers had a rich source to continue exploiting. The love story of Miss Can and De Tham was vividly recreated in the story Cau Vong Yen The (Tran Trung Vien), the novel Nguoi 100 years old (Hoang Khoi Phong), ... are examples.

In short, the method of combining motifs in the direction of sanctification and the use of realistic details when building historical characters shows the tendency to create a hero in folk works. In this way, they created a special symbol of Hoang Hoa Tham in the stories. The image of De Tham is both realistic and majestic, with the stature of a legendary hero, containing messages that have the power to spread and strongly oppose the colonialist's imposed discourse about the leader. The version of De Tham viewed in this direction has become an important spiritual support that the community needs to rely on during the period when "belief" and historical and social events are changing with the movement of time.

From the perspective of the relationship between folklore-historical materials and folklore-written literature, folk tales about him are important sources of reference. When describing De Tham, historians and folk authors have met. That is to acknowledge the leader's ability, qualities, and strong will to fight the enemy and to put forward hypotheses about his death. The difference is that while historical materials pay attention to major developments and events, folklore pays attention to small details, side stories, and even imagines and embroiders unrealistic things. Stories about supernatural powers and De Tham's love affair with Miss Ba Can - products of imagination that only exist in folk tales - are proof. Through creative fictions, folklore expresses and conveys their feelings and aspirations for the leader. On the contrary, there are countless evidences showing that historical materials have referenced or were formed from folk legends. As a result of the fieldwork carried out in

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1956 was "thoroughly exploited for the compilation of the book Hoang Hoa Tham and the Yen The peasant movement " [88; p.19]. Or, folk fiction has affected the assessment and exploitation of historical data by historians. For example, the fiction about the death of De Tham was so strong that it made it difficult to record contemporary historical data. Many research projects and studies invested in finding the ending about the death and tomb of De Tham have not found a way out in the illusory fog of folk legends. Meanwhile, with written literature, the more thrilling and fictional the folk tales are, the more they provide rich data and stimulate the creativity of writers. Commenting on this, author Tran Thi An said: “In the development process of national literature, folk legends have both the meaning of creating initial narrative traditions and the value of nurturing the creativity of writers in many stages” [1, p.269]. This comment, I think, is also true for other forms of folk tales, including the folk tale about Hoang Hoa Tham. And in turn, the fictions and creations of modern literature help connect and inspire readers to return to history and ancient legends.

2.3. Hoang Hoa Tham in folk festival

As a “text” (folklore), the folk festival organized by Hoang Hoa Tham and later the memorial festival when he had just sacrificed himself had a very close relationship with historical legends and folk beliefs, “the characters of historical legends not only live in the narrative but also live in worship rituals with vivid rituals and customs” [83, p.75].

In her university graduation essay (mentioned above), Nguyen Thi Tam commented on the De Tham memorial festival as follows: “The Yen The festival is not a traditional festival from ancient times but has only been held since 1984. However, the festival still inherits and develops the content, games,... from the traditional festival both before and during the time Hoang Hoa Tham led the uprising” [83, p.79]. To prove this point of view, the author cited a number of games and festivals in Yen The (such as Dinh Kep festival, Dinh Gia festival, Dinh Ha festival) as the initial basis of the Yen The festival. Then the author briefly described the “Cau Sieu” festival organized by Hoang Hoa Tham, and focused more on the time, space, content, and games in the festival.

Yen The festival, however, does not specify what type of festival it was, when it took place, or who observed or recorded it.

From the fieldwork of the Yen The festival and research on previous works, we believe that, first of all, there are many ways to classify festivals, depending on criteria such as season, region, ethnic group, location, and theme. Based on the “theme” criterion, there are three types of festivals: agricultural festivals, religious festivals, and historical festivals [101, p.57]. Thus, the Yen The festival belongs to the third type, but the process of formation and development of this festival shows that there is an interweaving of different types of festivals (which we will clarify below and in chapter 4). We also see the need to separate this festival into two stages: folk festival (before, when Hoang Hoa Tham organized it until he passed away) and modern festival (since 1945, especially the milestone of 1984, when the festival was officially renamed and had the participation of the central government in management and organization). Accordingly, in this chapter, we will examine the first phase of the Yen The Festival - as a folklore text (and in relation to other forms of folklore), while the second phase of the festival will be examined in Chapter 4 due to its many connections to current community life.

According to Bui Van Thanh's records, the Yen The Festival originally originated from the Phon Xuong Festival, a seasonal festival organized by villagers in Thong Trung after the harvest, around the end of August and the beginning of September of the lunar calendar every year at Phon Xuong communal house. They voluntarily brought their harvested agricultural products to thank the gods and pray for a bountiful harvest in the following year. The offerings to the gods by the villagers included: banh chung, banh day, fried cakes, sticky rice, roasted chicken and pig, etc. After the ceremony, the offerings were divided among the villages to enjoy together, called "holy blessings", with the hope that next year, the villagers would all have prosperous business and a peaceful life.

Since the second reconciliation with the French colonialists (1897), the Phồn Xương festival was organized by leader Hoàng Hoa Thám. The main purpose of De Thám was to use the festival to attract talents and manpower for the Yên Thế insurgent army.

Bui Van Thanh said that leader Hoang Hoa Tham was a person who highly valued the worship and devotion to Buddhism, believed in the sacredness of heaven and earth, so he had close relationships with monks in communal houses and pagodas in Yen The and neighboring areas [53, pp.20-25].

According to legend, De Tham's house also had an altar for Saint Tran and a Buddha altar. Ba Ba was good at fortune telling, so whenever he built a house, held a festival, built a temple or pagoda, or did anything important, he asked her to cast a hexagram to choose a good day and month [88, p.380]. Therefore, the Phon Xuong festival during the time Hoang Hoa Tham presided over the ceremony was held on a larger scale and in a much more open space than before. The main time of the festival was from January 10 to 15, 16, at Phon Xuong - the headquarters of the insurgent army.

During the ceremony , Hoang Hoa Tham organized many more spiritual rituals such as: the ceremony to set up an altar to pray for the souls of the people in the surrounding area, the soldiers and generals who died in battle, the ceremony to release fish and birds to pray for peace, demonstrating the spirit of determination to gain freedom and independence of the soldiers and Hoang Hoa Tham. In Phồn Xương, on the full moon day of the first and seventh lunar months every year, Hoang Hoa Tham organized a vegetarian festival to pray for the souls of the martyrs. This act of humanity of his was praised by the people through the following verses:

January is coming soon

Quan Hoang roasted beans to make vegetarian sweet soup [42, p.279],

January of the Year of the Rooster - Duy Tan

Again intending to hold a showy and ostentatious party [99, p.143],…

Collector Bui Van Thanh provided more detailed information: on this day, Hoang Hoa Tham sent a monk and monks from Bo Da pagoda to preside over the prayer ceremony. The ceremony took place at Phon Xuong pagoda, the offerings were incense, flowers, fruits and rice cakes (vegetarian offerings). The ceremony included a procession of the souls of the fallen soldiers, after the palanquin was a group of people holding flags, guns and incense tables. The monk sat on a horse, an assistant of De Tham held the reins to lead the horse, accompanied by two people holding parasols on both sides. More notably, the procession also carried a bird cage with birds, a fish bowl with many types of fish, a raft of 100 banana trees and 100 candles on it. The procession departed from the Am Hon temple in Phon Xuong garrison to Phon Xuong communal house and then went to Cau Go culvert. After the monk and the monks chanted sutras and performed Buddhist rituals, De Tham ordered the banana raft with 100 candles lit to be released into the river, he personally released birds into the sky, and fish into the water to set them free. Then the procession returned to the temple, the monk and the monks chanted Buddha's name to absolve the souls [53,

[p.77]. It is quite easy to see in this prayer ceremony the combination of traditional rituals in the holidays of January (praying for peace) and July (pardoning the dead) with the contemporary prayer purpose of Hoang Hoa Tham.

In addition, the leader also organized many other activities in the festival such as singing opera, folk songs, rice cooking contests, cake making contests, Chinese chess, human chess, etc. In particular, the performances and competitions of wrestling, jar fighting, shooting, archery, crossbow shooting, etc. were continued from the martial arts tradition and the spirit of fighting against foreign invaders in the past 1 , and by the time the festival was hosted by Hoang Hoa Tham, they became indispensable performances because they were closely associated with the atmosphere of war taking place on Yen The land. Among those martial arts performances, the flute martial art "Thiet dich than phong" (a flute as strong as the divine wind) created by Hoang Hoa Tham and the insurgents from the martial arts existing in the Yen The mountainous region was the most notable. Because it was a beautiful harmony between martial arts and art, between the martial spirit and the eternal romance of man. At that time, this flute martial art was widely taught in the insurgents at that time. And thanks to the performances and wrestling and martial arts competitions in the festival, De Tham showed off the prestige of the insurgent army, as well as attracted many talented generals to his leadership ranks, recruited and added more insurgents to the elite army serving the Yen The uprising.

In addition, De Tham also built around Phon Xuong garrison a number of structures such as Phon Xuong pagoda, shrines, spirit temples, etc. to paint statues and worship Buddha to create a complete, closed institution of spiritual culture to meet the religious needs of the insurgents and people in the area [53, pp. 16-22].

De Tham's activities were enthusiastically responded to by the people, causing the scale of the festival to expand, attracting people from other regions to participate. Villages such as Yen The, Cau Khoai, Thuong village of Thong Thuong (now Tam Hiep), Leo, Mac, Trung villages and villages such as Nua village also cooked food and organized a palanquin procession to Phon Xuong communal house. The leader's actions and the atmosphere of the festivals were vividly described by the people in many stories. Mr. Tang

1 The Geography written by Nguyen Trai in the 15th century recorded that “Wherever the crossbow arrows of Yen The hit, blood gushed out and death ensued. Poisoned arrows were used to fight against the Northern invaders” [cited in 53, p.52].

Thi Da recounted: “Every year on the 12th of January, Mr. Tham held the Phon Xuong festival. On this day, Mr. Tham slaughtered buffaloes and pigs to treat the soldiers and people in the area. Each tray had from 10 to 20 people sitting down to eat, one person finished eating and stood up, while the other sat down to continue eating. On the festival day, Mr. Tham's army returned in large numbers and each soldier carried a gun” [88, p.376]. Folklore also said: Mr. Hoang also organized vegetarian festivals to commemorate the leaders of the insurgent army and the souls of the dead soldiers. On the 12th of January every year, Phon Xuong garrison was bustling with festivals for making food, making cakes, wrestling, shooting, etc. People from everywhere came to attend the festival in great numbers, regardless of ethnic background. Mr. Hoang also invited troupes of opera and cheo from the lowlands to attend the festival. He loved to watch opera and act out the stories of heroes, patriots, and those who loved justice. It is said that when Mr. Hoang saw the scene of Ho Xanh playing wooden blocks in the play Ho Xanh, Bao Nghia was very happy, and poured out a tray of money next to him to reward everyone [88, p.375].

It can be said that the Phồn Xương festival, during the time of Hoàng Hoa Thám’s resistance against the French, has changed from a traditional agricultural ritual of a locality (Phồn Xương) to a contemporary festival with both spiritual significance and practical political and military purposes for the Yên Thế region and perhaps even more broadly. The festival also has the major purpose of creating a spirit of solidarity, preparing both human and material forces for Hoàng Hoa Thám’s uprising.

In 1913, when the Yen The uprising failed, leader Hoang Hoa Tham sacrificed himself, and there was no initiator, but the festival did not stop but only reduced its scale to suit reality. De Tham's heroic and glorious anti-French career and his death with unclear details became anecdotes mixed with fact and fiction. The "belief" of the people at this time was vividly expressed in the belief in the hero. It was believed that De Tham died on the 5th day of the first lunar month, so his death anniversary was held on this day. For that reason, the Phon Xuong festival was also held on the 5th day of the first lunar month, on a small scale, focusing on worshiping Buddha, Gods, and Hoang Hoa Tham's death anniversary without focusing on the festival part [53, pp. 22-23].

In short, Phon Xuong festival - a folk festival of the ancient people up to the time of Hoang Hoa Tham and dedicated to Hoang Hoa Tham is a special "folk creation". Because: 1/ Compared to other festivals worshiping supernatural figures such as Ba Chua Kho Festival, Ba To Festival or Giong Festival, ... Phon Xuong festival in the process of development has the participation of the character Hoang Hoa Tham himself in both aspects: as the master of ceremonies and as the person (after his death, he became a supernatural figure) being worshiped. This leads to the complete inheritance or the phenomenon of repeating some rituals performed by De Tham himself at Phon Xuong Festival in the ritual of worshiping him at Yen The Festival later (we will elaborate in chapter 4); 2/ The festival has changed from a traditional agricultural ritual (before Hoang Hoa Tham presided over the ceremony) to a ritual of sacrificing the dead and praying for the souls of the righteous men of Yen The region (when Hoang Hoa Tham presided over the ceremony), and combined with the purpose of sacrificing Hoang Hoa Tham's soul (after Hoang Hoa Tham passed away); 3/ The festival is not only a space for performing stories and poems about Hoang Hoa Tham, but also a place to preserve and pass on priceless cultural and spiritual values of the people, such as traditional rituals, folk games, beliefs in the sacred nature of heroes, etc. Along with stories and poems, folk festivals with flexible adaptations in scale and activities in each period and each situation to maintain faith in the sacredness of Hoang Hoa Tham, have contributed to creating a strong folk discourse in opposition to the imposed voice of French colonialism about the hero De Tham.

* Summary:

With hundreds of different versions, folk works about Hoang Hoa Tham and the uprising he led focus on the following forms: stories, folk songs, riddles, verses, etc. It can be seen that in those versions, stories and verses account for the largest number. That form also corresponds to the method of genre creation: the narrative quality (storytelling, event telling, information transmission, etc.) is stronger than the lyrical quality.

In folk tales, the role of the folk author is mainly to tell and describe, exaggeration combined with imagination and the use of magical elements to explain reality and increase the appeal of the story. In the folk genre (folk songs, riddles, verses), artistic devices such as comparison, metaphor, fiction, rhyme, rhythm, language, etc. are also used to express two main contents: 1/ information about

characters and events; 2/ admiration for the leader. In addition, two characteristics (rhyming language with a rustic origin, expressing the emotional levels of the folk artist) have made folk poetry as well as versed essays about leader De Tham not as dry as historical documents and more concise than folk tales. In order to express the two contents of the Yen The uprising and its leader Hoang Hoa Tham, as analyzed, folklore works use both realistic and fictional operations. In which, describing and narrating events, the authors mainly use realistic methods; while to depict 'Mr. De', both stories and folk songs combine both.

Through folk works, it can also be seen that, in the subconscious of the people, Hoang Hoa Tham is a talented leader, with extraordinary spirit and qualities. This one-dimensional nature is the similarity of this image with folk tale characters in general. Besides, the blend of fantasy and illusion, and the use of exaggeration also shows that the folk artist has followed folklore poetics and aimed at the common people as the target audience. However, many specific details, many historical details related to the life, career as well as the daily life of the character show that these folk creations have more or less entered the modern era. Because these are creations with a war context, and took place in the late 19th century - early 20th century; moreover, the time gap between the time the event occurred and the time the folk work was formed, the distance between the time the folk work appeared and the time they were recorded (ie textualized) is not far.

Perhaps because of the above-mentioned "real" quality, folk works surrounding the character Hoang Hoa Tham and historians have met at many points, such as being interested in each period of De Tham's life, his major battles and his exploits. However, while historical documents need to ensure accuracy, honesty, objectivity and concern for the surface of history , folklore is vague, imaginative, expressing attitudes, feelings and concerns about things that cannot be detected from this source . 1 Those "things" are the source of De Tham's strength, the leader's inner monologues, the love stories between men and women, the people's feelings for De Tham and vice versa.

1 Words used by Tsubouchi Shoyo [93, p.202].