Whale Worshipping Custom of South Central Coast Fishermen (Part 2)

Whale- The sacred mammal

Regardless of which legend it rooted, in the mind of Southern people, especially the coastal fishermen, the whale is a sacred animal in the sea, often helps those in distress in the sea. The fishermen, when navigating and meeting something unforeseen, immediately ask the whale for help, expect “him” to help and “he” seems to be on time all the time.

A dead whale is worshipped and about to be buried

Therefore, when fishermen see a dead whale, they consider it a good thing, and believe that the villagers will be blessed by him. By convention, the man who is the first person to discover the dead whale is considered the trustful man, thus has the position of "the head man", on behalf of the villagers mourning the whale in 100 days. When detecting a dead whale, people try to take it to the shore and the chief of the fishing village mobilizes the villagers to bring the cadaver ashore for burial. In case of encountering too big whales, people wrap the whale, elect someone to guard until the meat dissolves, they take the skeleton and worship in the temple.

The altar of whale in the temple

The Nghinh Ong festival

Basically, whale worship ritual is not dissimilar to those in the communal house, that is, it also includes many rituals and experiences many different steps. Typically, the festival was started at dawn. A fleet was prepared to set sail. Hundreds of fishing boats of the fishermen in and outside the province are decorated flags, anchored in the river in an eye-catching and neat order. Heading is the large capacity boat, the ceremonial man directly takes the incensory to the boat.

Boats are decorated very splendidly. Sometimes, people agglomerate three boats together to make the procession boat. In the boat, there are the flowers, flags, with an altar and plaque of the fishery minister, a pentatonic orchestra and some dressed singers and dancers. In the seaport, many other vessels fishing on the sea also attend the parade. Hundreds of thousands of ships of all sizes, capacity, décor create a colorful scene, enliven a vast estuary area. Thousands of people of all shirt color stand and sit on the deck waving flags to welcome the festival….

The procession boat in Nghinh Ong festival

Meanwhile, in ashore, the sound of trumpet, drums, music are still boisterous. There is rule that if people meet pulverizing dolphin, they have to return immediately. If not, the boats are straight away to the planned place.

The next ritual is the ritual of worshiping ancestors, reading the funeral oration, organizing for students to thurify. The offerings mainly consist of cattle and poultry meat. The main worshipping ritual is carried out at 12 pm in the same day. The sacrifices are usually a white pig, two full trays of sticky rice, wine and tea, students thurifying and pentatonic orchestra playing music.

The festival has been becoming a great and important festival of the fishermen in South Central Coast. Whale Worshipping Custom of South Central Coast Fishermen is a traditional morality, and is imbued with the humanity of the country. The festival is an opportunity to satisfy the needs of repaying their unknown savior, the whale, for his favour.

Can Gio (Ho Chi Minh city) is one of the places that still retain the whale worship custom. In 2013, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recognized the Nghinh Ong festival in Can Gio as the intangible cultural heritage at national level, and this festival have become the distinctive culture of people living in coastal area.

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