The festival is held at Bản Phủ temple (Bản Phủ citadel) on February 24 to 28 every year to commemorate the merits of "Then Chất" (Hoàng Công Chất - Leader of the peasant uprising during the Lê - Trịnh dynasty) and Thái generals who were instrumental in suppressing the Phẻ enemy. The festival consists of two parts: the ceremony part and the festival part. The ceremony begins with a palanquin procession from the intersection of Noong Hẹt market to Bản Phủ temple. The procession is led by a Thái woman, followed by 16 young men symbolizing the insurgents in conical hats, brown shirts, yellow belts, neat swords and spears, and finally a palanquin carrying the sacred relics. At the Temple yard, 16 young men recreated the image of insurgents dancing with swords and spears to defeat the enemy, followed by a dragon dance, and then the ceremony of reading death anniversary wishes. The palanquin procession includes lion and dragon dance team (men), a gong and drum team (men), a parasol flag team (women), an offering team (women), a palanquin carrying team (women), and a sacrifice team (women world), government representatives and people. When the palanquin procession arrived at Hoàng Công Chất temple at Bản Phủ Citadel, the female priesthood team conducted incense offerings, and sacrifices, and read written wishes about the struggle against the Phe invaders led by General Hoàng Công Chất. The female priesthood team consists of 27 Thái and Kinh members. In particular, during the ceremony, there were 4 Thái women representing the indigenous people offering flowers and offerings. The festival includes many entertaining activities such as Xòe dancing, bamboo dancing, shuttlecock throwing, pipe coaxing dancing, stick pushing, sack dancing, tug of war, etc.

There is a specific ritual that is done in a tuneful utterance when a new mother-animal rejects its newborn or when a newborn becomes orphaned. This ritual is believed to encourage the mother-animal to accept its newborn. The ritual is one of the examples that depict the bond between herders and their livestock animals. These coaxing melodies of the ritual have become absorbed into poems and songs and constitute an important element of Mongolian oral tradition as well as an allegory about the importance of patience and acceptance in relationships.

The coaxing ritual is used by herders to save newborn camel calves orphaned or rejected by their mothers, and to avoid the loss of vital camel milk. A camel mare is coaxed into accepting an orphaned or estranged calf by the singing of a melody accompanied by the morin khuur horse-head fiddle. This handling technique helps the survival of newborn calves and maintains the mother’s lactation. The renowned Russian poet Sergei Yesenin once said that “It is indeed undoubted that Mongols could make the camel cry with the melody of khuur (fiddle)”.

Mongolia 2015

Melodies associated with herding of animals, coaxing rituals for baby animals and hunting are the common representatives of this element. Such intonations and melodies derived from the nomadic people’s mode of life are classified as melodies for animals such as gurii gurii for horses, oov oov for cows, toor toor for camels, and melodies for coaxing animals, melodies for milking the mother animals such as toig toigoo for coaxing baby sheep, for baby goat as cheeg cheeg, and for baby camel saying melody khoos khoos. There are also other melodies for hunting (melodies to call games, melodies to amuse games), melodies for uukhai or cheering up (uukhai for archery, uukhai for anklebone shooting, melodies for wrestler or race-horse title recitations, giingoo or zeengoo melodies of the horse-jockeys) are used for daily life of Mongolians. This the specific rite of psychological connection between herder and animals.