lifestyle
the key rite in which drums and gongs are conveyed to the main temple site. Communities make offerings of rice-based delicacies such as square cakes and glutinous cakes, and there are verbal and folk arts performances, bronze drum beating, Xoan singing, prayers and petitions. Secondary worship of Hung Kings takes place at sites countrywide throughout the year. The rituals are led and maintained by the Festival Organizing Board – knowledgeable individuals of good conducts, who in turn appoint ritual committees and temple guardians to tend worship sites, instruct devotees in the key ritual acts and offer incense. The tradition embodies spiritual solidarity and provides an occasion to acknowledge
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national origins and sources of Vietnamese cultural and moral identity. The worship of the Hung Kings is of great significance to the Vietnamese people’s spiritual and social life. Vietnamese institutions and families have all attached great importance to worshipping the Hung Kings. There are 345 relic sites in Phu Tho province and more than 1,400 relic sites nationwide dedicated to the Hung Kings and other figures in the reign of the eighteen different dynasties of Hung Kings, from 2879 to 258 BC. The practice of worshiping the Hung Kings was recognized by UNESCO as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage in 2012.
