Why are first-furrow festivals of the new year so often lumped together?
The three branches, Lồng Tồng of the Tày, highland first-furrow festivals, and the Kinh tịch điền rite, are often mentioned in the same breath because all are tied to the opening rite of the rice season. However, the naming, the organizing body, and the central ritual differ from one branch to the next. This article presents each branch based on the collected sources, then places them side by side in a comparison table.
Lồng Tồng of the Tày
Lồng Tồng (sometimes written Lồng Tông) means going down to the fields in the Tày language, and is the festival that opens the new crop season for Tày communities. Báo Điện tử Chính phủ, quoting Mr. Nguyễn Vũ Mão, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bạch Thông Commune, Thái Nguyên Province, reports that the festival includes a ritual section with incense offering, prayers for the season and for blessings, and a first-furrow rite. Báo Nhân Dân describes the Lồng Tông Festival in Chiêm Hóa District, Tuyên Quang, as taking place on the 8th day of the first lunar month each year, with wishes for national peace, favourable weather, and a bountiful harvest.
Regarding the ritual, Báo Nhân Dân notes that the ceremony begins with a procession of nine Tồng trays from Bách Thần Temple to the district stadium, accompanied by a lion dance called the field-descent dance performed by young men and women. The Tồng trays hold local produce offered in gratitude to the deities. The master of ceremonies and assisting ritualists then place the Tồng trays, give thanks to heaven and earth, and pray for warmth and happiness for every household. The ceremony closes with the field-descent rite, that is, ploughing, in the hope that the lucky first furrow of the year brings prosperity to people and livestock.
The festival section includes folk games such as con throwing and tug of war, cultural and sporting activities, cultural space displays, and a five-colour bánh giầy making contest. According to Báo Nhân Dân, Lồng Tông is a signature festival of the Tày people of Tuyên Quang Province, recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage and turned into a distinctive tourism product each Tết season.
Also on Lồng Tồng, VietnamPlus reports that the 2025 Ba Bể Lồng Tồng Festival at Bó Lù Hamlet, Nam Mẫu Commune, Ba Bể District, Bắc Kạn, took place on the 10th day of the first lunar month and is listed in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory. The ceremony includes a procession of offering trays carried by young men and women in traditional dress, with trays of farmers' produce, directed toward ancestral roots, praying to heaven and earth for favourable weather, a bountiful harvest, and full barns of livestock and poultry. The festival section features artistic performances, bánh giầy pounding contests, stick pushing, blindfolded goat catching, and hands-on experience of ethnic cultural spaces.
From the same VietnamPlus source, the 2025 ATK Định Hóa Lồng Tồng Festival (Thái Nguyên) opened on the 10th day of the first lunar month and is described as the traditional field-descent festival of the Tày and Nùng peoples of Thái Nguyên Province each Tết season. At this festival, visitors witness the seasonal prayer rite of the Tày, the field-descent rite of the Sán Chay, and the blessing rite of the Dao. So within a single Lồng Tồng festival, several ethnic groups take part with their own rites. VietnamPlus also notes that the ATK Định Hóa Lồng Tồng Festival was recognized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as a national intangible heritage in 2017, and that since 2002 it has been revived on the basis of the traditional festivals of communities in the Việt Bắc base area.
On timing, the sources do not fully agree: Báo Nhân Dân gives Lồng Tông Chiêm Hóa on the 8th day of the first lunar month; Báo Điện tử Chính phủ gives Lồng Tồng Bạch Thông over the 8th and 9th; VietnamPlus gives Lồng tồng Ba Bể opening on the 10th and Lồng tồng ATK Định Hóa on the 9th and 10th. These are local differences, not substantive contradictions.
Highland first-furrow festivals
Highland first-furrow festival is an umbrella term for the early-spring festivals tied to the opening rite of the production season in the northern highlands. Báo Điện tử Chính phủ describes the early days of spring in Bính Ngọ 2026, when highland villages across the north resounded with drums and khèn pipes; from An Thành Hamlet (Lào Cai), to Ham Xoong Village on the Điện Biên border, to Bạch Thông Commune (Thái Nguyên), traditional field-descent festivals took place in unison.
A specific case is the Roóng Poọc field-descent festival of the Giáy people at An Thành Hamlet, Bát Xát Commune, Lào Cai Province. According to Báo Điện tử Chính phủ, the festival is held annually on the first Dragon day of the new year and is regarded as the opening rite of a production cycle. In the sacred space, incense offering and the Thần Nông (Agriculture God) rite are performed solemnly, praying for favourable weather and full granaries of rice and corn. The festival section includes tug of war, stick pushing, blindfolded duck catching, con throwing, and a ploughing contest. Also according to this source, Mr. Ngô Hoàng Sơn, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bát Xát Commune, says the festival is a beautiful spiritual and cultural tradition, a precious heritage rich in folk character preserved by the Giáy people through generations, as well as an occasion to give thanks to heaven and earth and a day for the community to meet and interact.
At the same time, in Ham Xoong Village, Nà Bủng Commune, Điện Biên Province, the 2026 Gầu Tào Festival of the Mông people took place with a nêu pole raising rite, a blessing ceremony, and wishes for peace and a bountiful harvest. The festival section includes climbing the nêu pole to pick lucky tokens, bánh giầy pounding, duck catching, cultural exchanges between villages, and a race to conquer Ngải Thầu Peak. A food competition between villages features traditional trays with local chicken, local duck, snails cooked with beans, mèn mén, and corn wine; Ms. Sùng Thị Dùa (Nà Cốc 1 Village) says mèn mén is a dish handed down by the elders and indispensable on the offering tray.
So the highland first-furrow festival is not a single festival with a single organizer, but a group of festivals sharing the meaning of opening the production season, held by different ethnic groups with different rites and offerings. A distinction is needed: Lồng Tồng is also a field-descent festival, but it belongs to the Tày and carries its own Tày-language name; highland first-furrow festival is an umbrella term covering both Lồng Tồng and other festivals such as Roóng Poọc of the Giáy or Gầu Tào of the Mông.
The Kinh tịch điền rite
The tịch điền rite is a ceremony tied to the state and the monarchy in Kinh tradition, in which the king personally ploughs a field to encourage agriculture. However, in the source set provided for this article, no source directly addresses the Kinh tịch điền rite. Báo Nhân Dân lists a related item titled Lễ hội Tịch điền Đọi Sơn Xuân Quý Mão 2023 among its related articles, but the detailed content of that item is not included in the provided sources. For this reason, the article gives no specific description of the offerings, timing, or ritual of tịch điền, to avoid inferring beyond the sources.
What can be said cautiously: the name tịch điền is tied to the act of the king ploughing, unlike Lồng Tồng and highland first-furrow festivals, which are organized by village communities. This difference in organizing body is a point to note when comparing, but specific details about tịch điền need to be checked against other sources. Readers should treat this as the branch that still lacks evidence in this article, not as a conclusion about the nature of the rite.
Comparison table of the main differences
| Criterion | Lồng Tồng of the Tày | Highland first-furrow festivals | Kinh tịch điền rite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naming | Lồng Tồng, Lồng Tông; in Tày meaning going down to the fields | Umbrella term for a group of early-spring highland festivals; each festival has its own name such as Roóng Poọc (Giáy), Gầu Tào (Mông) | Tịch điền; tied to the act of the king ploughing |
| Organizing body | Tày communities in localities such as Tuyên Quang, Bắc Kạn, Thái Nguyên; in some places several ethnic groups take part | Highland ethnic groups in the north such as Giáy, Mông, Tày, Sán Chay, Dao, depending on locality | Tied to the state and monarchy in Kinh tradition (sources do not provide details) |
| Timing | 8th day of the first lunar month (Chiêm Hóa), 8th and 9th (Bạch Thông), 9th and 10th (ATK Định Hóa), 10th (Ba Bể) | First Dragon day of the new year (Roóng Poọc); early spring of Bính Ngọ 2026 (Gầu Tào) | Sources do not provide |
| Main offerings | Tồng trays of local produce; five-colour bánh giầy in the festival section | Traditional trays with local chicken, local duck, snails cooked with beans, mèn mén, corn wine (Gầu Tào); five-colour sticky rice, grilled stream fish, leaf-yeast wine (Roóng Poọc) | Sources do not provide |
| Signature ritual | Procession of Tồng trays, the master of ceremonies placing the trays, field-descent ploughing rite | Incense offering to Thần Nông (Roóng Poọc); raising the nêu pole and blessing rite (Gầu Tào); ploughing contest | Sources do not provide |
Why do the branches differ?
The sources in this article offer no general explanation for the differences among the three branches. Still, some points raised by the sources themselves can be noted. Báo Nhân Dân describes Lồng Tông as a form of folk cultural activity, a seasonal prayer of wet-rice farming communities, expressing ancient fertility beliefs and combined with worship of the village tutelary god, the Earth God, and those who contributed to the country and founded the village. This is Báo Nhân Dân's explanation of the belief origin of Lồng Tông.
For highland first-furrow festivals, Báo Điện tử Chính phủ describes the common thread from Bát Xát and Nà Bủng to Bạch Thông as a spirit of looking back to roots and a longing for prosperity, as well as an occasion for the community to meet, bond, and strengthen the great unity of ethnic groups. For the tịch điền rite, as noted, the source set provides no explanation.
What should be kept in mind when researching these festivals?
One easily confusing point is naming. Lồng Tồng is both the proper name of the Tày festival and, in some articles, used as another way of referring to field-descent festivals in general. Meanwhile, highland first-furrow festival is an umbrella term, not the name of a specific festival. When researching, one should identify which ethnic group and which locality the festival in question belongs to, since the same umbrella term can correspond to many different rites.
Another point is that timing is not consistent across sources and localities. As cited above, Lồng Tồng may take place on the 8th, 9th, or 10th day of the first lunar month depending on the place; Roóng Poọc chooses the first Dragon day of the new year. These are local differences, not contradictions requiring a verdict of right or wrong.
Finally, this article does not rank the branches by any criterion. Each festival is a cultural practice of a specific community, with its own offerings, timing, and rites. The differences among them are data for understanding the agricultural life and beliefs of each community, not a yardstick for judging which festival is more complete than another.
