Cúng tiết Thanh minh, tảo mộ (Thanh minh observance and grave tending)

Used across Vietnam, Folk practice

When

During Thanh minh, beginning around 4 or 5 April of the solar calendar, lasting about 15 days

Where the offerings are set

At the cemetery: the offering is placed at the common place of worship (the shrine of the spirits), then incense is lit at each grave. At home: the ancestors' altar

Offerings

Steps

1. Clear grass, add earth, repair the graves
2. Place the offering at the common place of worship, light lamps and incense, bow three bows, then pray to the spirits at the cemetery
3. While waiting for the incense to burn, light incense and pray before each grave of the family
4. When two thirds of the incense stick has burned, make the farewell offering, burn votive paper, and ask for the lộc (blessed offerings)
5. Return home to make offerings to the household deities and the ancestors

Used across Vietnam, Buddhist

Where the offerings are set

At the graves, and at the place of offering, gathered in the house; the pagoda instructs not to set offerings on the floor or on the ground

Offerings

Steps

1. Choose to read the prayer text (without chanting sutras) or perform the rite with sutra chanting
2. The offering at the graves and the offering at home are two separate texts

Northern Vietnam, Folk practice

Offerings

Southern Vietnam, Folk practice

When

Many places tend graves before Tết (the custom of the 25th of the twelfth lunar month); during Thanh minh, graves are swept and repaired if needed

Steps

1. Grave tending takes place mainly around Tết
2. Thanh minh is a convenient time to sweep and repair graves

Southern Vietnam (Nam Bộ, no finer detail in the source), Hoa (ethnic Chinese in Vietnam), Cần Thơ, Sóc Trăng, Bạc Liêu, Folk practice

When

Thanh minh; many households tend graves one or two weeks earlier to avoid the crowds. A representative of a hội quán (community hall) said this is the only grave-tending occasion of the year for the Chinese community

Where the offerings are set

At the grave or the nghĩa từ (communal burial place of the community), and an offering tray placed in the middle of the house

Offerings

Steps

1. After the first lunar month, see to mounding the graves and repainting the headstones
2. The day before, the offerings are prepared; early in the morning the offerings are brought to the graves
3. Five-coloured paper is pasted on the graves, the offerings are laid out
4. The elders make the offerings first, then the descendants in turn, in order of seniority
5. There is a separate portion of offerings for Thổ Địa (Earth God) placed at the corner of the grave
6. After the offering, the whole family eats and drinks right at the grave or brings everything home