Worship of Ancestor Custom
Vietnamese
believe that the soul of a dead person, even if dead for many generations,
still rests along with their descendants on earth. The dead and living persons
still have spiritual communion; in everyday life, people must not forget that
what they enjoy and how they feel is the same for their dead relatives.
On the last day of every
lunar year, an announcing cult, cung tien
thuong, is performed to invite the dead forefathers to return home to
celebrate Tet holidays with their families. During the last days before Tet,
all family members visit their ancestors’ graves; they clean and decorate the
graves, in the same manner that the livings clean and decorate their houses to
welcome the New Year.
On the
anniversary of an ancestor’s death, descendants and relatives unite and prepare
a feast to worship the dead people and to ask for health and happiness for
themselves. From generation to generation, ancestor worshipping customs have
been religiously preserved. There are some small variations between those
customs among the many Vietnamese ethnic groups, but the common theme of
fidelity and gratitude towards the ancestor’s remains.
