ExclusiveThe Festival Where Goddesses Come First: Kate of the Cham People | Vietnam Within Us

Each year in late September and early October, when the weather in the South begins to soften. The beat of the ginang drum rises again from the ancient Cham Towers of Central Vietnam, joined by the piercing call of the Saranai horn. That is when the Cham people enter the biggest festival season of the year, the Katé Festival. Today on Vietnam Within Us, we invite you to this sunny, windswept land of Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận to feel the beauty of one of Vietnam's most distinctive festivals. For Chams who follow Brahmanism, Katé is as sacred and as important as that is for the king. It is a time for descendants to remember their ancestors, grandparents, and gods. to give thanks to heaven and earth, and to pray for a year of good rain and gentle wind, a rich harvest, a flourishing of all living things, and a life of peace and happiness. Just as Vietnamese people go home for Tết, every time Tết comes around, Chams' sons and daughters return from all over the country to gather with their families and clans after a very long year. There's something very special and very beautiful about this festival. The figure honored above all others in Katé are goddesses. One is mother of the land, Po Nagar, whom the Cham believed, gave birth to the earth and taught people to grow rice and weave cloth. In Bình Thuận, it is the goddess Po Sah Inu, a Cham princess who taught the people farming and weaving. This is no accident, the Cham has long followed a matrilineal system in which women are the pillar of the family and children take their mother's name. In that way of seeing the world, the mother and the women are always held in a sacred and cherished place. The ceremonial part of Katé unfolds the solemnities and reverence at the temple towers. It opens with the most important rite, the procession of the goddess robes, in which her garments are carried from the festival ground up to the main tower. In Ninh Thuận, the robes are kept by the Rakhlai people, who are brothers to the Cham and handed over on the day of the ceremony. Next comes the opening of the tower doors, the bathing of the Linga Yoni Altar, the dressing of the deities, and then the great ceremony of thanksgiving led by the religious dignitaries. Amid incense smoke, drums, and horns, the whole space seemed to grow still, turned in reverence towards its roots. When the ceremony closes, the joyful festival opens. To the quick beat of the paranong drum and the ringing of the saranai horn, young jumping women in bright traditional dress move through soft, graceful fan dances. That image has become a symbol of jump culture. then village yards filled with contests and games full of local character. Weaving brocade, making ginger cakes, balancing water jars on the head while crossing obstacles, playing the saranai horn. There's once again, we see the skillful hands and the capable spirit of young women in every pass of the shuttles and every cake they make. Looking back, Kate is a religious festival, and it is also a living treasure house of Cham culture. From temple architecture, music and dance to weaving, food and a belief system that's centuries old. And at the center of that picture, how beautiful it is, stands the women. From the goddesses the whole community worships with reverence To the mothers and sisters who keep the household ways And the young women who dance the dances of their fathers and grandfathers And then the last trumpet and the last horn call fade Kate season comes to a close But the values its protects remain Handed down through generation after generation gratitude to ancestors, the reunion of families, and respect for the women who have quietly kept the roots and the way of life of an entire people. Across the many-colored land of Vietnam, the Cathay of the Cham remains a color all its own, splendid and full of pride.