On the evening of December 4, the Office of the People's Committee of An Giang province confirmed that at 7:47 p.m. (Hanoi time), at the 19th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO in the Republic of Paraguay, UNESCO officially listed the Festival of the Lady of Sam Mountain in Vietnam on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
This is one of a total of 66 proposals considered at this session and is the 16th intangible cultural heritage of Vietnam to be recognized by UNESCO.
The Via Ba Chua Xu Nui Sam Festival takes place from the 22nd to the 27th of the fourth lunar month at the Ba Chua Xu Nui Sam Temple (Nui Sam Ward, Chau Doc City). Many festival activities take place here to commemorate the day the statue of the Lady descended from the top of Sam Mountain. Locals often call this activity the Via Day. The Via Festival is performed according to traditional rituals, including the procession of the Lady's statue from the top of Sam Mountain to the temple, the Ba Bathing Ceremony, the Requesting the Sacrament Ceremony for the God Thoai Ngoc Hau and his two wives, the Tuc Yet Ceremony, the Xay Chau Ceremony, the Chanh Te Ceremony and the Hoi Sac Ceremony...
These activities are considered a multi-form heritage of traditional festivals, folk knowledge, social customs and beliefs of the ethnic communities living together in the land of Kinh, Hoa, Khmer and Cham. With such uniqueness, in 2014, the Festival was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
With its recognition by UNESCO, the Via Ba Chua Xu Nui Sam Festival is not only the second heritage of the Southern region to be included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, after Southern Amateur Music, but it is also the first traditional festival of the South to receive this title.
