Hmong people pin hopes on custom of getting water on New Year’s Day

The Hmong people often live off farming in high mountain areas, with agricultural production relying on the weather. As they live mainly in the highlands, they lack water during the dry season. In order to get water for daily use, people have to travel a long distance to reach the source and save each can of water for use. Therefore, the Hmong people believe that if they can water at the beginning of the new year, then their family will be lucky and will not lack water all year round.

Although the Hmong people have the same custom of getting water at the beginning of the new year, each place, region, and group of people have different ways of collecting water. The Hmong people in Yen Bai province believe that before taking water they must prepare three pieces of paper cut into a 5cmx8-10cm rectangle and three incense sticks to offer to the river god upstream to ask for water.

Each year Mua Dua Sung, one of the elders in Po Mau village of Co Ma commune in Thuan Chau district, always reminds his children and grandchildren to get water early on the morning of New Year’s Day.

“The Hmong people take two cans of water home, with one on New Year’s Eve and the other on New Year’s Day. Both cans of water are then placed on the scale. If the can of water taken early on the morning of New Year’s Day is heavier, it signals that there will be more rain in the year, and people will immediately start the new crop after the New Year holiday,” explains the elder.

Another group of Hmong people believe that whether or not the new year brings them luck depends on the two types of water collected from the same source at two different times.

“The house owner also takes two bowls of water and places them on the scale. If the bowl of water taken on New Year’s Day is heavier than the other bowl, the elders believe that the new year will bring good luck and bumper crops, and vice versa,” says Vu Senh Tu, an elder of Huoi Den village in Co Ma commune of Thuan Chau district in Son La province.

Getting water on New Year’s Day is fine custom followed by the Hmong people in the nation which is expected to bring good luck and fine weather in the new year. That is why after the year-end party every Hmong family prepares a can or a large bamboo tube in order to collect water on the first day of the new year, wishing for good health, good luck, and a good harvest in the year ahead.