The Kate Festival

It is still pitch dark when the scent of agarwood slips through the crack of the door and wakes a girl. Agarwood is a fragrant, resinous wood used for incense and perfume. Inside the house, new cloth rustles softly. Her mother is folding a red head cloth, and her grandmother is lighting one small stick of incense. The girl sits up and wraps a sarong around herself. This year the sarong is heavier and longer, and for the first time she wears it as a young woman.

A few days earlier, her grandmother taught her to make ginger cakes. The Cham call them sakaya. The two of them sat by the stove and shaped each cake like a small hand with the fingers spread wide. Her grandmother said to shape them carefully and evenly, because these cakes were an offering to the gods. The warm, sharp smell of ginger filled the kitchen. The old woman worked slowly and the girl copied her. Some cakes failed and she made them again, and by the end her hands knew the work.

This is the Katê festival. It is the biggest festival of the year for the Cham of the Bàlamôn faith. Bàlamôn is a Cham Hindu tradition. More than 50,000 Cham Bàlamôn live in the areas around Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm, and every Katê season they turn together toward their gods. Katê is when the descendants remember the kings of old, who have become gods. They also remember the Mother Goddess of the land, Pô Inư Nưgar.

On the night before the main day, something very special happens. The Raglai people of Phước Hà commune live in the mountains, and they are a neighboring people. They carry down the sacred costume of the goddess Pô Inư Nưgar. For generations, they have been the keepers of this costume. They bring the goddess's clothing down and hand it to the Cham to prepare for the festival. One people guards the sacred things of another, year after year, like a promise that never fades.

When the sun has barely risen, the group reaches the foot of the Pô Klong Garai tower. The tower has stood there for centuries, its red bricks standing against the early sky. A priest opens the door of the tower and offers wine, betel and areca, and fruit to the god. Then comes the bathing of the statue. Fragrant agarwood water is poured over the statue and the altar, in slow streams, with deep reverence. After that the god is dressed in new clothes. Every gesture is unhurried, and every movement has been handed down through countless generations.

Then the Saranai horn rises. Its sound stretches long and high, as if calling earth and sky to listen. After it come the deep, warm Baranưng drum and the quick, urgent Ginăng drum. Last comes the Kanhi, a plaintive instrument with two strings. The sounds blend together and climb into the morning air. The girl stands at the edge of the crowd and feels the music touch her chest. She does not understand all of it, but her heart trembles with every beat of the drums.

Young women step out to dance. They wear sarongs, fitted tops, and head cloths of bright red and gold. Some dance with fans that open and close in rhythm. Some carry water jars on their heads and walk so gracefully that the jars never tip. They do not dance for anyone to watch. They dance as a prayer, as an offering to the gods made with their own bodies.

When the ceremony at the tower is over, the family follows the others back to the village. This is where the happiest part of the day begins. A feast is laid out with bánh tét wrapped in banana leaves, golden ginger cakes, and a full tray of five fruits. Kin from other villages come too. The grown-ups talk and the children run and play. There is laughter, and there are the embraces of relatives who have not met for a long time. The days of Katê belong to the whole community, to closeness and to families gathered together.

The old kingdom of Champa is gone. But the Cham did not let the best of what was theirs be lost. They kept the horn and the drums, the dances, the sarong, the cake, and their reverence for their ancestors. They have handed all this down without letting a single beat break. In 2017, the Katê festival of the Cham of Ninh Thuận was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage. For the girl's family, though, Katê had been sacred long before that.

As evening falls, the last torchlight slowly dies. The girl is still wearing her sarong, and a few crumbs of ginger cake cling to her fingertips. She stands watching the fire fade, her heart full of something she cannot yet name. But she carries it inside her already, and she will carry it all her life.