Cao Dai religious music
About this recording
- Creator
- Kristin Post
- Date created
- February 2, 2001
- Duration
- 2:18
- Location
- DaNang, Vietnam
- File
- MP3
- License
- This recording copyright ©2001. Terms of use
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for Asia, Cao Dai, ceremonies, instruments, music, prayer, religion, religious, singing, Southeast Asia, temples, Vietnam, and worship.
In the classroom
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This music and singing was recorded during one of the regular Cao Dai religious ceremonies that occur four times daily. This temple in DaNang is the second largest after the headquarters which are located in Tay Ninh.
Men enter the temple from the right, walk counter-clockwise, and worship on the right side. Women enter the temple from the left, walk clockwise around the hall, then congregate on the left side to worship. Customarily, women will wear a white silk ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese female dress, to these ceremonies.
From my journal:
Women are on one side, men on another- rows of people facing the painted globe with the eye on it, kneeling. But there were lines of men and women on either side of a central altar- these people were standing, and the women were singing. The orchestra were men playing the Chinese fiddle and other instruments- and one girl playing the wooden sticks. The singing was constant but people occasionally bowed or changed positions. One elderly lady with gray hair and the smoothest skin was falling asleep. Some of the officiants [sic] had those pointy triangle hats on their heads that made them look like Catholic bishops.
