Cau Ca Communal House

According to Han-Nom documents still kept at the communal house, such as royal edicts, stone stele, and local legends, Cau Ca is one of the eight communes assigned by feudal dynasties to worship An Duong Vuong as the village tutelary deity (commonly called the eight communes of Co Loa or the eight communes of Loa Thanh). An Duong Vuong, whose name was Thuc Phan, founded the state of Au Lac in 208 BC on the basis of unifying Tay Au and Lac Viet. He was a talented military leader who had the merit of building Co Loa Citadel and resisting Trieu Da's invasions to protect the country. King An Duong Vuong is worshipped in many places.

Previously, the communal house was located at the very entrance of the village. In 1923, the villagers moved it to its current position (on the left first beam of the communal house there is still an inscription recording that the roof-raising day was an auspicious day, in the Quy Dong month, i.e. the twelfth month of the Quy Hoi year under the Khai Dinh reign). The communal house has been repaired many times. Before 1945, the rear sanctuary was restored. During the resistance war against the French colonialists, the communal house was dismantled and severely damaged.

Based on a number of artifacts such as royal edicts, a deity genealogy compiled in the first year of Hong Phuc (1572) and copied in the sixth year of Vinh Huu (1740), an incense burner, and a throne from the Later Le period, it can be affirmed that the construction of Cau Ca Communal House dates at the earliest to the 18th century.

After peace was restored, the people restored and repaired the communal house, reinstalled the paneled doors, and built brick walls around the main hall. Most recently, the relic was comprehensively restored, including the ceremonial gate, main hall, rear sanctuary, the shrine of the Lady, and a number of other auxiliary works.

Cau Ca Communal House stands on a plot of land in the middle of the village, with a separate wall system distinct from the surrounding civil architecture. The communal house's land is not large; adjacent to the ceremonial gate is the main road through the middle of the village. The communal house is built facing west, and its ground plan follows the layout of the character “nhị” consisting of 2 main architectural parts: the main hall and the rear sanctuary. In front of the main hall is a yard paved with bat-shaped bricks. The two central pillars are square-built and open to the main gate on the central axis of the divine path; the pillar tops are decorated with unicorns seizing phoenixes, tiger-face plaques, and empty lantern panels; the pillar bodies have no couplets. Two small gates connect to the large pillars by low walls, built with two-tiered overlapping arched roofs, covered with tubular tiles, with four curved corners; next are two small pillars, with unicorn-courting tops, empty lantern panels and bodies, and no decorative patterns.

The main hall is built with closed gable walls, ngai-style braces, and bearing pillars, roofed with fish-scale tiles; the floor is raised to a medium height and has three stone-paved steps. The main hall has five bays and two side bays with six roof trusses; the purlin ends rest on the gable walls without side-support trusses. Each truss consists of four rows of wooden column bases; the large columns have stone bases, and the base stones are buried in the floor. Inside the main hall there remains a carved valance door with motifs of the four sacred creatures and four seasons, bearing the artistic style of the 19th century. There is a wooden throne with a full armrest and spirit tablet; there are two brightly lacquered and gilded palanquins, and an eight-pole palanquin with fairly delicate dragon-cloud and floral motifs. The paneled door system runs across all five bays in the upper-slat lower-panel style, with plain planed and closely joined boards and raised edges, without decorative patterns.

The rear wall is built at the side bays and side sections; the three central bays have no wall and open directly into a narrow yard in front of the rear sanctuary. On the two rear main columns of the central truss there is a valance door; on the floor between the main column and the rear military column of the central bay, a brick platform higher than the main hall floor is built. Previously, the main hall of Cau Ca had a wooden floor; only after the resistance war were walls built, and traces of the floor beam holes and door sills remain on some of the communal house columns.

Behind the main hall is a narrow yard paved with bat-shaped bricks, with steps leading up to the porch of the rear sanctuary. The rear sanctuary has three bays with four roof trusses arranged parallel to the main hall. The porch of the rear sanctuary is wide because the extended tie beams support the roof; the forbidden chamber doors are paneled doors across all three bays, each bay fitted with four leaves, in the upper-slat lower-panel style. In the central bay of the sanctuary, a wooden altar shrine is placed at the rear; in front, a brick platform is built for an altar bed; outside on the porch, there is an incense table in the central bay serving as an outer altar.

On both gable sides of the rear sanctuary, walls are built connected to the rear wall of the main hall, with arched doors leading to the rear. On the left side of the rear sanctuary is a small shrine to My Chau. The shrine is designed with a front extension, a seven-section lower roof, one bay, and two narrow side bays creating a wide porch; at the rear, a beam is placed to create a built bay with a throne.

The artistic decoration in the architecture of Cau Ca Communal House is concentrated mainly in the main hall; the decorations have a fairly uniform artistic style, strongly bearing the architectural art of the Nguyen dynasty in the 19th century. On the beam bodies, first beams, and ridge purlins there are relief carvings of chrysanthemum leaves, clouds, bright dots, and seal motifs on the bracket blocks. There is a relief carving on the outer panel of the central truss depicting a transformed phoenix combined with a seal foot; this is a product of the restoration in the early 20th century.

The decorations of the main hall are concentrated in the central corner bracket on the inner front side and on the beam ends. The corner bracket depicts the four sacred creatures; the carvings are very elaborate, skillfully interweaving realistic and stylized art, demonstrating the artisans' skillful hands. At the four central trusses of the communal house, the beam ends are all carved with dragon-head images; there are eight beam ends, one of which was remade during repairs. Each dragon head is depicted differently, with a bold, lively carving art strongly bearing the artistic style of the Nguyen dynasty in the 19th century. The remade beam end is simple and is a product of replacement repairs in the early 20th century.

Cau Ca Communal House still preserves valuable artifacts such as two deity genealogies; the village convention of Cau Ca; 15 royal edicts from the Later Le to the Nguyen period, the earliest edict bearing the Canh Hung 28 era (1767), especially edicts from the reigns of King Quang Trung and Canh Thinh; a wooden throne lacquered in red and gilded in the 18th-century artistic style; an eight-pole palanquin with finely and elaborately carved poles. There is a long-dinh palanquin in the 19th-century Nguyen artistic style, a wooden ceremonial stand with elaborate carvings in the 18th-century Later Le artistic style, and a number of other worship objects.

On the 6th day of the first lunar month every year, Cau Ca Village and the villages that worship An Duong Vuong all organize processions of offerings and palanquins and bring offerings to Co Loa Temple to participate in the festival. In years when large-scale events are held, there is a festival of the eight communes. Cau Ca Village is a member participating in sacrificial activities together with the villages in the eight communes. After the common festival, the villages of the eight communes continue to open their communal houses for worship and their own festivals in each village. Cau Ca Village has four giap (North, East, West, South) and must take charge of eight offering trays to worship the tutelary deity. The village festival includes classical opera singing, human chess, card games, and other traditional recreational activities.

With its historical and architectural-artistic values, the Cau Ca Communal House relic was ranked by the Hanoi City People's Committee as a City-level historical architectural and artistic relic in Decision No. 1652/QĐ-UB/2003 dated March 25, 2003.