Dục Nội Communal House (Đoài Communal House)

Dục Nội Communal House is the place name of the village. In ancient times, the village was named Dộc Nội, which later underwent phonetic change, and because the character Dục has a Sino-Vietnamese character to record it, it was called Dục Nội. For a period, its name was “Cổ Vân Trang”. The village's vernacular name is Dộc, so the relic is also known by the vernacular name Dộc Communal House or Đoài Communal House. According to elderly residents, Dục Nội Village formerly had 3 hamlets: Đoài, Trung and Đông. Since ancient times, Dục Nội Village stipulated: whichever hamlet shared a communal house was allowed to have its own pagoda; whichever hamlet had a shared pagoda was allowed to have its own communal house. Therefore, Dục Nội Communal House was named Đoài Communal House. In 1949, to implement scorched-earth resistance against the French colonialists, the locality dismantled Trung Communal House, and the ritual objects were transferred to Đoài Communal House; from then on, Đoài Communal House became the common communal house of Dục Nội Village.

Dục Nội Communal House worships Đống Lang Linh Thần Đại Vương, Thiên Cương Thần Tướng Đại Vương, and Phúc Liễu Thần Đại Vương Ngô Tướng Quân.

Đống Lang Linh Thần Đại Vương is the local Earth God who had merit in spiritually assisting the community. The divine narrative also records that the village tutelary god repeatedly gave spiritual assistance to help the country fight foreign invaders.

Thiên Cương Thần Tướng Đại Vương had merit in fighting the Red Demon invaders and the Yin invaders from the time of the 6th Hùng King. Legend says he was the eldest son of the King of Kinh Bắc, one of the 15 tribes of the Hùng Vương dynasty. When our country was invaded by the A Lỗ Châu invaders led by the Red Demon, Thiên Cương obeyed his father's order and returned to the royal court to eliminate the disaster. When going to battle, Thiên Cương recruited 50 strong men of Dục Nội Trang to follow him to fight the enemy. Later, when his father died, he succeeded as district king. When the Yin invaders came, he joined Phù Đổng to defeat the Yin invaders; the country was peaceful, Phù Đổng returned to heaven, Thiên Vương transformed, and Hùng King, in grief, bestowed on him the title Great King and ordered the establishment of a temple. Dộc Nội and more than 50 other places have temples and communal houses worshipping Thiên Cương.

Phúc Liễu Thần Đại Vương Ngô Tướng Quân whose taboo name was Ngô Đễ, a general who helped Bình Định Vương Lê Lợi in the uprising to win independence in the early 15th century. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ngô Hiển and Dương Thị Oanh from Bình Lâm Commune, An Phú District, now Mạnh Tân Village, Thụy Lâm Commune. When our country faced invasion, he joined the Lam Sơn insurgent army to fight the enemy. When passing through Dục Nội, he stopped and went to pay homage at the shrine worshipping the gods. That night he dreamed that two deities promised spiritual assistance. The next morning, the general summoned the people of the three Dục Nội areas and recruited 200 young men to follow him to fight the enemy. General Ngô Đễ, together with other generals, defeated the Ming army. When the country was peaceful, Lê Lợi ascended the throne and appointed Ngô Đễ to guard 12 seaports and granted him a fief in Đông Ngàn. Ngô Đễ reported to the king the spiritual assistance of the two deities at Dục Nội Village's shrine, and King Lê Thái Tổ bestowed titles on the two gods, Đống Lang and Thiên Cương. He gave his salary and benefits to the people of Dục Nội to repair the shrine more spaciously and told the people that later he would be worshipped alongside the two deities worshipped at the shrine as the third tutelary god.

Based on the divine narrative, royal edicts, inscriptions and relics, Dục Nội Communal House is a communal house built quite early and restored many times. During the 12-day-and-night bombing campaign against Hanoi in 1972, American bombs destroyed the architecture and many ritual objects of the communal house. Afterwards, the people built a small rear shrine to worship the tutelary god. In 1992, the communal house was restored with an architecture of 3 bays and 2 wings. In 2017, it was restored on a scale including items such as: the gate, the main communal house, and the auxiliary shrine. The main communal house is arranged in the form of the character “đinh” with 3 bays and 2 wings, curved roofs, decorated on the ridge with dragons flanking the moon, and a sturdy set of folding doors. Decoration on the architecture mainly shows the themes of the four sacred animals and four precious plants.

Dục Nội Communal House still preserves quite many precious relics such as divine narratives, divine edicts, thrones, octagonal palanquins, stone steles, and bronze bells. Notably, there are 12 royal edicts bestowing titles on gods, dated from the Lê Cảnh Hưng period (1742) to the Nguyễn Khải Định period (1924). The contents of the edicts all record that the dynasties recorded the merits and bestowed titles on the three tutelary gods of Dục Nội. The edicts are well preserved and intact, along with the divine narrative that has been transcribed and translated by the Institute of Han-Nom Studies. Three stone steles record the Rear Deity worship, made in the Nguyễn period (Tự Đức, Đồng Khánh and Thành Thái). Two bronze bells were both cast in the 34th year of Tự Đức (1881) (one bell is now lost); 3 dragon thrones, horizontal boards, couplets, water jars, bronze gongs, festival flags, five-element flags…

Every year, the people of Dục Nội Village organize many important festivals to commemorate the merits of the tutelary gods. The birthday ceremony of General Ngô Đễ (10/8), the transformation ceremony (12/11), and the thanksgiving ceremonies on two days: 4/3 and 5/5 to celebrate the victorious return. Notably, the ceremony to feast the troops before departure on the 4th day of the 3rd lunar month is usually the largest ceremony; it is the day the festival is held if there is a good harvest and the people are healthy and prosperous.

Previously, during the March festival, in addition to the sacrificial rites and offerings of the phe and giap groups as commonly seen elsewhere, Dục Nội had some special features. The offerings were required to include boiled rice balls, round glutinous rice cakes, and puffed glutinous rice, and bamboo flowers were made to offer in the village custom still called “March flowers”. The bamboo flowers are skillfully whittled round and even; the flowers are large and droop from the node of a large bamboo stick, and only when they are very flexible and evenly round do they meet the standard. In good harvest years, the village holds a large festival, once every few years. The festival is organized joyfully, inviting neighboring villages and guests from various places. When holding the festival, there is a procession of octagonal palanquins; each hamlet has one palanquin carried from the two communal houses, Trung and Đoài, out to “Cầu Giá Ngự” at Dộc Cổ Market; the palanquins fly, perform greeting ceremonies, carry the tablets and incense bowls back to the communal house for worship… in a bustling and joyful atmosphere. Now the market, Trung Communal House and Cầu Giá Ngự Bridge no longer exist, and the village no longer has conditions to organize a large festival. On the anniversary of the Saint's transformation at the end of the year (the 12th day of the 11th lunar month), the village organizes a ceremonial delegation with all dignitaries, leaders and representatives of the people to bring offerings to the temple of Ngô Tướng Quốc in Mạnh Tân (Thụy Lâm) to perform the ceremony. This custom has been maintained regularly from ancient times to the present day.

With its historical and cultural values, Dục Nội Communal House relic was ranked as a city-level relic under Decision No. 5193/QĐ-UBND dated July 30, 2002.