Millet harvest season ceremony
At the beginning of the year the time of the millet harvest festival is decided by the elders who need to inform everyone. The millet harvest festival is held around June. All millet planting members will put about two or three handfuls of the millet into the mortar, and the men then pound millet together. Now, in addition to the traditional pounding of millet and singing and praying for the harvest, each tribe also arranges other things such as a warrior dance or a hair dance performance.
Impressions of the millet harvest ceremony (youtube.com)
Impressions of a hair dance performance, which is not a traditional ceremony but people are getting used to do this during the harvest season ceremony (youtube.com)
New homes ceremony
House space is a field in which Tao people hold ritual ceremonies. New home completion is a local big event.
According to the calendar, housing construction begins in June and is completed by the end of August. Before the start of all building, materials must be prepared. Due to the need for assistance in having the building completed at a certain time, at its completion a grand feast is held. A gift of taro and meat will be given to the guests to share happiness and to celebrate their hard work and achievements and to maintain friend and family relationships.
One day before the completion ceremony, the new owner must invite the guests by singing, while the invited person replies by singing too and giving in return dried flying fish or other gifts to the new owner. In the morning of the ceremony, the owners and guests dress up and sing to each other with compliments and humility. Other tribal men will help put the taro on the roof of the new main house or working room to show the wealth of the owner. In the evening, the host and the guests are in the new house singing the hymn until dawn.
The next day, after the guests were given taro and pork, the new house ceremony is completed.
More traditional ceremonies
Boat launching ceremony
Flying fish season
Video of ancient traditional Tao songs and ceremonies, directed by Véronique Arnaud, 1972 (vimeo.com)