Bà Chúa Xứ

Bà Chúa Xứ is a goddess, mostly venerated in the south of Vietnam. She's a territorial goddess, meaning she's goddess over the Sam Mountain (An Giang in Vietnamese) and the Mekong Delta. People often pray to her for success and healing and she's believed to have origins tracing to before Vietnamese Folk Religion sprung up, coming out of either Khmer or Cham religion.

Khmer/Champa

The Mekong Delta in the south of Vietnam was controlled by both Champa and Khmer, predating Vietnamese rule in the area. When Vietnmaese settler arrived later on, they brought their customs with them and began blending Khmer/Cham deities with their own. This was gradual and not well-documented which, as a result, means that the exact origin of which culture Bà Chúa Xứ exactly was a product of is unclear.

Worship

Pilgrims touch or rub her statue in worship so they can get a hold of her blessings and may leave pieces of cloth which hold her protective powers. Male believers may also dress up in women's clothing during rituals when trying to have her spirit possess their bodies which has inspriation taken from Khmer traditions.

Origins

This varies across regions, but generally the tale goes as follows,
Villagers living near Sam Mountain found a stone statue of a woman sitting on the slopes of the mountain. The statue was so unbelievably beautiful that the villagers believed it was divine and thus wanted to bring her down to the village to build her a proper shrine/temple to worship.

But, no matter how hard they tried they couldn't seem to get the statue off of the slopes. They tried for the entire day before going back to sleep. That same night, a village elder dreamt about the stone statue revealing herself to be a goddess named Bà Chúa Xứ, or the Lady of the Realm.

In the dream, Bà Chúa Xứ told the elder that only a maiden with a pure heart would be capable of lifting her statue. The following morning, the village selected a girl who fit the description and had her pray and plead to the statue, asking if they could take her down.

Then, the statue became lighter. Nine men picked the statue up and brought her down before the statue became too heavy to carry at a certain spot, a sign that Bà Chúa Xứ wanted to be placed there. The villagers left the statue and built a temple around the statue to properly worship her.