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Being the third largest minority in today’s Vietnam by number (estimated at 1.4 million people), the Mường have long been established in the provinces of Hoà Bình, Thanh Hoá, Phú Thọ, Sơn La, Ninh Bình, etc.
According to the worthy Vietnamese successor of the French ethnologist Jeanne Cuisinier, Trần Từ (or Nguyễn Đức Từ Chi), the word Mường is used by the Vietnamese (or the Kinh) to designate the region where there are several Mường villages. The Vietnamese take advantage of this usage to name this people. They often refer to themselves by a name related to the region where they live: mol, moan in Hoà Bình, mwanl in Thanh Hoá, or Mol, Monl in Thanh Sơn, and it precisely means « người » (person, individual).

By delving into the narrative of their creation myth (Ngu Kơ and Lương Wong) and that of the Vietnamese (Âu Cơ – Lạc Long Quân), one realizes that they might have originated from the same people whom history and geography divided into two groups around the 9th-10th centuries: the first consisting of the Vietnamese who moved down to the plains and underwent strong Chinese influence, and the other composed of the Mường who remained in the most remote corners of the mountainous regions and received strong influence from the Thai who were massively pushed south of Chinese territory. This is why the Mường continue to be closer to the Vietnamese in terms of language. They belong to the same Việt-Mường group of the Austroasiatic language family (Ngữ hệ Nam Á), which also includes the Mon-Khmer subfamily. This is the origin of the tones in Vietnamese (6 tones) that allowed the French scholar A.G. Haudricourt to affirm in his 1954 work the belonging of Vietnamese to the Austroasiatic languages, an opinion now commonly shared by many foreign researchers and Vietnamese linguists. The French ethnologist Christine Hemmet from the Musée de l’Homme (Paris) reiterated this affiliation during a conference on May 18, 2000, on ethnic plurality, multilingualism, and the development of Vietnam.

Then this Việt-Mường group split into two independent languages: Vietnamese and Mường from the 14th to the 16th century. With Chinese and French borrowings, the former managed to experience at the beginning of the 20th century a remarkable development with its quốc ngữ in the field of Vietnamese literature where it succeeded in expressing all the nuances of thought and feeling in all aspects of life (1). As for the latter, it was isolated from foreign influence and remained in the state that it has today. This Mường language is found, that of the Vietnamese of old (or Proto-Vietnamese). For the Mường, the Vietnamese (or Kinh) descend from common ancestors and share the same blood as them. That is why they are accustomed to saying in one of their popular songs the following two lines:

Though you and I are TWO,
You and I, though ONE, become TWO.
Although you and I are TWO beings, we are but ONE.
Being ONE single being, you and I could always be considered as TWO.

It is also in one of the Muong legends (Đức Thánh Tản Viên) that we find the repeated struggles between the water and mountain spirits mentioned by the Vietnamese in their famous legend « Sơn Tinh Thủy Tinh. » This clearly shows how close the Vietnamese and the Muong are, despite their different destinies, to the point that even their legends are not so distinct. Two famous Vietnamese kings came from the Muong (Lê Đại Hành and Lê Lợi). However, in terms of social and cultural organization, the Muong today are closer to the Thái and the Tày.

The territory inhabited by the Muong is divided into regions (or mường) whose chiefs are lords called « lang cun, » each comprising 20 or 30 hamlets. These are led by « lang đạo, » descendants of the heroic founders of these hamlets, and are named according to their topographical situation: Xóm Ðác (hamlet next to a waterfall), Xóm Ðung (hamlet near the forest), Xóm Ðôn (hamlet on a hill), Xóm Thung (hamlet in a valley), or according to the names of familiar fruit trees: Xóm Trạch (bamboo hamlet), Xóm Mít (jackfruit hamlet), etc., or according to the names of animals: Xóm Hò (Turtle hamlet), Xóm Oong (Bee hamlet), etc., or according to the categories of Muong society: Xóm Chiềng (hamlet where the lang cun (or feudal lord) lives), Xóm Roong (hamlet belonging to farmers).

In traditional Mường society, the establishment of an oligarchy can be seen. This system, called NHÀ LANG in Vietnamese, is essentially based on the right of the first occupant to own the land, forests, and rivers, to cultivate them, and to bequeath them always to the eldest descendants of the male lineage from generation to generation, in accordance with the tradition observed in the worship of Mường ancestors. This allows NHÀ LANG to practically control three-quarters of the land, which is cultivated and maintained through periodic rotations of teams of village laborers, granting them the right to exploit the remaining quarter of the land as compensation. Despite these shortcomings, it cannot be denied that there is a fairly democratic relationship between NHÀ LANG and the Mường.

Compared to the feudal land system of Vietnam at that time, NHÀ LANG of the Mường has undeniable progressive factors because it defends not only its own rights but also those of the Mường. It must help the Mường villagers in cases of drought, famine, or poor harvests. It must be held accountable if its lang cun behaves in a manner unworthy of its rank. This is the case, for example, if the son of the latter commits a dishonorable act such as violating a village woman or getting into a fight in the street.

One can go as far as to depose the lang cun if he does not properly assume his authority and duties. In this case, the villagers can appeal to NHÀ LANG for his replacement. This also applies when the lang cun has no male heirs. It is also the responsibility of NHÀ LANG to organize the festivities related to the harvests and the feasts associated with the worship of the spirits. However, there are rules that the Mường villagers cannot ignore. They cannot marry a daughter of NHÀ LANG because she can only choose people of her rank and from NHÀ LANG. Similarly, a village woman who is randomly chosen as a wife by the lang cun and has children with him cannot claim to play an important role in NHÀ LANG. Her children cannot become lang cun because this position is reserved only for the eldest male descendants whose mother must be a daughter from NHÀ LANG. The members of NHÀ LANG are respected even if they are young. Regardless of the child’s age, a villager must respectfully address him as « Chàng » or « Nàng » when he is a boy or a girl from NHÀ LANG.

The hierarchy is so respected that it is possible to know the affiliation of the person in question. Moreover, this system allows the Lang Cun to have a monopoly on certain names (Ðinh, Hà, etc.). It was abolished in the 1950s by the Vietnamese government during the organization of agricultural cooperatives. Despite this, the system remains one of the original features of traditional Muong society and is one of the traditions that cannot be ignored when talking about the Muong. To refer to this system, the Muong habitually say: Mường có lang, làng có tạo. (Regions have lang just as villages have tạo (or Đạo in Vietnamese)). The term LANG ĐẠO is used to designate this system.

The Muong are accustomed to choosing lowlands and rugged terrain to build their houses. These are generally built against the slopes of hills and mountains to benefit from pure air and to facilitate movement for hunting and gathering. Each of these houses has a four-sided roof resembling a turtle shell. Their houses stand on very low stilts and are built on three levels. This corresponds well to the Muong conception of the creation of the universe: a celestial and terrestrial world (thiên giới và trần giới), a marine world (thủy quốc), and an underground world (âm phủ). The first level is reserved for food storage. It is, in a way, the granary.

The second level corresponds exactly to the place where family activities take place and where visitors are received. As for the last level located below the floor, it is intended for raising livestock and storing agricultural tools. The construction of their house must meet both material and spiritual requirements. For the Mường, the window of the room (voong tong) where the ancestor altar is located is very sacred. No one has the right to lean on this window or pass objects through it because, according to the Mường, the ancestors are not so separated from the living. They continue to participate with them in the major occasions of their existence. Furthermore, the two staircases of the house each have an odd number of steps. The main staircase, located very close to the entrance room (voong toong), is reserved exclusively for men. As for the women, they are obliged to take the second staircase, which is not far from their inner room (voong khua). The Mường improvise ingenious hydraulic systems (wheels, channels, etc.) to channel and raise water in order to irrigate the extraordinary terraced rice fields on the slopes of the hills. They also practice slash-and-burn agriculture, which provides them with benzoin, sugarcane, cassava, corn, etc.

Compared to other ethnic minorities, Mường costumes are quite unique. Men dress very simply. They wear indigo-colored pants. However, the clothing of Mường women is more complicated.

In general, the traditional costume of women includes: a white or blue turban (mu) made from a square piece of fabric measuring 35 cm x 150 cm, tied at the back of the neck; a camisole (yếm or ạo báng); a short shirt (áo cánh or ạo pắn in the Mường language); a long black skirt (váy or kloốc in the Mường language) reaching the ankle; and a wide belt made of silk or fabric.

The short Mường shirt, which is white, pale green, or pink, has four panels, with the two at the back sewn very well and the two at the front each having a long border running from the neck to the hem of the jacket. Similar to Vietnamese women, Mường women wear short shirts with a fairly round neckline measuring about 2.5 cm or 3 cm and two long sleeves. These shirts are open at the front and often unbuttoned; they are intended to cover the camisole, whose lower hem is neatly tucked behind the wide silk or coarse fabric belt of the skirt (cạp váy), vividly illustrating folkloric charm and seduction. This is the main distinctive feature that draws attention in Mường women’s costumes.

In the constitution of this wide belt, there are three rectangular bands with rich ornaments called respectively « dang trên, » « dang cao, » and « dang dưới, » which are sewn firmly together. The « dang dưới » band stands out from the other two by the richness of the motifs representing hieratic animals (dragons, phoenixes, turtles, etc.) or familiar ones (snakes, cranes, fish, etc.). The tunic (ạo chụng) is preferred over the jacket on festive days. The color of the outfit changes according to the status of the Mường woman. For her wedding, she must wear a long green tunic, while the white color is reserved for her maid of honor (dâu phụ). Funeral clothes (đồ tem) are always made inside out with frayed lower hems.

Among these, there is a mourning bonnet, a skirt without the wide multicolored rectangular belt, a short white shirt, and a belt made of rough fabric. In case of mourning for the in-laws, the Mường bride usually wears a black skirt, a camisole, a short shirt, and a red brocade jacket. The Mường have a saying: Diện như nàng dâu đi quạt (1) (Beautify oneself like the bride at the time of funerals). The outfit remains the same except that the short shirt must be white when the bride’s parents are still alive.

To show their differences from the Vietnamese, the Mường have a very well-known proverb:

Cơm đồ, nhà gác, nứớc vác, lợn thui, ngày lùi, tháng tới.

Steamed or simmered rice, stilt houses, water contained in bamboo tubes carried on the shoulder, spit-roasted pork, day behind and month ahead.

These are the characteristic customs of the Mường that are not found among today’s Vietnamese. The Mường prepare most foods and cakes from rice: glutinous rice (lõ kẳm) (2) and ordinary cooked rice (gạo tẻ). There are several types of cakes: rice cake (bánh chưng) during the Tết festivals, bánh bò or bánh trâu cakes in honor of the buffalo spirit (vía trâu), uôi cake for funerals, bắng cake for weddings, ống cake for engagements, etc.

For the calculation of days and months, the Mường rely on the Ðoi calendar, which is different from that of the Vietnamese. Ðoi is a star that moves faster than the moon. Based on the movement of this star, their Ðoi calendar is 4 months ahead of the Vietnamese lunar calendar.

Similar to the Vietnamese, the Mường have a communal house (đình) reserved for the tutelary spirit (or thành hoàng) in each hamlet or village. They believe in the existence of a large number of malevolent spirits that haunt the forests and that they call ma-khũ (or ma qũi in Vietnamese).These are disembodied souls wandering in the world of the dead and the living and can cause troubles for humans.

For the Mường, there are several souls within a human being that they call wại. These are divided into two categories: wại kang (the splendid souls) and wại thặng (the hard souls). The former are superior and immortal, while the latter, attached to the body, are evil. Death is only the consequence of the escape of these souls. Thanks to the funeral rite (ma chay), the superior souls can reside in the sky. They will need to be accompanied by the help and care of the family during their perilous migration. This is reflected in the affection and attachment that the Mường particularly reserve for the deceased through a set of rules regarding clothing, decoration, and accompaniment of the coffin (a split and hollowed-out wooden trunk). By performing the last rite, the souls will rest in peace; otherwise, the hard souls may become harmful and malevolent by turning into floating and dangerous spirits (Ma). This funeral rite (mo tang) can last several days (at least 12 days) and requires the presence of a sorcerer (or mo in the Mường language).

According to the Mường, the deceased possesses a supernatural force that prevents the living from communicating with them and helping them materially or spiritually. Only the thầy mo (or sorcerer) can do this. It is his responsibility to guide, before the burial, the soul of the deceased through all the administrative procedures with the celestial lord (Chạo Hẹ) to obtain a judgment. This will be delivered in a basket of ashes placed at the entrance of the house’s door, at the spot where the deceased is supposed to return home. There is a trial because during his life, the deceased sacrificed many animals for his consumption.

Depending on the verdict of the judgment revealed through the interpretation of signs or traces by the sorcerer, he may be condemned to reincarnate in the body of one of these sacrificed animals or henceforth lead a peaceful life. The sorcerer holds an important place in the Mường funeral rite. He is the one who accompanies the soul of the deceased to go collect money from the paternal grandfather’s house (ta keo heng), then borrow clothes from the house of Thiên mư, register in the ghost register (sổ ma) to facilitate movement, and finally provide essential everyday objects in the world of ghosts. He is also the one who gives the soul of the deceased the last meal and helps move their belongings into the tomb at night. There are a large number of objects: bowls, dishes, water jars, etc., and bronze drums for a lang cung (or feudal lord). Then it is up to the children of the deceased to organize, at the end of the third day of the funeral, a ceremony celebrating the return of his soul home before being able to begin his worship. This allows the deceased to be present from then on at all major occasions and at all feasts enlivening daily life: weddings, New Year celebrations, house inaugurations, etc. Similar to the Vietnamese, the Mường solemnly celebrate the anniversary of the death of the deceased and they wear mourning. The deceased is now part of the ancestors who have been honored on the family altar up to the fifth generation. Ancestor worship is very important in the spiritual life of the Mường.

Ma Chay
Similar to other ethnic minorities in Vietnam, the Mường are animists. They believe that everything has a soul. That is why their worship includes a large number of spirits, gods, and malevolent or benevolent spirits. Even in each Mường family, there is a benevolent spirit (or the ancestor demon (ma tổ tiên)) believed to protect the family. This is why there is a tradition that the Mường must observe after announcing the death of a loved one. The eldest son of the deceased must strike the door of the deceased’s house three times in a row with a knife to blame the family demon for not intervening in time during the father’s death. Before cutting down large trees in the forest, the Mường present an offering to the tree spirit (Thần cây) along with the axe that will be used for the work. Even when killing game during a hunt, they are obliged to pay homage to the predator spirit by offering the head and a shoulder once the animal is skinned. This is somewhat an honorable fine to the protector of predators, a custom frequently found among other hunting peoples. The Mường customarily venerate rocks, red pumpkins at the time of moving into a new house (lễ tân gia), the cây si tree, family totems, water sources, earth and kitchen spirits, etc.

Among the Mường, the resurrection and reincarnation of the soul are taboo subjects. For them, the soul is multiple, indestructible, and immortal, whether good or bad. In this Mường conception, the birth of a child is surrounded by mystery. They have asked many questions about its identity: child, spirit, malevolent spirit, or ancestral ghost?

Furthermore, for the Mường, the birth of the first child marks the beginning of maturity for young parents. They also rely on their children to have a peaceful retirement later on. The following Mường saying shows how much this support is desired:

Trẻ cậy cha, gìa cậy con
The young rely on their father just as the old rely on their children.

BIRTH

That is why the birth of a child holds an important place in the life of the Mường. To prepare for any eventuality, the Mường take a great number of usual and ritual precautions related to pregnancy and birth. When the mother is pregnant, she must follow certain immutable rules that have existed since time immemorial: protect herself against malevolent spirits with a leaf when passing in front of cemeteries and temples, avoid funerals (a harmful effect for the mother and her future child’s health), and weddings (a possible divorce for the parents),

refrain from walking on the bark of the tree used in the making of coffins (a possible miscarriage), do not flee in front of the snake to prevent the newborn from having an elongated tongue outside of its mouth, avoid eating « twin » fruits (a possible multiple birth), facilitate childbirth by waking up early in the morning and opening all the doors of the house, always maintain serenity and joy, avoid anger, etc.

Similarly, the husband must observe many prohibitions. He is forbidden to carry the coffin, to replace the roof of the house, and to renovate the house. As her childbirth approaches, the pregnant Muong woman has no interest in visiting her parents’ house because if the event occurs, she will be forced to give birth under the floor where the livestock are kept. According to the Muong, the pregnant woman is no longer part of their family (Con gái là con của người ta) but is the daughter of her husband’s family. The child born does not share the same blood as the family (khác máu tanh lỏng). This could later bring misfortune to the people of the house. For a girl who becomes pregnant without a husband, her delivery cannot take place in the house. It must be held in the garden. The punishment is the same for the girl who commits the fault of becoming pregnant before marriage.

In general, childbirth takes place at home. The happy event of the birth is announced by the presence of a distinctive sign always placed on the left (if it is a boy) and on the right (if it is a girl) at the entrance of the house. This sign will be removed at the end of the seventh day for a boy and the ninth day for a girl. Sometimes, the intervention of the sorcerer (thầy mo) is desirable in case it is believed that malevolent spirits are involved and held responsible for these difficulties.

There are many restrictions for the woman but also for the husband during the pregnancy. Even after birth, the child continues to be the cause of the greatest troubles for the parents during the first years of life. According to the Mường, the soul attached to its body is so fickle and wandering that it can escape from the body at any time. That is why the child, before leaving the house, needs to be protected by attaching a silver bracelet (pwok wai) to their wrists or ankles, which serves to prevent the soul from leaving. In case the soul leaves the body, this bracelet would allow it to return and take possession of the child. Moreover, to ensure that nothing happens to the child during the first years, the Mường parents organize a ritual ceremony known as cak wai to place the child under the protection of the protective spirits Mẹ Mụ.

These are, in a way, the celestial nurses of the child’s soul. The Mu have the right to have in each Mường house their altar, which is inaugurated after the first birth.

One cannot overlook the relationship between husband and wife among the Mường because it is one of the prominent traits that allows them to acquire commendable qualities and to establish a society that is peaceful, humanistic, hospitable, and altruistic.

Essentially based on fidelity, love, and happiness, this relationship helps to cement Mường society and enables it to better withstand the changes in customs that Vietnam has experienced since its reunification.

Despite the ease of being able to talk, meet, and get to know each other before marriage, young people cannot overstep the principles and demands that Mường tradition has established since time immemorial. A man must be serious, strong, upright, and kind. These are the qualities required of a man to be able to marry; otherwise, it is difficult for him to find a wife in Mường society. « Học ăn, học nói, học gói, học mở » (Learn to behave, to speak, to face, and to untie life’s difficulties) is the motto that one would like to apply in the search for a future husband for a Mường girl.

A man must know how to build the house, weave straw roofing panels, raise livestock, etc… It is also common to say in a Mường proverb: Một đàn ông không dựng nổi nhà (a man is incapable of building the house) to show how deeply they are attached to this preconceived notion. This requirement is easy to understand because in a harsh environment and in a society that is both supportive and hierarchical, a Mường man must demonstrate his ability and live up to this expectation. As for the Mường woman, she is not well off either. She is expected to possess certain qualities: to have good conduct, speak softly, be courteous, know how to make her own clothes, etc…

MARRIAGE

Haunted by the following proverb « Một đàn bà không cắt nổi gianh » (A woman is incapable of cutting the thatch), the Mường are led to have a clearer judgment about their future daughter-in-law and to discern her qualities and faults with lucidity. The motto « Lấy vợ xem tông, lấy chồng xem họ » (Marry a woman after observing her lineage, choose a husband after knowing his family) is also not foreign to their behavior and observation in marriage. To succeed in this, they need the help of a matchmaker (bà mờ) (1), who is in a way the central pivot in this difficult matter. She is not only the privileged interface between two families but also the responsible and committed witness of the transactions arising from these two families. She must be close to the future bride’s family. She must have talent in communication to convince people. The following Mường proverb: « Thiếu gì nước trong giếng, thiếu gì tiếng trong mồm mà không nói ra cho vừa lòng nhau » (There is so much water in the well, so many sounds in the mouth. Why can’t we find words to please each other?) shows the Mường’s strong attachment to communication.

His respect is unquestionable in the village. His profile meets many of the criteria required by Mường tradition: having an irreproachable life within his couple and family. It is obvious for her to have both a son and a daughter according to a Mường proverb: có nếp, có tẻ (there is sticky rice and ordinary rice). Before starting her approach with the woman’s family, she must consult the Đoi calendar (2) because, according to calculations, there are certainly harmful months and hours in the day (tháng thướm, giờ thướm) that must be avoided at all costs for the marriage. This is also the case for the Vietnamese with the « Ngâu » month, which they must prohibit for this event. She is supposed to know the birth date of each of the spouses to later avoid problems of incompatibility and discord in the couple. In case of divorce or failure, all grievances and reproaches from both sides will fall on her. Moreover, she will receive the blame from the local lord (quan lang).

After obtaining all the necessary information and the green light from the husband’s family, the matchmaker can begin to set the first meeting (Thoỏng thiếng or ướm tiếng) with the family of the future bride. She must inform all her relatives of this happy event and sometimes ask for their advice. During this visit, she usually gives the girl’s family a bottle of wine, which is immediately hung inside the house on the main pillar. If this bottle of wine is served after the meeting, the matchmaker will be sure of the success of her mission. Otherwise, she will leave with the bottle of wine. Known in Mường as « Tì kháo thiếng, » this step is followed at least 3 or 4 times by the back-and-forth (or nòm in Mường) of the matchmaker who does not immediately obtain agreement the first time. It is in the interest of the future bride’s family to show the matchmaker that this is an important matter requiring a period of reflection and consultation with the girl. This allows the relationship between the two families to deepen and become more intimate through the matchmaker.

Thanks to the back-and-forth exchanges (or nòm), it is ensured that the husband and wife possess all the required qualities. It is at the end of the last nòm that the date to celebrate the « nòm cả » (main nòm) will be chosen. Known as « ăn hỏi or tì nòm, » this ceremony is celebrated with great pomp. Among the gifts from the future husband, there are many symbolic items including a pig, 20 tubes of rice liquor (rượu cần), 2 pairs of sugarcane boots, betel leaves, plain sticky rice cakes (bánh chưng) without filling (không nhân), moral beauty, and a tacit agreement on the virginity of the future bride. All offered gifts must be in even numbers. It is during this ceremony that the future husband is introduced to the bride’s family. This introduction is known as mường: ti cháu (lễ ra mắt chú rể). At the end of this ceremony, the bride’s family will discuss the dowry with the future husband’s parents. Known in mường as « thách cưới (challenging the marriage), » it is easily accepted by the latter to show that they can meet this financial demand and to avoid losing face. It is the matchmaker’s responsibility to negotiate the dowry cost, reduce it, or outright refuse the marriage. Sometimes, the future husband is assured by the promise from the bride’s family of receiving a share of the inheritance in case she has no male heirs.

Known for her studies on the Mường, the French ethnologist Jeanne Cuisinier saw in this bargaining an act of purchase for the bride and groom. Nothing fully justifies this interpretation because on the daughter’s family’s side, there is indeed an act of commitment, a moral guarantee for this marriage with the participation of her entire lineage and a sincerity to want to perpetuate the couple’s life through this demanding financial requirement. In case of divorce, the wife’s family must return in full all the dowry received at the time of the marriage. This is an additional constraint that helps to avoid separation and to carefully consider before any irreversible act. It is also one of the factors that help explain the family and social cohesion of the Mường compared to other ethnic groups, particularly the Kinh. Moreover, for the future husband, there is a promise to grant him a share of the inheritance and a custom of adopting him into a family without male heirs. This is not really the meaning of the term « purchase » as found in its definition because the future husband will still receive a dowry in compensation.

According to Mường tradition, the official ceremony takes place three years after the main nòm. This is the period during which the future spouses should get to know each other, exchange conversations, and smooth out differences in order to facilitate their married life later on. This time, the ceremony starts very early in the morning because the matchmaker, accompanied by the groom’s relatives, must bring a large number of objects and animals that meet the requirements set at the time of the main nòm (a buffalo, two pigs, 5 or 6 baskets of sticky rice, a bunch of areca nuts, about a hundred betel leaves, 20 tubes of rice liquor, etc.). The number of people in the entourage must be even. Being received by the bride’s family and participating with others in a feast organized in their honor, the matchmaker will ask the bride’s parents for permission to bring their daughter to her husband’s house at a time deemed appropriate and lucky for the couple. Before leaving, the bride must pray in front of the ancestral altar and then perform lạy (a traditional Vietnamese gesture of respect) before her grandparents and parents. On the way back, she wears a conical hat and always carries a knife in her hand to ward off evil spirits and protect her « soul. » She is forbidden to turn her head backward. It takes time because, in most cases, the villages are very far from each other. That is why it is customary to say in Mường:Làm rể vào buổi trưa, làm dâu vào buổi tối. (One becomes the son-in-law in the morning, the daughter-in-law in the evening).

Once she arrives, she is welcomed by the husband’s sister, who asks her to wash her feet and step over a bundle of wood before climbing the house stairs. She is required to pray immediately in front of the kitchen spirit altar before performing the same gesture in front of the ancestors’ altar and the husband’s parents. Then a ritual ceremony (lễ tơ hồng) takes place in the middle of the house in the presence of the newlyweds. This will be followed by a feast in honor of the new couple. A few days later, the husband will return to the bride’s house for his first visit (lễ ra mặt). In the past, there was a period of challenge (bù mà ruộng) before they could truly begin their married life.

For the Vietnamese, the Mường are not only a minority ethnic group but also a people who preserve an original common culture. This is why it is in the interest of the Vietnamese to conduct ethnographic studies on the Mường, as through them, they have succeeded in better understanding the way of life of their ancestors as well as their archaic and millenary culture. The Vietnamese ethnologist Nguyễn Từ Chi had the opportunity to recall the characteristic traits of the Mường in Vietnamese culture in his book « The Mường Cosmology (Vũ trụ quan Mường). » Without the Mường, it is believed that Vietnamese culture is that of the Chinese, a widely false and erroneous opinion over the centuries. They deserve to always be the cousins of the Vietnamese or rather twin brothers, as they have often said in one of their popular songs:

Ta với mình tuy hai mà một
Mình với ta tuy một thành hai.
Mặc dù tôi và bạn là HAI bản thể, nhưng chúng ta là MỘT.
Là  MỘT, tôi và bạn, chúng ta luôn có thể được coi là HAI.

Though you and I are TWO, we are ONE
Though I and you are ONE, we become TWO
Although you and I are TWO beings, we are but ONE.
Being ONE single being, you and I could always be considered as TWO.

The Mường are more than ever the survivors of the ancient culture of the Vietnamese. They are here to bear witness and to remind the Vietnamese that they, like them, have their own culture that allows them to distinguish themselves from the Chinese and that deserves to be known and preserved for future generations in the face of the rapid evolution of today’s Vietnamese society.

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(1) Quạt: this word is used to refer to funerals (quạt ma).
(2) Glutinous rice is a type of rice whose grain is black.
(3) Sometimes it is a matchmaker (ồng mờ).
(4) Đoi calendar: a unique feature of Mường culture. This calendar consists of twelve bamboo pieces carved with lines to facilitate the indication of phenomena and climatic changes.

Bibliography

Người Mường ở Viet Nam. Editeur : Nhà Xuất Bản Thông Tấn. Hànôi.
Mosaïque culturelle du Vietnam. Nguyễn Văn Huy. Maison d’édition de l’éducation. 1997.
Bàn thêm về chế độ Nhà Lang trong xã hội Mường cổ truyền. Dưong Hà Hiếu.
Đám cưới truyền thống Mường. Phạm Lệ Hoa. Trường sư phạm nghệ thuật trung ương. National University of Art Education.
Rituels de naissance et liens de l’âme chez les Mường du Vietnam. Stéfane Boussat, Marcel Rufo.
À la recherche de l’origine de la langue vietnamienne. Nguyễn Văn Nhàn.  Synergies riverains du Mékong. N° pp 35-44
 

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Part 3

Once the marriage is celebrated, the young spouses live alternately in their parental families for a certain period according to the agreement established between the two families. It is only after the birth of their first child that they begin to build their own house. The Bahnar adopt monogamy. Rape, incest, and adultery are strictly condemned. In the event that adultery is committed by the surviving spouse, regardless of their sex, during the tomb maintenance period, it is said that they « jump over the coffin « ko dang boăng« . The survivor is not immediately released from their obligations towards the deceased. They are required to pay compensation not to the heirs of the deceased but to the deceased themselves, which is settled by a number of animals sacrificed bơthi on their tomb. That is why the surviving spouse has an interest in shortening the maintenance period if they wish to start a new life. Even in death, the harm caused to the deceased by the fault of their spouse is entitled to material compensation by the number of animals sacrificed on their tomb. In Bahnar tradition, everyone is « free » provided they do not harm the person or property of others. In cases where a person has been wronged in their honor or materially in their property, they are entitled to compensation in the form of indemnity or reimbursement of expenses incurred.

The Bahnar do not impose the death penalty. Sending someone to the penal colony corresponds to banishment. The Bahnar know how to practice mutual aid in times of scarcity. In their house, rice alcohol is never drunk, and meat is never eaten without inviting other families. The first ripe rice does not belong solely to the owner of the field but to the entire village.

The freedom to choose a spouse, the division of tasks within a couple, the right to material or moral compensation, and respect for others clearly illustrate the equality between men and women in the ancestral tradition of the Bahnar. There is no essential difference between the legal status of men and women. Among the Bahnar, the democratic mode of operation has existed long before democracy was discovered and practiced in the West. According to the late French ethnologist Georges Condominas, the « savages » do not wait for Minkowski or Einstein to have the notion of space-time.

By using an expression related to space, they indicate a date. They roughly give someone’s age in relation to a significant event. They do not completely destroy the forest because they know how to let it regenerate years after they had consumed it ten or twenty years earlier, like the Mnong of Georges Condominas.

They do not kill game for the pleasure of killing but kill it only to eat and to know how to share it with their compatriots. They keep only a tiny portion of their hunt for themselves. The spreading and use of defoliants by the Americans during the Vietnam War, the slaughter of animals for traditional medicine, the destruction of vegetation and deforestation linked to rapid population growth, the sterilization of the land through excessive use of chemical fertilizers are the prerogative of so-called « civilized » people. Solidarity and mutual aid are not empty words.

The Bahnar are above all « rơngơi » (or free). They are accustomed to saying: « I am rongơi or kodră (master) » to mean that they are free to choose their activities or masters of their destiny. Are they « savages » as has long been thought? It is up to each of us to delve deeper into this question and to use their way of life and culture as a source of inspiration and reflection to enable us to live better and be together in respect of others and nature.

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Part 2

The last stage corresponds to the final day. It is not only the day of the widow or widower’s release but also the day when the pot (xlah go) is emptied and cleaned. A communal meal is held in honor of the guests at the host’s place or in the communal house. This is then followed by a rite in which each guest sprinkles water on the widower or widow as well as on the deceased’s relatives. This ceremony officially marks the definitive severance of the living’s bond with the deceased. From then on, the widower (or widow) is allowed to remarry. The funeral house is now a material shell without a soul. It will naturally decompose over the years. However, it holds great artistic and cultural interest because the palisade of stakes surrounding it features original characteristics with sculptures of animals and birds. Under the small thatched roof, one can see the weapons, clothing, and food offered to the spirit of the dead. Some funeral houses are surrounded by sculptures related to fertility or rebirth: men and women copulating, men and women displaying their exaggerated genitalia, figures in the fetal position, etc.

These crude figurines are not human beings but monkeys because they are as ugly as monkeys in the spirit world where everything is the opposite of the living world. The ridge beam of the funeral house cannot go unnoticed as it is made from a whole tree trunk carved and decorated.
For the Bahnar, the soul of the deceased continues to live as a spirit in the spirit world. Its organization is similar to that of the living world, and its sovereign is both immortal and a female genius named Brôu. The spirit world (or mang lung) is invisible to the living because it is either inside a cave, in a dark forest, or in a very distant sea. The spirits live there grouped in villages. They engage in all human activities. They experience happiness and suffering just like the living and they also die like them. However, they work their lands at night and sleep during the day. Likewise, they use a language completely opposite to that of the living: « ugly » means « beautiful, » « dull » means « sharp, » etc. Mang Lung resembles our world but is entirely reversed. When it is night here, it is day in Mang Lung. The houses there have stilts pointed upwards and the roof pointed downwards.

The lifespan of a spirit is also limited because it ends with death. The spirit then transforms after forty or fifty years into a drop of dew (dak ngop) that dissolves into the earth. This is how a closed life cycle ends: earth-man-spirit-earth. Only the sovereign-genie (Bia Brôu) takes care of overseeing the birth of new creatures by shaping children from the earth and introducing them into the wombs of pregnant women.

For the Bahnar, a life cycle is composed of two existences:

that of the world of the living and that of the world of spirits.

Regarding the hairstyle of the Bahnar, it is becoming more common to see men, influenced by contact with the Kinh and foreigners, cutting their hair shorter and shorter. Normally, the Bahnar man wraps a fabric turban and passes it through his bun. However, a woman does not wear the turban and replaces it with a cord or a beadwork headband. It is an act of declaration of love when a girl unties a young man’s turban in public or when a man offers tobacco or a chew from his pipe to a woman or girl.

The life of the Bahnar is governed by a traditional annual cycle with ten months dedicated to agricultural production and two months devoted to festivals and various village activities: weddings, house repairs or construction, clothing making, etc. In their traditional society, the concept of money holds no significant meaning. Their valuable items such as gongs, jars, buffaloes, elephants, and horses were used as barter objects in the past. Their wealth is measured by the number of gongs, jars, and slaves found in each family. The Bahnar make rice the basis of their food. It is cooked by steaming or braising. Rice and water are placed inside a large bamboo tube which is suspended over the fire. By charring the container, the rice is cooked. They use sticky rice to make a fermented drink (or rice alcohol) (rượu cần in Vietnamese). They consume this liquid using long bamboo straws. They add water when the liquid level drops. It is obvious that the drink becomes less concentrated with this addition.

The Bahnar of both sexes often pierce their earlobes to wear earrings, but they do not stretch them to wear large rings like other ethnic groups in the region. Around the age of fourteen or fifteen, they have their teeth filed down. This custom of filing teeth is declining over the years. However, tattooing is not practiced. For boys, at the age when they begin to help their father in the fields, they are required to sleep at the communal house because it is here that they receive training, weapons handling, and instruction provided by the village elders for learning life skills. They can only return to their parental home to eat or to be cared for in case of illness.

Among the Bahnar, it is observed that the married couple does not adhere to either patrilocality or matrilocality. It is a matter of convenience linked to the couple’s decision. However, there is a division of labor within the couple: the husband takes care of village affairs while the wife handles all the household chores. Among the Bahnar, one is free to choose their husband or wife. Marriage can be celebrated when each of the future spouses meets the following conditions:

1°) They are of an age to cultivate a field (15 to 16 years old). This is a prerequisite condition to feed their family because no one is willing to provide assistance, not even their parents.

2°) It is mandatory for a young girl to enter into her first marriage even if she is over thirty years old. However, she can be married either as a first-rank wife or a second-rank wife. But for a widower, a single man, or a divorced man, it is not possible to contract a second-rank marriage.

3°) There are no kinship ties between the future spouses. This is the case when parental consent is refused when the relationship is proven. In general, the participation of the parents aims to ensure that traditional principles are respected.

[Reading more: Part 3]

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French version
Vietnamese version

First part

The Bahnar are part of the Mon-Khmer group of the Austro-Asiatic ethnolinguistic family. They live clustered in the northern part of the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Kontum, Gia Lai, Bình Định, etc.), away from the people of the plains who, at one time, still treated them as savages (or Mọi in Vietnamese). This is due to a lack of understanding of their culture, which leads to maintaining this deplorable attitude and grotesque vision. Even French explorers did not stop referring to them as Mọi in their exploration accounts during the colonial period.

Only ethnologists like the late Georges Condominas succeeded in recognizing them as people respectful of nature and the environment, people deeply connected in harmony with the environment where they live and where all beings (plants and animals), mountains and waters, have a soul like them. The Bahnar live in mountainous regions at various altitudes. They grow rice in dry fields or on swidden fields (slash-and-burn). These often require the relocation of plantations and villages because the ashes from the clearing do not allow the soil to remain fertile beyond two or three years due to the rain washing them away during its passage. The harvests are abundant in the first year after the burning.

The second year begins to be less good. Under poor conditions, it is impossible to keep the field beyond two years. That is why the Bahnar tend to use dry fields, which are often arranged along the edges of waterways. The hoe is the main tool used in their agriculture, but since the beginning of the 20th century, the use of the plow in flooded rice fields has become increasingly common.

Their religious beliefs and myths are similar to those of other ethnic groups encountered in Vietnam. Animists, the Bahnar worship plants such as banyan trees and ficus. The kapok tree is considered the guardian and serves as the sacrificial pole in the celebration of rites and ceremonies. Every river, every water source, every mountain, or every forest has its own spirit (or iang). The Bahnar divide the spirits into two categories: higher-ranking spirits and lower-ranking spirits. The former are gods who created the world and watch over human activities. Among these gods are Bok Kơi Dơi (Male Principle of Nature), Iă Kon Keh (Female Principle of Nature), Bok Glaih (God of thunder and lightning), Iang Xơri (Spirit of rice), Iang Dak (Spirit of waters), etc. As for the second category, most of the spirits are spirits of animals, trees, or objects, including Bok Kla (Mr. Tiger), Roih (Elephant), Kit drok (Toad), Iang Long (Tree spirit), Iang Xatok (Jar spirit), etc.

Faced with these religious beliefs and superstitions, Catholic missionaries struggled at the beginning of their mission to convert the Bahnar to Christianity. They were even forced to falsify their myths to corroborate the Bible. The Christian Bahnar were so attached to their animist beliefs that they gradually managed to assimilate Christianity over the years.

For the Bahnar, death is not the end of a life but the beginning of another in the afterlife. The soul, which the Bahnar call pơngơl, transforms into a ghost (or atâu in Bahnar) and joins the ancestors in the spirit world (dêh atâu). The Bahnar believe that a human being consists of a body (akao) and the soul pơngơl. Life is only possible thanks to the soul and not the body. But the soul is invisible to humans. Only the shaman can see it in the form of a spider, a cricket, or a grasshopper. Each human has three souls: one important main soul (pơngơl xok ueh) which must be attached to the top of the head, and two complementary souls (pơngơl kơpal kol and pơngơl hadang), one located on the forehead and the other in the body. If the main soul, which constitutes the essential breath for the person, leaves the body for an unknown reason and does not return, the person will become ill and die. The complementary souls are there to temporarily replace the main soul. It is the main soul that metamorphoses into a ghost in the other world. This spirit (or ghost) needs food, clothing, and even a house to protect itself from rain and sun. This is the animist belief that the deceased continues to have the same needs in the afterlife. It is also for this reason that during the burial of the deceased, the family builds a hut on the grave: it is the ghost’s house (h’nam atâu).

For the Bahnar, the ghost continues to live in this hut and to roam around the cemetery area. It regularly receives a monthly offering of pork and chicken from its family. This period of tomb maintenance can last several months or even years. It is linked to the financial situation of the deceased’s family. It ends with a ritual ceremony (or tomb abandonment ceremony) whose purpose is to allow the ghost to definitively join the spirit world (dêh atâu) and to break the deceased’s connection with the living. This spirit thus becomes a « grandfather or grandmother spirit » (atâu bok ja). Unlike the Vietnamese, Nùng, Mường, etc., the Bahnar do not practice ancestor worship.

This ritual ceremony takes place once a year and generally begins at the end of the rainy season. The period chosen is when there is a full moon. This ceremony is somewhat like a secondary burial. It is prepared with care and joy. It is scheduled on an auspicious day by all the heads of the bereaved families in consultation with the village elders and usually lasts three days and three nights. There are three essential stages in this ceremony: rites of construction, abandonment, and liberation. Each stage corresponds to an entire day.

In the first stage, the hut covering the tomb is removed and replaced by a funeral house built with construction materials (bamboo, wood, imperata grass) collected over several weeks. The first day of construction is called « dong boxàt » by the Bahnar. The construction work is always accompanied by dance and music in an indescribable jubilation.

In the second stage, the ritual ceremony always begins in the evening. This is the stage of abandoning the tomb. For the Bahnar, it is nar tuk (or day of abandonment). An offering of alcohol and meat is made to the deceased in the funeral house. Then it is the head of the family who begins a prayer and officiates while the relatives can enter the funeral house and lament for the last time the sudden departure of the deceased. Once the rite is finished, the family of the deceased must circle the funeral house seven times counterclockwise. They are accompanied during this round by men carrying on their shoulders a miniature house (or ghost house) and articulated wooden figurines of various sizes operated by a system of strings attempting to simulate all human activities: rice pounding, weaving, etc.

Not even a couple of figurines in copulation is absent. The Bahnar claim that the animation of these figurines in front of the ghost’s house is intended only to provide entertainment, but some ethnologists believe that there is certainly another meaning compared to the customs of other ethnic groups in the region (those of the Batak from North Sumatra). The procession is accompanied by the women’s dance to the rhythm of gongs struck by men dressed in beautiful clothes and each wearing a feather in their hair. Being the climax of the ceremony, this procession is meant to accompany the ghost into the spirit world.

[READING MORE :PART 2]

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The Mnong: Part 2

version vietnamienne

version française

When one decides to go abroad (i.e., to neighboring villages), one needs to be accompanied by a matchmaker preferably recruited from the kuang of the village. A kuang is actually a powerful and reputed man whose status is not measured by accumulated wealth but by the number of buffalo sacrifices he has organized and carried out. Thanks to the grand expenses he has undertaken in buffalo sacrifices for his relatives, his jôok guests, and his village, he has simultaneously acquired enormous prestige. This has allowed him to gradually expand his network of relationships, to have influence in village deliberations, and to become a rpuh kuang (or a male buffalo) in terms of sexual power.

Even the horns of his « buffalo soul (or hêeng rpuh) » raised by the spirits have lengthened according to the number of sacrifices accomplished. His coffin weighs all the heavier as these horns have reached an imposing size. A great kuang is one who dares to practice the strategy of indebtedness. The more he hoards to spend on buffalo sacrifices and purchases, the more his prestige increases. He always has some debt trailing behind him.

He does not wait to reimburse the full amount of his purchases to make others because this earns him admiration and renown. A Mnong villager becomes a kuang with the first buffalo sacrifice. He thus becomes the « indispensable » man on whom people rely to ensure not only road safety but also success in commercial transactions when traveling outside the village. It is with him that the itinerary will be planned. He is the one who will introduce, thanks to his network of connections, the local jôok of the recipient village who knows all the inhabitants and who knows among them who is interested in the objects involved in the transaction while providing guarantees of solvency.

That is why the call to the deities is not confined to a particular place but is scattered everywhere, whether in the village, in the woods, in the mountains, or in the waters. No corner is spared. It will either be collectively invoked or honored with a special cult in particular circumstances. This is the case of the rice spirit to whom a small altar is dedicated in the middle of the field. During the sowing season, the Mnong will come to place their offerings. The collective harvest cannot begin without a special rite known as « Muat Baa » or (tying of the paddy). Since the paddy has a soul, care must be taken not to anger it or make it flee by observing many precautions: avoiding whistling, crying, singing in the fields, quarreling there, eating cucumbers, pumpkins, eggs, slippery creatures, etc. A chicken will be sacrificed near the miniature hut of the rice soul perched on a bamboo, itself surrounded by bamboos bearing offering nests. To the rain spirit, the Mnong will offer eggs on a tiny platform. To calm the anger of the forest plant spirits before clearing a plot, great ritual care and prayers are performed. A long bamboo stake with a curved tip, from which a caught fish has been hung, is planted in the consecrated spot in the area to be burned for clearing.

Similar to the Bahnar, the Mnong are animists. They believe that everything has a soul, even in ritual utensils (beer jars, for example). The universe is inhabited by spirits (or yaang).

At the moment the fire begins to blaze, two « sacred men » (croo weer) implore the protection of the spirits while a third anoints the fish stake and calls the spirits. There are even deities believed to be the guardians of the individual’s soul. This soul consists of a material body and several souls (or heêng). These take multiple forms: a buffalo soul raised to a level of the heavens by the spirits, a spider soul in the individual’s head, a quartz soul located just behind the forehead. There is even the hawk soul (kuulêel) symbolized by a string made of red and white cotton strands stretched above the deceased’s body between two bamboos to distinguish the kuulêel from the ordinary hawk. This hawk soul takes flight at the death of the human being. Harm suffered by one of these souls affects the others. The spirits can make someone ill by attaching their buffalo soul to their celestial sacrifice pole. Turning to the shaman is essential because only he can establish dialogue with the spirits during the healing session (mhö). He attempts to bargain the price the spirits demand to free the patient’s buffalo soul; otherwise, the patient dies and one of their other souls joins the first level of the underworld. The soul disappears completely when it reaches the seventh underground level after the seventh death.

The afterlife is conceived as underground. The healing rite has no festive aspect. This involves little expense apart from the sacrificed buffalo and the fee paid (equivalent to the number of baskets of paddy) to the shaman, who also receives a thigh of the sacrificed animal. Among the Mnong, the notion of the immortality of the soul does not exist. However, the notion of reincarnation is part of the Mnong tradition. It can happen that the ancestor kept on the first underground level reincarnates in one of his descendants.

The men of the forest

Musée d’ethnologie du Vietnam (Hanoi)

In Mnong tradition, the buffalo is a sacred animal. The Mnong use the buffalo as a currency of valuation. It is also within the Mnong belief system that the buffalo is the equivalent of man, one of whose souls is the buffalo soul (hêeng rput), raised to the sky by the spirits at birth and having a predominant role over the other souls of the individual. Before being buried, the deceased is placed in a coffin roughly shaped like a buffalo. The Mnong do not hold funerals and abandon the tomb after one year of burial. Generally, the funeral house is built on a mound and is decorated with wooden carved figurines or various patterns painted in black, red, or white. The power of an individual is measured by the number of sacrificed sacred buffalo skulls stacked and supported by poles.

According to the Mnong myth, the buffalo replaced man in the sacrifice. That is why this sacrifice is seen as the ultimate culmination of all rites, distinguished by the ritual splendor animated by processions of gongs, drum plays, calls to the spirits, songs, etc., and accompanied by beer libations, making it a major and exceptional event in village life.

No one can escape this event. The village becomes a sacred area where people must have fun collectively, drink well, eat well, and avoid arguing because it could anger the spirits. The Mnong are divided into several sub-groups (Mnông Gar, Mnông Chil, Mnông Nông, Mnông Preh, Mnông Kuênh, Mnông Prâng, Mnông Rlam, Mnông Bu đâng, Mnông Bu Nor, Mnông Din Bri, Mnông Ðíp, Mnông Biat, Mnông Bu Ðêh, Mnông Si Tô, Mnông Káh, Mnông Phê Dâm). Each subgroup has a different dialect, but generally, the Mnong from these different groups manage to communicate with each other without any apparent difficulty.

Wearing a long indigo cotton loincloth whose fringed end of copper and red wool falls to mid-thigh like a small apron (suu troany tiek)(3), the Mnong often present themselves as proud men with long limbs and bare, muscular, tanned torsos despite the hardships of a precarious life. This belt-apron is used to carry all kinds of objects: the knife, the tobacco pouch, the dagger, and individual talismans (or spirit stones). They wear either a short or long jacket or a blanket as a coat during the cold season. On their heads, they wear a black or white turban or a bun in which a pocket knife with a curved handle is often stuck. They are accustomed to carrying an axe to fell tree trunks

The Mnong women with bare breasts wear a short skirt (suu rnoôk) wrapped around the lower abdomen. The Mnongs love adornments. They wear pectorals around their necks, iron necklaces or glass bead necklaces, or dog teeth from an exorcist rite that grant them protective properties.

Ivory coils threaded through the pierced lobes of their ears strike their jaws. Women particularly like glass bead necklaces. Their earlobes are often stretched by large white wooden discs. In most Mnong groups, the abrasion of the front teeth (of the upper jaw) is still found. Both men and women smoke tobacco and consume a lot of rice beer. This is not only an indispensable element in all celebrations and ritual ceremonies but also a drink of hospitality. In honor of their guest, a jar of rice beer is uncorked a few moments before being offered. Its consumption is done collectively using one or several bamboo straws planted in the jar. The number of measures is imposed on the drinker by the tradition of each ethnicity (2 among the Mnongs Gar, 1 among the Edê). To maintain the level of the jar, water must be poured into it, which gradually dilutes the alcohol in the rice beer and transforms it into a harmless drink.

Similar to the Bahnar, the Mnong (or the People of the Forest) are proud to be free people. This was observed by the famous ethnologist G. Condominas among the Mnong Gar. In the village of Sar Luk, where he spent a year in complete immersion with the Mong Gar, there was no village chief but a group of three or four sacred men who serve as ritual guides, especially in agricultural matters. The loss of their freedom can be the catastrophe that the Mnong fear. There are always two particularities in them that differentiate them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam: their spirit of selflessness and solidarity, and their absence of selfish enrichment.

Despite the hardships of their precarious life, the impoverished Mnong still know the concept of sharing that we, so-called civilized people, have long forgotten.

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Dân tộc M’nông: Part 1

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Version vietnamienne
In memory of the ethnologist Georges Condominas.

Condo, you are the last M’nông ethnic person. When you leave forever, our culture will also disappear. This is what the current village chief of Sar Luk said to Georges Condominas when he met him again during his return to the village in 2006. This shows the extent to which the M’nông people agree, seeing him not only as a member of their community but also as the last representative tirelessly protecting their culture and making the world aware of their way of life, which most people were once afraid of at a certain time. Are they really the « wild » people, the swidden farmers, the forest burners that we have continued to think of in the past? From here, they were given the new name « ethnic minority, » and they are one of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. These people are the subject of two specialized books by ethnologist Georges Condominas, « We Eat the Forest » and « The Strange is the Everyday. » Are they worthy of his attention and study when we know that at the age of 27, he paid with his health, trying to immerse himself in their environment, to gradually assimilate and learn their mother tongue to understand them better and describe them in his wonderful works with a clear and fluent writing style that earned him the reputation of being the Proust of ethnology?

Georges Condominas admitted that for the ancient Indochinese people, he had the essential need to learn how to be human. For him, ethnology is unusual in that it is both a way of life and a scientific discipline. According to Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Ngọc, known for his cultural studies, a researcher, regardless of their scientific field, can have two distinct ways of life: one dedicated to scientific research and another reserved for their private life. It is not necessary to link one with the other. This is not the case for an ethnologist like Georges Condominas. He had only one way of life corresponding to both his private life and his scientific field. Ethnology is a form of life in which he was completely assimilated where he lived and also the science to which he devoted his entire life.

Who are these M’nông ethnic people? They were very numerous at the beginning of the 20th century with an estimated population of about 1,200,000 (1), but they were massacred during the Indochina wars by a coercive policy that ethnologist Georges Condominas called « genocide. » According to statistics conducted in 1999, their population was about 120,000 people, with 20,000 in Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province, near the Vietnamese border in the provinces of Đắk Lak and Đắk Nông. The M’nông people live on both banks of the mighty Serepok River (or Daak Kroong in the M’nông language), which flows down from the Central Highlands of Vietnam towards the Mekong River. The M’nông belong to the Mon-Khmer group of the South Asian ethnological family. They often clear bushes by burning or « eat the forest » in their own way. They select a piece of land in the forest, then they clear and burn it before sowing rice through holes in the burnt plot, fertilized by the ashes. But this method does not allow them to harvest more than two years of rice. This is why they are forced to continuously change the location of their fields (miir) every two years to allow the forest to regenerate. They can reuse it only ten or twenty years later. Because of this cultivation method, they are compelled to frequently move their villages. It is precisely in this genuine territorial expansion that there are long houses, each usually housing many households.

Sometimes this movement caused by the epidemic leads to deaths in the village. The choice and rebuilding of a new village at another location (or rngool) often requires ritual ceremonies in which a large number of buffaloes must be sacrificed. In the case of an epidemic, the number of deaths corresponds to the number of buffaloes that must be sacrificed. However, the length of stay at the same location does not exceed seven consecutive years, the maximum period between two major Earth God worship festivals.

The place where they prefer to plant trees is the site of their old village. Here, we find not only food plants (millet, sesame, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava, etc.) but also non-food plants (tobacco, cotton, turmeric, etc.). Besides cultivation, gathering continues to hold an important position among the M’nông people. The forest provides them with wild medicinal plants, poisonous plants, edible fruits (bamboo shoots, rattan hearts, cinnamon, etc.), and building materials. The M’nông do not rely on the lunar calendar for land exploitation but remember each exploitation phase with very special vocabulary:

ntôih: clearing the land until burning.

miir: sowing the field until harvesting.

mpôh: miir abandoned in the first year.

mpôh laak: miir abandoned in the second year.

According to ethnologist G. Condominas, the M’nông people did not wait for Minkowski or Einstein to have a concept of space and time. By using a word related to space, they indicated time. This is what we see in their land cultivation with the vocabulary they use. They roughly estimate someone’s age in relation to a significant event.

Their village is a very small social space. The village chief (or rnut) is responsible for managing the village affairs. The size of the village usually has about one hundred people. When crossing the boundary of the village, a resident may become a stranger, an enemy, or a guest whom they commonly refer to as « nec. » Their houses, with thatched roofs low enough to often hide wooden walls, are long rectangular huts (mnong gar) or small ones (mnong rlam). These houses on clay floors belong to the Mnong Gar people, while the Mnong Rlam live in stilt houses. The main center of society is the family. The social organization is matrilineal and exogamous. Children are named after the mother’s clan. Property is passed down from mother to daughter. The husband comes to live with the wife’s parents. Traces of the custom of remarriage with the husband’s brothers or the wife’s sisters can still be seen. On the other hand, violating the exogamy rule is considered the most serious crime and there are also social sanctions. A young man needs to thoroughly learn about the girl’s clan before proceeding to marriage. Exogamy strengthens kinship ties and creates a network of alliances that allows the small social space of the village to breathe easier. This facilitates hospitality when someone leaves the village on trading trips.

villages participate. The concern for equality in trade is evident in the ceremony: the number of cattle sacrificed in one person’s village must equal the number that the other will give back when returning to their own village. Similarly, the gifts received must have equivalent value and be similar to the gifts that he will give back to the other. Even at the feast, the portions of pork provided by the host for the sacrifice must be the same size as the portions provided by his « partner host » during the first exchange ceremony held to honor him in the neighboring village. To reach this stage of relationship, the jooks must use a matchmaker.

In the concept of exchange, the M’nông people always need a matchmaker, whether the exchange is between men or between humans and deities. In this case, the matchmaker is none other than the shaman (or njau mhö). Sometimes a regular healer (njau) is needed for a minor illness.

For the M’nông, the word « exchange (or tam) » is widely used in their daily language. The word « tam » is always followed by another word to specify the type of exchange.

tam töor: exchange of love, being in love.

tam löh: exchange of strikes in combat.

tam boo, tam sae: exchange of spouses, marriage alliance, marriage.

tam boôh: exchange of fire sparks, an important sacrificial ceremony of the alliance.

tam toong: exchange of songs, and so on…

Exchange plays an important role in the daily life of the Mnong ethnic people. We observe that exchange occurs not only at the level of goods but also at the level of labor in the form of mutual support in construction work as well as in agricultural work (clearing, harvesting, etc.). There is always concern for equitable exchange. Each team must spend an equal amount of time working on the fields of each member of the group. If labor exchange is simplified to the same number of hours that each team must provide, it becomes more complicated when it comes to goods because the Mnong do not have a single standard like the euro or the dollar.

In evaluating the exchanged items, they have to use valuable standards commonly used in their society: small neckless jars (yang dam), old jars, suu sreny skirts, pigs, buffaloes, gongs, and so on. These are also means of exchange and payment for the goods obtained. People value the exchanged items based on an agreed price so that all the items received in the exchange also have equivalent value to this price. Sometimes, with an agreed value, we might end up with two medium-sized buffaloes, or one buffalo and an old jar, or even a large blanket and twelve small neckless jars, and so forth. This is very similar to the system we use to price goods with large banknotes or coins. Used as a standard of value and a means of payment, these goods are real currency that ethnologist G. Condominas designated under the name « multiple currencies. » Nevertheless, these assets continue to be used as they were originally intended before considering money. The jars are usually used to hold rice wine and are made and drunk during ceremonies, while gongs are musical instruments used for special occasions. Similarly, skirts, blankets, and metal pots are among the everyday items commonly used in daily life. Although exchanges take many forms, there is still a very clear distinction in the Mnong vocabulary between the concepts of buying (ruat) and selling (tec).

Once the exchange is concluded, there is a brokerage fee that the buyer (croo ruat) must pay to the intermediary. The seller (croo tec) does not give anything to the matchmaker (ndraany); sometimes they receive a modest gift from the seller simply out of kindness and gratitude. There are two jars involved in the brokerage fee: one jar is to pay the matchmaker, and the other, less valuable jar, is for safety during the road journey through a ritual. In the case of selling a set of gongs, the first jar (yang mei) will be large, and the second jar small without a neck. Additionally, the buyer must give a gift to the carrier (or companion) who transports the purchased goods home. There is also a ritual respected for signing the contract. This is demonstrated by sacrificing an animal that is consumed on the spot and immediately opening two jars of rice wine, one jar used to offset the items accounted for in the payment (through a game involving broken branches) and the remaining jar intended to prevent insult. The intermediary is responsible for the contract by receiving a copper bracelet wrapped around the wrist, which is a sign of a firm commitment. The intermediary acts as the broker, guarantor of the buyer, spokesperson for the seller, and witness to the transaction.

In a M’nong company, there are no written documents at all; the role of the intermediary is very important because, thanks to his words and commitment, it ensures the transparency of the contract just signed. All the additional costs mentioned above (two jars, an animal consumed on the spot, a gift for the carrier and the broker ndraany) are not included in the overall assessment of the value of the acquired property. In case of a dispute, each party has an ndraany who acts as a lawyer. In such a lawsuit, the ndraany of both sides need to talk to each other, discuss again, and clarify their words about justice. There is a specific case in which there is an absolute equivalent exchange (caan). The sacrifice of a buffalo is necessary in the dialogue between the shaman and the deity willing to give up the sick victim. Unfortunately, the patient’s family does not have money immediately to promptly honor this sacrifice. They have to buy a buffalo in the caan manner from a local person or from another village and return an animal of the same size within one or two years without any compensation. In this case, the exchange is considered a trade without profit.

[ The Mnông: Part  2] 

(1): Source Encyclopédie Universalis.
(2): a rather ugly neologism used by G. Condominas to designate the Mnongs instead of the pejorative word “Mọi (or Savage)”.

The post The Mnong (Dân tộc M’nông): Part 1 appeared first on Quêhươngtôi.

Đi tìm nguồn gốc dân tộc Việt

Version française

English version

Việc phát hiện ra di chỉ Hemudu (Chiết Giang) vào năm 1973 là một sự kiện trọng đại đối với các nhà khảo cổ học Trung Quốc vì di chỉ này, có niên đại hơn 5.000 năm, là bằng chứng cho nền văn minh lúa nước lâu đời nhất được tìm thấy cho đến nay trên thế giới. Người ta cũng tìm thấy tàn tích của một ngôi nhà sàn bằng gỗ ven hồ, một kiểu kiến ​​trúc rất khác so với nhà đất ở miền Bắc Trung Quốc. Dân số sống ở đó mang đặc điểm của cả người Mông Cổ và người Australo-Negroid. Vì Chiết Giang từ lâu đã là một trong những tỉnh đẹp nhất của miền Nam Trung Quốc, nên nền văn minh nổi tiếng này thường được cho là của người Trung Quốc, mặc dù người ta biết rằng cái nôi của nền văn minh này gắn liền với lưu vực sông Hoàng Hà, mà An Dương là trung tâm cổ xưa.

Ta không thể phủ nhận rằng nền văn minh của họ đã tìm thấy tinh hoa trong nền văn hóa thời kỳ đồ đá mới của Dương Thiệu (tỉnh Hà Nam) (5000 năm TCN) và Long Sơn (tỉnh Sơn Đông) (2500 năm TCN), lần lượt được nhà khảo cổ học người Thụy Điển Johan G. Andersson phát hiện vào năm 1921 và cha đẻ của ngành khảo cổ học Trung Quốc Li Ji phát hiện vài năm sau đó. Nhờ công trình phân tích phát sinh chủng loại của nhóm nghiên cứu Mỹ do Giáo sư J.Y. Chu thuộc Đại học Texas dẫn đầu, được công bố vào tháng 7 năm 1998 trên Tạp chí của Viện Hàn lâm Khoa học Hoa Kỳ, được tập hợp dưới tiêu đề « Mối quan hệ di truyền của dân số ở Trung Quốc » (1), chúng ta đã bắt đầu có được một ý niệm chính xác về nguồn gốc của người Trung Quốc. 

Hai điểm quan trọng đã được ghi nhận trong việc nghiên cứu này:

 1) Rõ ràng là bằng chứng di truyền không thể trợ lực sự độc lập ban đầu của người Homo sapiens ở Trung Quốc. Tổ tiên của các quần thể hiện đang sống ở miền đông Trung Quốc đến từ Đông Nam Á.

2) Giờ đây, có lẽ có thể sự kết luận một cách rõ ràng rằng người « hiện đại » gốc Phi chiếm một phần lớn trong vốn gen thường thấy ở Đông Á.

 Trong phần kết luận của mình, Giáo sư J.Y. Chu thừa nhận rằng rất có thể tổ tiên của những người nói tiếng Altaic (hay Hán) có nguồn gốc từ những người dân Đông Nam Á và những người đến từ Trung Á và Châu Âu. 

Sự  khám phá này không còn  nghi vấn câu hỏi về những gì đã được Giáo sư Nhân chủng học Wilhelm G. Solheim II của Đại học Hawaii đề xuất vài năm trước đó trong cuốn sách có tựa đề  « A New Light in a Forgotten Past ». (2) Đối với nhà nhân chủng học này, không còn nghi ngờ gì nữa rằng nền văn hóa Hòa Bình (15.000 năm trước Công nguyên) được nhà khảo cổ học người Pháp Madeleine Colani phát hiện vào năm 1922 tại một ngôi làng gần tỉnh Hòa Bình của Việt Nam chính là cơ sở cho sự ra đời và tiến hóa trong tương lai của các nền văn hóa thời kỳ đồ đá mới là Ngưỡng Thiều và Long Sơn được tìm thấy ở miền bắc Trung Quốc. Nhà vật lý người Anh Stephen Oppenheimer đã vượt ra ngoài những gì người ta từng nghĩ khi chứng minh theo cách tiếp cận khoa học và logic của ông rằng cái nôi của nền văn minh nhân loại nằm ở Đông Nam Á trong tác phẩm có tựa đề Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia (Địa đàng ở phương Đông: Lục địa chìm đắm của Đông Nam Á). 

 Ông kết luận rằng dựa trên bằng chứng địa chất tìm thấy ở đáy Biển Đông và các phương pháp xác định niên đại bằng C-14 trên thực phẩm (khoai lang, khoai môn, gạo, ngũ cốc vân vân..) được tìm thấy ở Đông Nam Á (Non Nok Tha, Sa Kai (Thái Lan), Phùng Nguyên, Đồng Ðậu (Việt Nam), Nam Dương), một trận lụt lớn đã xảy ra và buộc người dân ở khu vực này, trái ngược với những gì các nhà khảo cổ học phương Tây mô tả là những người sống bằng nghề đánh cá, săn bắn và hái lượm, là những người đầu tiên biết cách làm chủ hoàn toàn trong việc trồng lúa và nông nghiệp, phải di cư theo mọi hướng (hoặc về phía Nam ở Châu Đại Dương, hoặc về phía Đông ở Thái Bình Dương, hoặc về phía Tây ở Ấn Độ hoặc về phía Bắc ở Trung Quốc) để sinh tồn. Những người này đã trở thành những hạt giống của các nền văn minh vĩ đại và rực rỡ sau này được tìm thấy ở Ấn Độ, Lưỡng Hà, Ai Cập và Địa Trung Hải. 

Từ  sự quan sát khảo cổ học và khoa học này, chúng ta được dẫn dắt để đặt câu hỏi về mọi thứ đã được lịch sử báo cáo và làm sai lệch ở khu vực này của thế giới và cho đến nay những gì  được  dẫn dạy cho người Việt Nam. Chúng ta có thể bỏ qua những khám phá khoa học này lâu hơn nữa hay không? Chúng ta có thể tiếp tục tin vào các quyển sách của Trung Quốc (ví dụ như Hậu Hán Thư) trong đó các  nhà thái thú Tích Quang và Nhâm Diên của Trung Quốc được cho là các người đã dạy cho tổ tiên của người Việt cách ăn mặc và cách sử dụng cày, điều mà họ không hề  biết  đến vào thế kỷ đầu tiên của thời đại chúng ta? Làm thế nào mà các hậu duệ  chính đáng của vua Thần Nông (3) lại không biết trồng lúa, khi chúng ta biết rằng ngài là một chuyên gia trong lĩnh vực nông nghiệp? Không ai dám chỉ ra việc mâu thuẫn này.

Shennong (Thần Nông)

 Chúng ta thậm chí còn không tự hỏi tại sao người phương Bắc lại đặt cho vị anh hùng thần thánh này  với biệt danh Viêm Đế (vua xứ nóng của Bạch Việt). Phải chăng đây là cách họ gọi vua phương Nam, bởi vì vào thời nà Châu, lãnh thổ của người Việt được gọi là Viêm Bang? Phải chăng người du mục phương Bắc có nguồn gốc Thổ-Mông, tổ tiên của người Hán, và người phương Nam, người Việt, có cùng tổ tiên? Đây có phải là một sự bịa đặt thuần túy được xây dựng để tôn vinh những kẻ chinh phục và nhằm mục đích hợp thức hóa chính sách đồng hóa của họ? Mọi dấu vết của các dân tộc khác, tức « người man di », đều bị xóa bỏ trong cuộc hành trình của họ. Cuộc chinh phạt lục địa Trung Hoa bắt đầu từ ranh giới của những vùng đất hoàng thổ và  đại đồng bằng, và được kéo dài có  gần bốn thiên niên kỷ.

Đây là điều mà học giả người Pháp René Grousset đã ghi nhận trong tác phẩm « Lịch sử Trung Quốc » khi nói về sự bành trướng của một chủng tộc tiên phong Trung Hoa thô bạo từ đại  đồng bằng. Trước nền văn minh rực rỡ của họ, rất ít người, kể cả người châu Âu khi đặt chân đến châu Á, dám đặt câu hỏi về những gì đã được ghi chép trong sử sách Trung Hoa và Việt Nam, và nghĩ về sự tồn tại của một nền văn minh khác mà những kẻ thống trị đã thành công trong việc độc chiếm và xóa sổ trên lãnh thổ bị chinh phục của người Bách Việt. Cái tên Đông Dương phần lớn đã phản ánh thái độ này, bởi vì đối với nhiều người, châu Á chỉ có hai nền văn minh đáng được nhắc đến: Ấn Độ và Trung Quốc. Thật đáng tiếc khi phải ghi nhận  việc sai lầm tương tự của một số sử gia Việt Nam, những người thấm nhuần văn hóa Trung Hoa, trong các tác phẩm lịch sử của họ. Do bị nhồi sọ bởi chính sách thực dân của người phương Bắc, một bộ phận người Việt Nam vẫn tiếp tục quên đi nguồn gốc của mình và ngày nay nghĩ rằng mình là hậu duệ của người Trung Quốc. Những người  nầy, họ không ngần ngại thực hiện chính sách đồng hóa và sáp nhập các vùng lãnh thổ mà họ đã chinh phục được kể từ khi họ  lập quốc. Sự thành công của sự  Hán hóa đã được thể hiện rõ qua nhiều thế kỷ trong quá trình họ tiếp xúc với các dân tộc « man di » khác. Quá trình này chắc hẳn cũng không khác gì quá trình đánh dấu sự xâm chiếm của họ vào « vùng đất cỏ Mông Cổ » ở thế kỷ 19 và vào rừng Mãn Châu ở thế kỷ 20. 

Chúng ta không phủ nhận nền văn minh rực rỡ của họ đã có tác động không thể phủ nhận đến sự phát triển của văn hóa Việt Nam trong thời gian dài họ đô hộ, nhưng chúng ta không thể quên thừa nhận rằng tổ tiên của người Việt, người Lạc Việt  đã có nền văn hóa riêng của họ, đó là  nền văn hóa Bách Việt. Họ là những người sống sót duy nhất của đại  tộc này không bị Hán hóa trong sự hỗn loạn của lịch sử. Họ là những người thừa kế chính đáng của người Bạch Việt và nền văn minh nông nghiệp của họ. Trống đồng Đồng Sơn đã chứng minh tính hợp pháp của họ bởi vì trên những đồ vật này, người ta tìm thấy các họa tiết trang trí mô phỏng các hoạt động nông nghiệp và hàng hải của họ trong thời kỳ rực rỡ này trước khi người Trung Quốc đặt chân đến lãnh thổ của họ (Giao Chỉ trong tiếng Việt). 

Ngày nay, người ta biết rằng nền văn minh nông nghiệp của Hà Mỗ Độ đã khai sinh ra nền văn hóa Bách Việt. Thuật ngữ Bách Việt, theo nghĩa đen có nghĩa là trăm  tộc Việt, được người Trung Quốc sử dụng để  ám chỉ tất cả các bộ lạc thuộc về một nhóm người Việt. Theo nhà văn xuất sắc  Bình Nguyên Lộc, công cụ thường được người Việt sử dụng là chiếc rìu được tìm thấy dưới nhiều hình dạng khác nhau và được làm bằng nhiều vật liệu khác nhau (đá, sắt hoặc đồng). Chính vì lý do này mà vào thời điểm tiếp xúc với những người du mục ở phía Bắc có nguồn gốc Thổ-Mông, tổ tiên của người Hán (hay người Trung Quốc), họ được người Trung Quốc gọi dưới cái tên « Yue », những người quen sử dụng rìu. Vào thời điểm đó, nó có hình thức  như  sau

 
và thể  hiện mô hình trong chữ viết Trung Quốc. Mô hình này tiếp tục xuất hiện đầy đủ trong từ Yue, mà bộ gốc mễ (米) hoặc gạo trong tiếng Việt cũng được thêm vào để chỉ những người trồng lúa vào thời Khổng Tử. Ngày nay, trong từ Yue 越, ngoài bộ gốc « Tẩu (走) trong tiếng Việt là vượt, chiếc rìu tiếp tục được biểu thị bằng tượng hình 戉, đã liên tục sửa đổi qua nhiều năm. Từ Yue có lẽ bắt nguồn từ âm vị Yit mà người Mường dùng để chỉ chiếc rìu.Điều quan trọng cần nhớ là bộ tộc Mường có cùng nguồn gốc với bộ tộc Lạc Việt, tổ tiên của người Việt. (Các vị vua Việt Nam lừng lẫy là Lê Đại Hành, Lê Lợi  đều là người Mường). Gần đây, nhà khảo cổ học và nhà nghiên cứu của CNRS, Corinne Debaine-Francfort đã nói về việc người Trung Quốc sử dụng rìu nghi lễ của người Việt trong nghi lễ hiến tế người hoặc động vật, trong tác phẩm của bà có tựa đề « Sự khám phá lại Trung Quốc cổ đại » (NXB Gallimard, 1998). Nhà hiền triết Khổng Tử đã có cơ hội nói về người Bách Việt trong các cuộc nói chuyện với các học trò của mình như sau:

Người Bạch Việt sống ở phía nam sông Dương Tử có lối sống, ngôn ngữ, truyền thống, phong tục và ẩm thực riêng… Họ chuyên trồng lúa nước, khác với chúng ta, những người quen trồng kê và lúa mì. Họ uống nước từ một loại cây hái trong rừng gọi là « trà ». Họ thích nhảy múa, vừa làm việc vừa hát và xen kẽ các câu hát. Họ thường hóa trang thành lá cây trong điệu múa. Cần tránh bắt chước họ. (Xướng ca vô loại).

Ảnh hưởng của Nho giáo không phải không liên quan đến các thành kiến ​​mà các bậc cha mẹ Việt Nam vẫn duy trì  đến ngày nay khi con cái họ quá sa ngã vào các hoạt động âm nhạc hoặc sân khấu. Chính tinh thần Nho giáo này đã khiến họ bị nhìn một cách tiêu cực. Nhưng đó cũng chính là thái độ mà các quan lại Trung Quốc đã áp dụng khi cấm người Việt Nam biểu diễn âm nhạc trong các nghi lễ và lễ hội trong suốt thời kỳ đô hộ lâu dài của họ.

Sử gia Trung Quốc Tư Mã Thiên  đã có dịp nói về những người Việt này trong Sử Ký Tư Mã Thiên khi ông kể lại cuộc đời của vị vua lừng lẫy Câu Tiễn, một vị vua  nước Việt có lòng kiên nhẫn vô bờ bến của ngài trước kẻ thù là Phù Sai, vua nước Ngô trong thời kỳ Xuân Thu. Sau khi ngài mất, vương quốc của ngài đã bị nước Sở sáp nhập hoàn toàn vào năm 332 TCN, sau đó bị Tần Thủy Hoàng sáp nhập trong thời kỳ thống nhất Trung Hoa. Điều quan trọng cần lưu ý là địa điểm của Hemudu nằm ở vương quốc Việt của vua Câu Tiễn (Chiết Giang). 

Trong số các nhóm có chung nền văn hóa Bách Việt là có Yang Yue, Nan Yue (Nam Việt), Lu Yue, Xi Ou (Tây Âu), Ou Yue, Luo Yue (Lạc Việt), Gan Yue, Min Yue (Mân Việt), Yi Yue, Yue Shang, vân vân. Họ sống ở phía nam lưu vực sông Dương Tử, từ Chiết Giang  đến Giao Chỉ (miền bắc Việt Nam ngày nay). Khu vực phân bố này bao gồm các tỉnh miền Nam Trung Quốc ngày nay: Phúc Kiến, Hồ Nam, Quý Châu, Quảng Đông, Giang Tây, Quảng Tây  và Vân Nam.

Người Bách Việt có lẽ họ là hậu duệ của nền văn hóa Hòa Bình. Họ là những người nông dân khéo léo: họ canh tác lúa bằng phương pháp đốt nương rẫy, làm ruộng ngập nước và chăn nuôi trâu và lợn. Họ cũng sống bằng nghề săn bắn và đánh cá. Họ có tục xăm mình để bảo vệ bản thân khỏi sự tấn công của con thuồng luồng. Dựa trên Sử ký Tư Mã Thiên, học giả người Pháp Léonard Aurousseau đã đề cập đến tục lệ của tổ tiên của Câu Tiễn  là vẽ lên mình hình rồng hoặc các loài thủy thú khác giống như loài thường thấy ở những người Việt ở phía nam.

Họ búi tóc dài và được trợ lực bằng khăn xếp. Theo một số văn bản tiếng Việt, họ cắt tóc ngắn để thuận tiện cho việc đi lại trong rừng núi. Trang phục của họ được làm từ sợi thực vật. Nhà cửa của họ được xây cao để tránh thú dữ tấn công. Họ sử dụng trống đồng làm vật tế lễ trong các nghi lễ cầu mưa hoặc làm biểu tượng quyền lực, được sử dụng trong những lúc cần thiết để triệu tập chiến binh ra trận. Người Giao Chỉ sở hữu một nhạc cụ thiêng liêng: trống đồng. Nghe tiếng trống, họ rất hăng hái trong lúc ra trận », đây là những gì được tìm thấy trong tập đầu tiên của bộ sách « Hậu Hán Thư ». Các chiến binh của họ mặc khố giản dị và mang theo những cây giáo dài có gắn lông chim. Họ cũng là những nhà hàng hải táo bạo, trên những chiếc thuyền dài của mình, vượt qua cả Biển Đông và đi xa hơn một phần các vùng biển phía Nam. Mặc dù có trình độ kỹ thuật cao và thành thạo hoàn hảo trong nông nghiệp và trồng lúa, họ là một dân tộc rất ôn hòa. (Tiếp tục phần 2)

(1) Volume 95, issue 20, 1763-1768, 29 July , 1998
(2) National Geographic, Vol 139, no 3
(3) Kinh Dương Vương, étant le père de l’ancêtre des Vietnamiens, Lạc Long Quân et l’arrière petit-fils du roi Shen Nong.

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dans les années 50

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Once, while I was visiting South Vietnam, I had the opportunity to listen to the bus guide tell us about it. According to him, during our people’s march to the South, the eldest son must stay with his mother to support the family while his father, who is in the army, goes to the South alone. Far from his family and his homeland, he usually takes a second wife and has another child. This child will be called « sister Hai » or « brother Hai » because this corresponds to the rank « TWO » in the family consisting of several children. There is another hypothesis as follows:

During the Nguyen Dynasty, there was a tradition of refraining from any action that referred to the first name of the king or his relatives. This is why the word ĐẢM was replaced by the word ĐỞM because ĐẢM was the first name of Nguyễn Phúc Đảm (King Minh Mang) (can đảm meaning courage was transformed into can đỏm). King Minh Mang had a wife named Hồ Thị Hoa, mother of King Thiệu Trị. Viceroy Le Van Duyet built a bridge near a beautiful garden in Bến Nghé (the first district of today’s Ho Chi Minh City). It was originally called « flower bridge » (cầu HOA), which later became « cầu BÔNG. » It is said that the word « Cả » is not used because it refers to the eldest son of King Gia Long (Prince Cảnh). This is absurd because « Hương Cả » is the title given to the first person in the village in South Vietnam, often heard by the population and still used in the French colonial era. This is absurd because no one ever pays attention to the rank or title given.

It should be remembered that the Vietnamese are part of the Austro-Asiatic group. In addition to the Vietnamese, there are many other ethnic groups that are now called ethnic minorities such as the Tai-Kadai, the Austronesians, the Mường, the Hmong, the Cham etc.). Consequently, there is always the reciprocal borrowing of words in the vocabulary used by these ethnic groups. In South Vietnam, formerly it was the territory of the kingdom of Funan whose inhabitants were not the Khmer but the Austronesians like the Cham and the Mạ in the Đồng Nai region despite the annexation of this kingdom later by Chenla which later became the Angkorian empire of the Khmer. As their territory was too vast, the Khmer were unable to assume their presence everywhere. This is why the Funanese only became Khmer in places where contact was possible thanks to the assimilation policy. On the other hand, in other places the Funanese continued to live as before.

Being given the undeniable proximity of the Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian groups, proven for thousands of years by documents from genetic research work as recently as twenty years ago, the borrowing of the word HAK from the Funanese belonging to the Austronesian group in South Vietnam by the Vietnamese is very normal to designate children.

According to Vietnamese writer Bình Nguyên Lộc, the eldest son is always called « Son Hak » by the Funanese. So « sister Hai » or « brother Hai » used by the Vietnamese in South Vietnam obviously come from the Funanese. This is why in South Vietnam when you meet a Vietnamese with wavy hair, you can deduce that he is of Funanese origin like the Mạ in the Dong Nai region. A pure Vietnamese never has wavy hair but on the other hand has straight hair because he is part of the Southern Mongoloid group.

[Return TRADITIONS]

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Traces of Vietnam’s matriarchal system.

Version française
There is a time when our people, like other peoples of the world, adopt the matriarchal system. Do we have the opportunity to think about this for ourselves? Certainly not, because at birth, we all took our father’s name, except in France where we are now allowed to add our mother’s name to our name. In the Vietnamese language, we often use words that still bear traces of the matriarchal system, which we never think about, especially since our country has adopted the patriarchal system for so long. We often say wife/husband (VỢ CHỒNG) but never husband/wife (CHỒNG VỢ). We are used to referring to the family line with the term « BÀ CON » where the word BÀ (madam) always precedes the word CON (or child). Sometimes there is contempt in the words when using the following term « gái nạ dòng or divorced woman » where the word nạ refers to the mother’s lineage. According to the writer Binh Nguyên Lộc, this is meant to imply a polyandrous girl. This implicitly means a bad girl.

Today, our country still has a matriarchal system in many places, such as in the Vietnamese highlands with the Cham, Jarai, Ede, Raglai and Churu ethnic groups belonging to the Austronesian language family, or the M’nong and K’ho of the Austro-Asiatic language family. Some claim that our country has adopted the patriarchal system since the annexation of Jiaozhi (Giao Chỉ) by China. This is certainly not true. When did our country abandon the matriarchal system in favor of the patriarchal one? To explore this question further, archaeologists often rely on the way the dead are buried in the tombs of sites linked to the flooded rice civilization. It was certainly not at this time that the Hùng kings of the Văn Lang kingdom ruled with the Phùng Nguyên culture, as succession to the throne clearly operates through patriarchy in the legend, notably the major power always accruing to the eldest member of the family in the social organization of the time.

We also know that the ancestors of the Vietnamese people came directly from the region of the Blue River (Yangtze), based on today’s genetic research data. We need to go back in time and analyze the places where flooded rice was grown in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, because according to Japanese researcher Shin’ichi Nakamura of Kanazawa University, the cradle of rice cultivation must have been there, but given the current state of knowledge, it’s difficult to pinpoint it very precisely on a map.

However, there is the social evolution in the regions of the lower Yangtze River (Hemudu and Liangzhu archaeological sites) during the Neolithic period:

from a diversified economy to an exclusively rice-growing economy

– from agricultural to urban settlement

– from a collective cemetery to a cemetery for individual groups.

Why the Hemudu site? According to French archaeologist Corinne Debaine-Francfort, the oldest Neolithic site in the Hemudu region (Zheijiang) not only yielded the remains of a wooden lake dwelling on stilts, quite different from the mud houses of northern China, but also grains of rice cultivated in flooded fields using hoes made from animal shoulder blades in 1973. It can be said that rice was domesticated at this site dating from around 4770 to 5000 BC. The people living here had both Mongoloid and Australo-Negroid features. When people died, they were buried with their heads facing east or northeast, and most had no offerings. Nor did they have a clearly defined communal cemetery.

On the other hand, they had a common clan cemetery with numerous grave goods. We can see that a matriarchal system was still in place here, as we find the remains of animals such as monkeys, rhinoceroses, deer, elephants, tigers, tortoises etc. This shows that the local inhabitants were still living off hunting and fish.

The role of man is not considered important, as it is not yet necessary to have a social organization requiring many human resources for production, such as tool-making, storing rice in granaries, casting bronze, etc., as well as the distribution of arduous tasks to obtain the desired result during the harvest season. Man seems to have little power and is not allowed to own or inherit land.ing at the time.

On the other hand, in the Neolithic sites of the Liangzhu culture, there is a clear shift in the balance of power between husband and wife. For example, among the funerary objects in individual tombs, agricultural tools such as polished stone shovels are intended for men, while weaving wheels remain the main objects for women. This proves that, at the time, men were the main laborers in the rice fields and women were only responsible for household chores.

In addition, stonecutters were forced to change their trade and became jade cutters. This led to an important period of industrial development and division of labor in society, and fostered the emergence of class distinctions between rich and poor, as well as between aristocracy and religion. Since then, there has also been a contribution to division within the family unit. It was also at this point that monogamy began to appear.  The wife followed her husband to live with his family. The children were also able to live with their parents and family, and took the father’s surname when they were born.  Upon death, husband and wife could be buried together with members of their patriarchal family.

In short, we can say that the Vietnamese followed the patriarchal system very early on, when our ancestors were still living in the Yangtze basin. Consequently, when they returned to the Red River delta, they continued to preserve patriarchy under the Hồng Bàng dynasty with the Phùng Nguyên culture.

Bibliographie:

Annick Levy-Ward : Les centres de diffusion du riz cultivé. De l’Asie du Sud-Est à la Chine. Études rurales, n°151-152, 1999
Shin’ichi Nakamura: LE RIZ, LE JADE ET LA VILLE. Évolution des sociétés néolithiques du Yangzi. Éditions de l’EHESS 2005/5 60e année, pp 1009-1034
Corinne Debaine-Francfort : La redécouverte de la Chine ancienne.  Editions Gallimard  1998.
Bình Nguyên Lộc: Lột trần Việt ngữ. Talawas

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