http://www.vietnam-culture.com/thai-tay-thay-ethnic-group.aspx

 

Proper name: Tay or Thay
Other name: Tay Thanh, Man Thanh, Tay Muoi, Tay Muong, Hang Tong, Tay Do and Tho

Population: 1,040,549 people

Local groups: Black Thai (or Tay Dan) and White Thai (Tay Don or Khao)

Language: Thai language belongs to the Tay-Thai group (of the Tai-Kadai language family)

History: The Thai originated from inland Southeast Asia where their ancestors have lived ancient times.

Production activities: Early in their history, the Thai adopted wet rice cultivation, using suitable irrational networks. The work can be summarized in the Thai saying “muong-phat-lai-lin” (which means digging of canals, consolidating of banks, guiding water through obstacles, and fixing water gutters) in the fields. While the Thai once grew only one sticky rice crop a year, nowadays they have converted to two crops of ordinary rice. They also cultivate swidden fields, where they grow rice, corn, and subsidiary crops, especially cotton, indigo and mulberry for cloth weaving.

Diet: Today, ordinary rice has become the main food of the Thai, while sticky rice is still being eaten traditionally. Sticky rice is steeped in water, put in a steaming pot and put on a fire and cooked. A meal can not go without ground chili mixed with salt and accompanied by mini, coriander, leaves and onion. Boiled chicken liver, fish gut, and smoked fish called cheo could be well be added to the meal. Ruminate meat should be accompanied by sauce taken from the internal organs (nam pia). Raw fish should be either cooked into salad (nom) or meat-in-sauce (nhung), or sauced. Cooked food processing ranges from roasting, steaming and drying to condensing, frying, and boiling. The Thai enjoy foods with more hot, salty, acrid and buttery tastes, in contrast to those that have sweet, rich and strong tastes. They smoke with bamboo pipes, lighted by dried bamboo pieces. Before smoking, the Thai maintain their custom of hospitality by inviting others to join in, much as they would do before a meal.

Clothing: Thai women are beautifully adorned in short and colorful blouses, accented down the front with lines of silver buttons in the shapes of butterflies, spiders and cicadas. Their blouses fit beautifully with their tube-shaped black skirts. The bell is a green colored silk band. They wear a key chain round their waists. On festivals occasions, Thai women can wear extra black dress, with an underarm seam or like a pullover which has an open collar, thus revealing the silver buttons inside. The black dresses are nipped at the waist; include large shoulders and decorative pieces of cloth that are attached to the underarms or to the front of the shoulders in a manner similar to the White Thai. Black Thai women wear the famous pieu shawl with colorful embroidery. Thai men wear shorts with a belt; a shirt with an open collar and two pockets on either side. White Thai men have an additional upper pocket on the left and their collar is fastened with a cloth band. The popular color of all clothes is black, pale red, stripped or white colored.

On festivals people wears long black dresses, with split underarm seams and an internal white blouse. A head turban is worn as a headdress, around the carrier’s forehead; at times, pack horses are used. Along large rivers, the Thai are famous for transporting goods and people using swallow-tailed boats.

Social organization: The original social structure is called ban muong, also known as thephia tao regime. The Thai lineage is called Dam. Each person has three key lineal relationships: Ai Noong (every born from a common fourth-generation ancestor); Lung Tay (every male member of the wife’s family throughout generations); and Nhinh Xao(every male member of the son-in-laws)

Marriage: In the past, the Thai respected the selling and buying of marriage and the son-in-law’s staying with the girl’s family. To marry a husband, the girl’s family needs to take two basic steps:
Up marriage (dong khun) – means the introduction and bringing of the son-in-law to live with the girl’s family, which is a step to test his personality and hard work. The Black Thai women generally adopt the custom of wearing their hair in as bun or chignon immediately after this first wedding ceremony. The son-in-law will stay at his wife’s home for 8 to 12 years.
Down marriage (dong long) – the bringing of the couple and their family.

Birth: Women give birth in the seated position. The placenta is put into a bamboo cylinder and hung on a branch in the forest. The mother is warmed by fire, fed rice using a bamboo tube, and must abstain from certain foods for a month. The bamboo tubes are hung on a tree branch. There are rituals to educate the child in gender-specific work and a Lung Tay is invited to the house to name the baby.

Funerals: Basically, there are two steps in a funeral:
– Pong: the bringing of offerings o the deceased and bringing the deceased to the forest for burial (White Thai)
– Xong: Calling the spirit to come back and live in the section of the house reserved for the worshipping of ancestors.
New House: Showing the host his new house, the Lung Ta kindles a new fire. In celebrating a new house, people carry out spiritual rites on the spot, reading spiritual texts to drive away bad lucks and to bring good lucks, and to worship ancestors.

Festivals:  The Black Thai worship their ancestors on the 7th and 8th month of the Lunar Year. The White Thai also celebrate the New Year according to the lunar calendar. Villagers also worship the gods of land, mountain, water and the soul of the central post of the village.

Calendar: The Thai calendar follows the ancient horoscope or cosmology (which contains 12 key animals) like the lunar calendar. But the Black Thai’s calendar has a time difference of six months.

Education: The Thai have their own Sanskirt-style writing system. Their language is taught orally. The Thai have many ancient written works on their history, traditions, customary laws, and literature.

Artistic activities: The Thai perform their xoe dance and play many kinds of flutes. They sing out verses and vivid alternate songs.

Entertainment: Thai popular games include con throwing, tug-of-war, horse racing, boat cruising, archery, xoe dance, spinning top, and mak le balls. There are many other games for kids.

 

http://www.vietnam-culture.com/tay-ethnic-group.aspx

 

Proper name: Tho
Population: 1,190,342 people

Local groups: Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, and PaDi.
Language: Tay language belongs to the Tay-Thai language group (Tai-Kadai language family)

History: The Tay have been present in Vietnam for millennia, perhaps as early as 500BC.

Production activities: The Tay are farmers who have a long tradition or wet rice cultivation. They have a long history of intensive cultivation and irrigation methods like digging canals, laying water pipes, etc. They also maintain the custom of harvesting the rice and thrashing the grains out on wooden racks, which they call loong, while still in the fields, then carrying the threshed rice home in baskets. In addition to cultivating wet fields,the Tay also plant rice on terraced fields along with the other crops and fruit trees. Cattle and poultry raising are well-developed, but a free range style of animal husbandry is still popular. Household crafts are worthy of note. The most famous Tay craft is weaving brocaded designs of beautiful and original patterns which are highly prized. The market is also an important economic activity.

Diet: In the past, in several places, the Tay ate mainly sticky rice, and almost every family used stew and steam pots for cooking. On festival occasions, they make many kinds of cakes, such as square rice cakes (banh chung), round rice cake (banh day), black rice sesame cake (banh gai), lime-water dumpling, fried rice cake, marble dumplings made of rice white rice flour with rock sugar fillings, patty make of mashed rice, etc. There are special cakes made from flour with an ant egg filling, and com, a young rice confection made from smoked sticky rice, roasted, and pounced.

Clothing: Tay traditional dress is made from homegrown cotton that is indigo dyed. There is usually not much embroidery or other decorations. Women wear skirts or trousers, with short shirts inside and long one worn on the outside. The Ngan group wears shorter shirts, the Phen group wears brown shirts, the Thu Lao group wears conical-shaped scarves on their heads, the Pa Di group wears hats that look like house roofs, and the Tho group tend to dress like the Thai in Mai Chau (Hoa Binh province).

Lifestyle: The Tay have settled in valleys in the Northeastern part of the country: Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, Lang Son, Cao Bang, Bac Can, Thai Nguyen, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai. Their villages are characteristically large and crowded, and there are villages with hundreds of houses.
The Tay traditional house is built on stilts with a frame of rafters and 4, 5, 6, or 7 rows of columns. A house has from 2 to 4 roofs made from tiles, straw, or palm leaves. Wood or bamboo is used to make the walls.
Transportation:  The Tay use shoulder poles and baskets to carry small, tidy bundles, or carry them over the shoulder in cloth bags. Larger bulkier items are carried by buffalo or with the help of other people. Rafts and floats may also be used to transport items by water.
Social organization: The Tay’s Quang regime is a form of social organization which resembles a feudal system that is aristocratic and hereditary. Within its rule region, the Quang owns all lands, forests, rivers, etc. Hence, it has the right to control everyone who lives on that land and to exploit these people through forced labor, imposing duties on commodities, and enforcing the payment of tributes and offerings. The Quang regime appeared very early and persisted until the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century.

Marriage: Young Tay men and women are free to love and to date each other. However, the decision to become husband and wife depends on their parents and whether their fates match each other’s suitably. That’s why in the marriage proceedings, the groom’s family asks for the bride’s fortune to be read and then brings it home to compare it to the fortune of their son. After the wedding, the wife stays with her parents until she is pregnant. It is only before giving birth that the wife goes to her husband’s family to live.

Birth: While pregnant, and after giving birth, the mother and even the father have to avoid many different things in order for both mother and child to be healthy, for the child to grow up quickly, strongly, and to avoid evil spirits.

Three days after an infant is born, purification is performed while establishing the altar to honor the midwife. One month after the birth, there is a celebration and naming party for the infant.

Funerals: Tay funerals are lavishly and elaborately organized with many rituals in order to fulfill filial duty and to bring the spirit of the deceased to the world of the afterlife. Three years after burial, there is a ritual to end the mourning period and to bring the spirit to the ancestral altar. There is an annual day for worshiping.

New House: When building a new house, the owner has to choose a new house, the owner has to choose the land and the direction for the house, examine the age of the man who will head up the construction of the house, and select a good day for building. On the day they move to a new house, the head of a family must start a fire and keep it burning all night.

Beliefs: The Tay mainly worship ancestors. They also worship the House God, Kitchen God, and the Midwife.

Festivals: there are many festivals and holidays which bear different meanings in a year. The Lunar New Year that starts a new year and the mid0July festivals are the most lavishly organized. A spirit-calling festival for cows and water buffaloes happens on the 6th of June (according to the lunar calendar). Ceremonies held after seeding and for the new rice festival held before harvest are characteristic among farmers who practice wet rice cultivation.

Calendar: The Tay follow the lunar calendar.

Education: The Tay’s alphabet is pictographic, similar to the Viet’s alphabet at the beginning of the 20th century. It is used to write poems, stories, songs, prayers, etc. The Tay-Nung alphabet builds on the Latin alphabet and was invented in 1960. it remained in use until the mid 1980s and was used in elementary schools where there Tay and Nung people lived.

Artistic activities: The Tay have many folk song melodies such as luon, phong slu, phuoi pac, puoi ruoi, ven eng…Luon  includes different tunes of luon coi, luon sluong, luon the, luon nang oi, which are alternating verses popular in many regions. The Tay sing luon atlong tong festivals, weddings, new house parties, or when there are guests in the village. Besides, festival dancing, in some local groups, there are also puppet performances using unique wooden puppets.

Entertainment: On the occasions of long tong festival, people in many places play con throwing, badminton, tug-of-war, dragon dancing, chess, etc. Children play spinning top and other games such as khang and chat or o an quan.

 

Wooden Stilt Houses

Vietnam Heritage, September-October 2011 — Nghia Do Commune, Bao Yen District, Lao Cai Province, in the mountainous northwest of Vietnam, has over 900 families of the Tay ethnic group, living in 700 traditional houses on stilts. The Tay (rhymes with ‘bay’) are unlike other ethnic minorities in Vietnam in not being nomadic. They are farmers. Tay stilt houses have four styles, lều (literally ‘tent’, in Vietnamese), the most basic structure, quan ma, a variation of lều with four compartments and posts deeply sunk for protection from wild animals, cai tư, a variation on quan ma that usually has five compartments and pillars secured with big stones; and con thong, the most popular style today. A con thong and a cai tư (all terms are given in Vietnamese) are basically alike, but con thong has a veranda along the front. Tiger fangs, wild-boar teeth and deer horns are hung there. The ladder to get into a stilt house is made of wood and often has nine steps, one for each of the souls of a Tay woman. A host must go down to the foot of the ladder and protectively wait while his guests ascend. The houses usually have three fireplaces; one in the main compartment, where guests are received and a fire is kept for the other kitchens and for heat, one next to the beds of the older inhabitants, to keep them warm in winter, and one for cooking, usually in a different compartment. Mr Ma Thanh Soi, a Tay traditional craftsman in Nghia Do Commune, said that according to legend long ago when the Tay had migrated to Nghia Do they had stood on the peak of Tham Khau mountain and seen only treetops. They had used this vantage point to find places to live. It had become a tradition that trees used in the building were placed with their top ends towards the main door. Other ethnic groups had come later and learned the Tay method but placed the bottom ends of trees towards the door, in order to distinguish themselves from the Tay.

Text and photo by Phung Nam Trung

 

In The Sight Of The Forest God http://www.vietnamheritage.com.vn/pages/en/71211536340-In-the-sight-of-the-forest-god.html

Shaman Giang Lo Pang, 70, of the Thu Lao people’s La Ho village, Ta Gia Khau Commune, Muong Khuong District, Lao Cai Province, supplicates the forest god. The cloth is offered for good luck, longevity and health. Theofferings include chicken, pork, rice and liquorPhoto: Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Vietnam Heritage, March 2011 — The Thu Lao, a branch of the Tay ethnic minority in Muong Khuong District of the northwestern province Lào Cai, believe the forest is the protector and soul of every living thing. Thu Lao always live near old forests. They hold worship rituals every year to pray to the god of the forest for good health for the villagers and their animals, good harvests and protection against bad luck. An annual forest-worshipping ritual is one of the Thu Lao’s biggest events of the year. The village elects a host, typically the village patriarch. Usually, each household contributes one bowl of rice, one bottle of liquor and VND10,000 ($0.50) so the host can buy things such as pigs, chickens and vegetables as offerings. On the morning of the second day of the second lunar month (6 March this year), everyone gathers to get firewood ready, slaughter pigs and chickens and cook. The host is the one who ritually slits the animals’ throats. The Thu Lao believe the animals are offered to the god of the forest in the process. The offerings include a whole boiled pig, five boiled chickens, five bowls of rice and five pairs of chopsticks. The host and his assistant wear traditional clothes of the Thu Lao, burn three incense sticks and pour liquor into five cups on the altar. The host kneels in front of the altar and says prayers. The host stands, takes the liquor from the altar and gives it to the assistant to scatter from a bowl around the altar while the host holds a pair of chopsticks and points to every offering on the altar. He says the name of each offering he points to; only then, it is believed, will the god of the forest accept the offerings. Then, the host and his assistant wait for about an hour for the god to enjoy the offerings on the altar. The host then states the rules and regulations on what to do to protect the forest. For instance, villagers are not allowed to cut down trees or let their cattle go free in it. The host asks people to take the offerings off the altar and everybody eats and drinks. The offerings are included in the feast. Afterward, the host asks everyone to clear and clean the area; but the altar is left until it is time to make a new one for the same day next year. * The author worked for the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism of Lào Cai Province from 2002 and 2009, specializing in ethnic-minority culture

By Pham Cong Hoan*