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| Dao people in Ban Ca sing Pao Dung while working in the fields. |
Ban Ca is 100% Dao Tien ethnic group. Dao Tien people in Ban Ca still maintain singing Pao Dung folk song on traditional festivals, New Year, Cap Sac ceremony, weddings, or when young men and women from other places come to visit.
To understand more about the origin of this folk song, we met Mr. Ban Van Cung, who holds a lot of knowledge about Dao ethnic culture and is a prestigious person of Ban Ca.
Taking out from the box dozens of Nom Dao books, Mr. Cung flipped through each page of the book containing Pao Dung songs and said that, for the Tien Dao people, singing Pao Dung is an indispensable part of daily life.
There are 3 types of Pao Dung, including: Ceremonial Pao Dung (songs used in coming-of-age ceremonies, weddings, Ban Vuong worship ceremonies, funerals, and full-month worship ceremonies); Daily life Pao Dung (lullabies, songs for fun, love songs, and male-female dialogue songs); Labor and production Pao Dung (songs praising labor, natural beauty, or experiences about weather and seasons).
When it comes to preserving the Pao Dung tune in Ban Ca, we cannot fail to mention Ban Van Duy, a young man who is very active in preserving this folk tune in the locality. Duy said that in the past, the ancient Pao Dung tunes were recorded in Nom Dao script. However, the people who knew Nom Dao script were mainly shamans, while these shamans were mostly only interested in songs serving religious rituals.
Therefore, the risk of losing and fading away the ancient Pao Dung songs is very high. Mr. Duy, as well as many people in Ban Ca, have spent many years devoting their hearts and minds to the task of preserving and promoting the heritage left by the Dao ancestors.
Implementing Project 6 on "Preserving and promoting the fine traditional cultural values of ethnic minorities associated with tourism development" under the National Target Program on socio-economic development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas, the Cultural Center of Bac Kan province (old) supported Ban Ca to build the Pao Dung singing club of the village.
At first, the whole village had about 20 members of the Pao Dung singing club. Through preservation and teaching activities of the local government and relevant agencies, the number of Pao Dung singers in the village has increased, and fortunately, many young people have actively participated in learning.
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| A singing lesson of Dao Tien children in Ban Ca, Nghia Ta commune. |
As Vice President of the Pao Dung Ban Ca Singing Club, since the club was founded, Ms. Ban Thi Dung has been the main instructor in the club members' lessons. She said that to make it easier for the younger generation to learn to sing, she transcribed the syllables of the Nom Dao script into Vietnamese. From there, the children in the village can learn the lyrics quickly. She was happy to see that the children and grandchildren in the village have a sense of learning and absorbing very quickly.
Ban Thi Tuong Vy, a young person from Ban Ca who participated in the club’s singing class, shared that singing Pao Dung is a very difficult folk song to sing, especially the long melody, which makes it easy to run out of breath. However, she still tries her best to learn so that the folk song of her ancestors will not be lost.
In an era where many young people are chasing after modern values, Mr. Ban Van Duy, Ms. Ban Thi Dung and many young people in Ban Ca choose to preserve and spread the traditional cultural values of the Dao Tien people. Thanks to that, the Pao Dung singing of the people in Ban Ca still resounds in daily life, in festivals like a forever flowing source.
Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/van-hoa/202508/ban-ca-vang-dieu-pao-dung-ecd193f/
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