The Dao Tien ethnic group in Son La has a long-standing and unique culture expressed through rituals, traditional costumes, language and writing... In particular, the art of decorative patterns on the costumes of the Dao Tien ethnic group has recently been included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, bringing pride and a great motivation to encourage the people to continue to preserve and promote the good values of their ethnic culture.
The Dao ethnic group in Vietnam is divided into many branches and local groups, with the same language system and basic differences in costumes. The Dao Tien is the only group that wears skirts, with indigo as the main color. In Son La, the Dao Tien ethnic group accounts for about 1.7% of the province's population, living mainly in some villages in Moc Chau, Van Ho and Phu Yen districts. Although the Dao Tien costume is not as colorful as the Red Dao costume, it has impressive highlights with elaborate pattern-making techniques, containing many meanings about the traditional concepts and beliefs of the ethnic group.
Learning embroidery with her mothers and sisters since she was a 7-8 year old girl, now, Mrs. Ban Thi Tuoi, Chieng Di village, Van Ho commune, Van Ho district, is old and has poor eyesight but still diligently embroiders and draws patterns with beeswax. Talking about the costumes of the Dao Tien ethnic group, Mrs. Tuoi explained: In the concept of the Dao ethnic group, costumes must be dyed with natural indigo to have value and be recognized when performing the ethnic religious rituals. Both skirts and shirts use indigo as the main color for embroidering and drawing traditional patterns. The patterns on the skirts must follow a common pattern. As for scarves and shirts, in addition to the sample patterns, each person can create according to their own ideas, as long as they maintain the traditional beauty. Only skillful, diligent and meticulous women can make beautiful patterns with beautiful colors.
A complete set of men's clothing includes: Shirt, head scarf, pants and is mainly indigo with some simple white embroidered patterns on the shirt. Women's clothing is always more elaborate with shirts, skirts, headscarves, leggings, belts and some silver jewelry. Each part of the costume must go through elaborate and time-consuming manufacturing stages. The scarf and shirt are made from indigo-dyed white fabric, then embroidered with patterns on the front of the fabric, the fabric is joined to create the shape, and beads and tassels are attached with red or pink thread to the scarf. The shirt is embroidered with colored thread on the hem, flap and back of the shirt with layered patterns, the highlight is the stylized square pattern symbolizing the sun embroidered on the back of the shirt with the colors: red, yellow, white, blue standing out on the elegant black indigo background.
The skirts of Dao women are made with the most elaborate steps: cutting the fabric, drawing patterns with beeswax, dyeing indigo, patching the fabric and sewing to complete the shape of the skirt. The patterns on the skirts are created according to a common model with 6 main types of patterns: coin shapes, horizontal stripes, overlapping rectangles, rectangles with stripes inside, white water wave patterns, indigo water wave patterns. These patterns are all drawn with beeswax on a white background, then dyed indigo many times, dried, and melted with beeswax so that the parts drawn with beeswax retain their original white color with beautifully shaped patterns that stand out on the indigo background. The patterns on the skirts all express the Dao people's belief in life, simulating everyday life, mountains, rivers and the desire for a prosperous and good life through the meaning of the rows of coin patterns created along the length of the skirt.
A highlight of the Dao Tien ethnic costume that cannot be ignored is the silver coin details attached to the back of the shirt, on the scarf, the coin image drawn on the skirt and silver jewelry such as: earrings, necklaces, bracelets... In the concept of the ethnic group, white silver represents wealth, prosperity, and nobility. Silver coins are also associated with worship, are offerings in weddings and silver coins are also objects that keep the soul following the dead back to dust.
Nowadays, people do not need to grow cotton or weave fabric, but can choose from ready-made white raw fabrics. Only belts are hand-woven with threads and shaped into black + white or red + white belts for both men and women on appropriate occasions.
Ms. Tuoi added: From ancient times until now, the Dao people still believe that embroidery and costume making represent the talent, virtue, dexterity, diligence and hard work of women. Because in order to remember the patterns, master the successful indigo dyeing technique, know how to mix thread colors... girls must learn from a young age, practice for many years to perfect their skills and must be really patient and meticulous to make a complete costume.
Women play a leading role in creating costumes, preserving the traditions of the nation, and are also the ones who hold the responsibility of passing on the art of creating patterns to the next generation, connecting tradition with current life, and teaching the precious qualities that women need to have, which are perseverance, patience, carefulness and creativity in every stitch. From there, they become people who know how to love, share, keep the fire of family happiness and preserve the traditional family tradition. And costumes are the place where the good values in both concepts, beliefs, thousand-year-old culture and the spirit of the ethnic community converge.
Along with the art of decorating patterns on ethnic costumes, the Dao ethnic group in Son La also has the coming-of-age ceremony and the bride-processing ceremony in traditional weddings, which are recognized as national intangible cultural heritages. These are priceless heritages, preserved and conserved by the ethnic group through many generations and passed down in life, culture and spirit to this day. Promoting these heritages is both a solution and a goal for the Dao ethnic group to preserve the traditional values and origins of the nation for future generations.
Thanh Dao
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