From Tuyen Quang town, I found my way over the mountain to Chiem Hoa, then over another 40km of steep mountain passes through the forests to Thuong Minh village, Hong Quang commune. Several times I almost got lost in the deep forest. At the end of the day, when the sun had set behind the mountain peaks, thatched roofs hidden in the afternoon mist appeared: this was the Thuy people's village. The afternoon was deep and quiet, but the people who had gone to the forest had not yet returned. The children saw the strange visitor and stood lurking behind the door. In the house in the middle of the village, shaman Mung Van Lu was sitting alone facing the mountain.
Painful past
In the memories of the elders of the Thuy people, the ancient origin is only passed down through the stories of their ancestors. About six or seven generations ago, the ancestors of the Thuy people in Thuong Minh today lived in Guizhou, China. At that time, the constant rebellions caused some Thuy people to decide to leave their homeland. The journey of exile was extremely harsh, the entire tribe of thousands of people reached the mountainous region of Ha Giang , Vietnam, with only about 80 households and a few hundred people left, the rest died on the way to find a place to live.
Mr. Ban Van Kim, 74 years old, the oldest Thuy ethnic group in Thuong Minh, sat smoking a water pipe, emitting smoke like mist, recounting the words of his father in the early days of coming to Vietnam: Because their language and customs were completely different from the local ethnic groups in Ha Giang, the Thuy people at that time lived in isolated clusters. They married each other in their villages. The incestuous marriage, famine and diseases in the wild and poisonous forests caused the Thuy people to die out gradually. Of the 80 households that reached Ha Giang, only 9-10 remained and gradually drifted to Hong Quang commune (Chiem Hoa, Tuyen Quang) today.
According to Mr. Ha Van Vien, former researcher of the Mountainous Ethnic Group of Tuyen Quang province - who has spent a lot of time researching the Thuy ethnic group, the Thuy ethnic group in China is a minority group living scattered in Guangxi. They have been present in Vietnam for hundreds of years and are considered the smallest minority group in the large family of Vietnamese ethnic groups. In the study of Chinese ethnic groups by author Y Quan, Beijing Publishing House in 1958, the Thuy ethnic group has a very long cultural tradition. |
Night gradually fell, covering the Thuy tribe village in the darkness of the mountains and forests. By the flickering firewood stove, shaman Mung Van Lu took out a sacred stone. According to him, the Thuy tribe always believed absolutely in gods, forest ghosts, and mountain ghosts to survive and everything was asked for the "prophecy" of the sacred stone. The stone was chosen by prestigious shamans in the village from high mountain rocks or from the bottom of rivers and streams, where there had not been any human footprints, to avoid contamination and loss of sacredness.
The sacred stone prayer ceremony that I witnessed was when the shaman Lu was looking for a "prophecy" for his new crop. His family has more than 2,000 square meters of rice fields by the stream, which is the main source of food for his family of six. After bathing, the shaman Lu squatted down with his head facing the mountain towards the rising sun. He placed his two elbows on his two knees, and his two hands were clasped together. The sacred stone was tied to one end of a thread, the other end of the thread hung on his finger. The ceremony began with the shaman's mumbled prayers, a mixture of the ancient Thuy language passed down from his ancestors and the new language of the shaman's time. The sacred stone hanging from the thread swayed when the shaman read the name of the mountain god. Everyone became excited because they believed that the god had manifested...
In Thuong Minh, everyone knows Ly Van Trieu's family. Not only because he has a young wife, Ban Thi Tai, who is the village chief, but also because he keeps in his memory many happy and sad histories of his tribe. Pointing to the misty high mountains, Mr. Trieu confided: "If it weren't for the 1961 mountain descent, perhaps our exiled Thuy tribe would not have escaped extinction."
Having escaped the danger of extinction, the Thuy tribe began to revive. The number of children born now exceeded the number of old people dying. Incestuous marriages were also eliminated to preserve the race. Currently, the Thuy tribe in Thuong Minh has 18 houses with more than 100 people.
Crossing the Mountain of Gods
Ly Thi Tuyen, 23 years old, has a healthy figure and eyes that always sparkle with laughter, showing me the high mountain ranges like walls surrounding the valley. “My ancestors believe that gods reside on those mountain peaks, so few old people dare to cross the mountains.” The story begins with the road to the village that was built a few years ago, and Tuyen was the first person to cross this road in search of the future.
On the first day Tuyen left the village to go to school, her mother Ban Thi Kim and father Ly Van Trieu were very worried. They used the sacred stone to call on the gods to bless their child because they did not know what was on the other side of the mountain range. Tuyen went all the way to Hanoi to study intermediate computer science. After two years of study, she graduated and stayed in Hanoi to work for a year. Recently, her mother asked her to come back and apply to be an information officer for the commune. Then Ly Van Toan, Tuyen's younger brother, passed the entrance exam to the university of construction, and the youngest brother is also studying 8th grade away from home.
From the example of the Tuyen sisters, many Thuy ethnic families in Thuong Minh valley have now sent their children to cross the mountains and step out into the outside world. According to village chief Ban Thi Tai, the village has two more households, Mr. Ly Van Ngoc and Mr. Ly Van Va, who are sending their children to study security in Thai Nguyen and Ha Tay. After this year's exam season, some families will continue to send their children out of the village, with the belief of crossing the sacred mountains to seek a future for their tribe.
Life in the Thuong Minh valley is less harsh than in the high mountains, but hardships have not yet ceased to haunt the Thuy village. Mr. Ban Van Kim is still haunted by the journeys of more than 40km through the forest to Chiem Hoa market to buy salt. Every time he went to the market, he had to walk for a day, his feet bleeding. For many families, the rice produced is only enough to cover daily meals. The children's education depends on what they collect from the forest.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/nguoi-thuy-bo-toc-100-nguoi-o-viet-nam-post420352.html
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