The origins of the ethnic groups in the ancestral land.

Throughout prehistoric and ancient history, Phu Tho province was home to two groups of people belonging to two language families: the Viet-Muong and the ancient Tay-Thai. The ancient Tay-Thai people lived along both banks of the Thao River, the section of the Red River from Yen Bai to Viet Tri. Because the Tay-Thai language family called this river Nam Tao, it is called Thao River in Vietnamese.

Today in Phu Tho, many place names are still given in the Tay language. At the foot of Hung Mountain, there are many rice paddies, also called "na" in the Tay dialect. Here lies the village of Pheo. A village is a settlement of the Tay people, similar to a hamlet for the Kinh people. Historically, this village was covered in bamboo, so the Tay people called it Ban Pheo (Pheo Village). Today, the Kinh people call it Xom Tre (Bamboo Village). The chief of the large Tay tribe during the reign of the 18th Hung King was Ma Khe, who lived at the foot of Doi Den Mountain in Cam Khe District. Ma Khe married a woman from Ban Pheo, near what is now Hung Mountain. Next to Hung Mountain is Lon Mountain. Later, the Kinh people called this mountain Ut Mountain. Both Lon and Ut mean "smallest mountain" in the ancient Viet-Muong and Tay-Thai language groups. Ma Khe resisted the Tay people of Au Viet and was appointed by the Hung King as Phu Quoc, serving as the King's tutor. Later, he and Nguyen Tuan (Son Tinh), the son-in-law of King Hung, discussed fighting invaders and defending the country. When King Hung abdicated the throne to Thuc Phan and changed the country's name to Au Lac, Ma Khe and his son refused to cooperate with the new court, returning to build settlements in the Phu Tho and Phu Ninh areas. Therefore, there are settlements of the Man people here called Hoa Khe settlement (in Phu Tho town) and Tien Du settlement in Phu Ninh district. In Phu Tho town today, there are still traces of Me citadel and Me market. Me and Mai are corrupted pronunciations of Ma. The Ma clan of the Tay people in Phu Tho is now sometimes called Me or Mai. This tribe later split into three branches in Phu Tho, Tuan Quan (Yen Bai), and Tuyen Quang . The Phu Tho branch is the eldest branch, worshipping their ancestor Ma Khe. The Tay people in Phu Tho have been assimilated into the Kinh culture. Today, they are scattered throughout the province. Some still retain the Ma surname, such as Mr. Ma Van Thuc, the clan leader in Viet Tri, whose daughter is the singer Ma Thi Bich Viet. Others changed their surnames to Ma or Me.

The Viet Muong people were numerous on the left bank of the Da River and interspersed with the ancient Tay people on both banks of the Thao and Lo rivers. Many traces of the Viet Muong people can still be found, such as Muong temples in Thanh Ba and places still known as caves.

Previously, the ancient Vietnamese consisted of two groups: the Viet Muong and the ancient Tay. Following the receding sea, they migrated along the rivers, settling in the Central Plains and creating the Northern Delta. Here, due to cultural assimilation with people from the north and from the sea, they became the Kinh people. Later, due to development, overcrowding, or crimes against the village and country, scattered groups of Kinh people settled in the mountains. By the medieval period, the Kinh people had become numerous in Phu Tho. Their settlements were in villages, hamlets, and settlements. To distinguish them from Kinh villages, the imperial court stipulated that the settlements of indigenous people and minorities were called "Dong Man" (man settlements). In Phu Tho, one can still find settlements like Lang Xuong, Trung Nghia, Truc Khe, Khuat Lao, etc. In any settlement, there were families such as Nguyen, Dinh, Quach, Bach, Ha, Phung, Bui, Le, Cao, etc., which were once inhabited by the Muong people. Where there were families like Ma, Mai, and Me, it was the former dwelling place of the Tay people.

The Văn Lang kingdom of the Hùng Kings was ruled by the Lạc Việt or Việt Mường people. A Tây tribe, led by Ma Khê, provided support to the Âu Việt people, led by Thục Đế, who frequently raided from the Northwest. The Hùng Kings had to establish Phong Châu and Việt Trì as their capital to resist the Âu Việt. At times, the enemy's strength forced the Hùng Kings to retreat and build a capital in Nghệ An to gather forces and drive the invaders out of their territory. It is for this reason that, in the 1960s, relying solely on folk legends, historians debated the location of the capital, whether it was in Nghệ Tĩnh or Việt Trì. The capital of Phong Châu once existed in Nghệ Tĩnh. The Hùng Kings had to gather forces and lead their army to drive the invaders out of their territory because only by defending Phong Châu could they maintain peace within their borders. The territory of Văn Lang at that time extended to the Northwest, encompassing Phú Thọ, Hòa Bình, and the Central provinces, down to Thanh Nghệ.

The Da River, flowing from Lai Chau, Dien Bien, and Son La down to Hoa Binh and Viet Tri, was the main waterway that brought the Au Viet people to plunder and enslave the Lac Viet people. Therefore, the Da River holds many legends about the ancient Vietnamese state. Due to its strategic location, the love story of Lac Long Quan and Au Co has been passed down through generations. Legend says she was born in Trung Nghia Cave (Trung Nghia Commune, Thanh Thuy District today). Lac Long Quan, while traveling through the area, met her and took her to Phong Chau to marry her. She gave birth to a sack of eggs, from which a hundred sons hatched. Fifty sons followed their father to explore the coastal region, fifty sons followed their mother to the forest, belonging to Van Lang, Ha Hoa District, near Yen Bai, part of the Au Viet kingdom. One son remained to establish the Van Lang kingdom, with its capital being Phong Chau, Viet Tri.

During the reign of King Hung Due Vuong XVIII, in Long Xuong cave, Thanh Thuy district, there lived a couple, Nguyen Cao Hanh and Dinh Thi Den, from Cao Phong cave, Hoa Binh province. They had a son named Nguyen Tuan, a talented and intelligent man who grew up to serve King Hung in suppressing rebellions. He was a general beloved by the king, who married his daughter, Ngoc Hoa, to him. Legend says Nguyen Tuan's parents were of the Viet Muong ethnic group. He was later adopted by Ma Thi Than Nu. This suggests that this land was once inhabited by two ancient ethnic groups: the Viet Muong and the Tay Thai. This legend further proves that the territory of the Lac Viet people was Hoa Binh and Phu Tho, the northwestern region of the Lac Viet, bordering the Au Viet kingdom in Son La and Yen Bai.

Nguyen Tuan was born to Ma Thi Than Nu, a Tay woman who took him to study under a celestial sage on Tan Vien Mountain. Nguyen Tuan absorbed the cultures of both the Viet-Muong and the ancient Tay-Thai people. Therefore, he was later revered by the Vietnamese as one of the Four Immortals in the Vietnamese pantheon... Nguyen Tuan was instrumental in advising his father, the king, to abdicate in favor of Thuc Phan to prevent bloodshed among the Vietnamese people.

Upon ascending the throne, Thục Phán built Loa Thành, erected a stone oath on Nghĩa Lĩnh mountain, pledging eternal reverence to King Hùng as the national ancestor, and built the Lăng Xương temple in Lăng Xương cave to worship the holy mother Đinh Thị Đen and Saint Tản Viên, commemorating their contributions to his secure position on the throne of Âu Lạc. In reality, Thục Phán did this to pacify the Lạc Việt people, who were not easily subdued in the early days.

The bloodshed and carnage that occurred hundreds, even thousands of years ago, is rarely mentioned. Our ancestors tried to forget the enduring tragedy of the two tribal alliances, considered to be of the same lineage as the Hung Dynasty, and directed their hatred towards the invaders from the North who constantly threatened to invade our country. The tragedy of that civil war was cleverly entrusted by our ancestors in the love story of Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh with Princess Ngoc Hoa. For a long time, we have known the story of Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh and other historical figures of the Hung Dynasty, and also the implied spirit of our ancestors in fighting floods. But in reality, it also embodies the ancient historical tragedy of the war between the Hung Dynasty and the Thuc Dynasty. That war, lasting hundreds or thousands of years, caused the tears of the Vietnamese people to overflow, forming the legendary Da River. It was the agonizing birthing pain from prehistoric times that gave birth to the first ancient state in the official history of this legendary ancient state.

Along the Da River, many stories of Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh fighting are still passed down, with evidence remaining in the riverbanks, swamps, and hills... Son Tinh and Thuy Tinh are merely allegorical figures, the core of which is the historical message that the entire nation wants to remember and forget. Furthermore, the customs of the Muong people everywhere, especially in Phu Tho, still maintain the practice of totem worship, that is, the worship of ancestral objects. Human history has gone through a period of promiscuous marriage, until people realized that they were all descendants of the same mother. At that time, the first social organizations of humankind emerged. Science calls this the early stage of tribal society. In this period, humans only knew of mothers, not fathers. Through observation of nature and experience, humans also knew that all things are born from two elements: heaven and earth, light and darkness, rain and sunshine... Promiscuous marriage at that time could not be considered a reproductive factor, but only to satisfy the instincts of male and female. People of the same maternal lineage were no longer allowed to have sexual relations with each other. So, the clans within the tribe made a pact: men from one clan would have sexual relations with women from another clan. Because they didn't yet understand that sexual intercourse led to procreation, and because they only knew their mothers and not their fathers, totemism was born. Each tribe had its own totem animal. Today, the Ha clan of the Muong people in Phu Tho worships the quail as their totem animal. The Dinh Cong clan worships the magpie. The Cao clan worships the monkey. Another Cao clan worships the bulbul... People draw their totem animal, called a clan picture. When someone dies, the totem picture is placed on top of the coffin along with a bowl of rice, an egg, and chopsticks. When the body is buried, the picture is lifted up along with the coffin. Finally, the picture is placed on top of the grave. People do not slaughter or eat the totem animal. When the totem animal dies, it is buried like a person. In the past, wealthy families even held funeral ceremonies for their totem animal as they would for a person. Once people knew who their father was, totemism was largely confined to minority groups. Today, the Muong people of the ancestral land explain that the totem animal was a creature that once saved their ancestors from death. When invaders were searching, the totem animal flew out from the bushes, making the invaders believe that no one was hiding there. The worship of the totem animal is to express gratitude. Totem animals are worshipped throughout the Muong region, with similar explanations. The Muong region of Phu Tho and Hoa Binh provinces is close to the Au Viet people. The Au Viet people frequently raided this area. When the Au Viet and Lac Viet states merged, the invaders were no longer given a specific name but were referred to as invaders from the North and the West. The legend of the bamboo with its top cut off at the summit of Luoi Hai mountain in Thanh Son district is said to have been broken by King Hung to make arrows for a crossbow to shoot Thuc De (the King of the Au Viet state). Or the legend of the tutelary deity of Son Vi village (Lam Thao) tells of the green-robed general who, after his death, secretly advised Tan Vien Son Thanh to chase the enemy all the way to Moc Chau, Son La, where he finally thwarted their plot. These are rare legends that clearly define that ancient war.

Speaking of that historical tragedy, our ancestors either entrusted it to the love story of Son Tinh and Ngoc Hoa, or Thuy Tinh, and also placed it in the totem worship of the Muong people. The worship of the totem both preserves remnants of totemism and informs future generations that our ancestors once endured the bloodshed and suffering of war.

Tracing history through ethnographic, archaeological, and folklore documents will reveal more clearly the origins of the ethnic groups in the ancestral land of the entire country.

Nguyen Huu Nhan

Provincial e-Government Portal