Dao
Denomination: Dao.
Other names: Mán, Trại, Động, Dìu Miền, Kiềm Miền, Kìm Mùn.
Small local groups: Dao Lô Gang, Dao Đỏ (Red Dao), Dao Tiền (Coin Dao),
Dao Làn Tiẻn, Dao Quần Chẹt (Dao with tight trousers), Dao áo Dài (Dao with long dress), Dao Đại Bản, Dao Cóc Ngáng, Dao Cóc Mùn, Dao Tam Đảo, Dao Quần Trắng (Dao with white trousers), etc.
Population: 621,000
Language: Hmông-Dao
Area of habitation:
The highland regions of North Vietnam. The Dao occupy land at all altitudes and live on good terms with other ethnic groups such as the Hmông, Tày, Thái, Mường, Việt and Hoa. They are also found in China, Thailand and Laos. The emigration of the Dao from their native provinces (Fujian, Guang dong and Guangxi in China) took place between the 18th and 19th centuries.
Material Life
The Dao live in populous villages or in small, isolated hamlets. Those who cultivate irrigated fields or practise rotational cropping on milpas lead a sedentary lifestyle and form villages on the slopes of hills or at the foot of mountains near streams.
Dao dwellings are built either level with the ground, on stilts, or half on stilts half on the ground. The house on the ground is preferred, especially by the sedentary Dao who find it an appropriate place for the veneration of Bùn Vương, their ancestor.
Houses on stilts are also often found among the sedentary Dao who grow wet rice and live in the neighbourhood of the Tày, Nùng, and Việt, or among the small groups of “green dress”, “long dress”, Sán Chỉ (Bắc Cạn) who practise slash-and-burn cultivation.
Houses half-on-stilts and half-on-ground have taken shape in the hamlets of Dao shifting cultivators. They are built on the steep slopes of mountains, and thanks to the stilts, the ground does not need to be levelled. The techniques used to assemble the house frame are rudimentary, the pieces being tied together with lianas.
The interior of every house is designed in the same way. At the back of the principal bay is a small compartment where jars of alcohol and pickled meat are kept. A partition at a certain distance from the rear wall separates this compartment from the rest of the bay. In front of the partition is the altar to ancestors; this interior arrangement is not noted among any other ethnic group living in North Vietnam.
Dao male attire is the same as that of all other small groups: cotton trousers dyed in indigo and held up by a large belt of unbleached cotton or sometimes also dyed in indigo. Unsually the Dao wear short vests, over which they put on dresses on grand occasions. The dark-indigo dress falls down to the knees and buttons at the front. The hair is worn in a chignon on the nape of the neck or shaved round the head, except for a tuft on the top of the skull, in the Hmông fashion. The Dao often wear long turbans knotted at the front.
In general, women wear trousers and long dresses slit at the front. Only Dao Tiền women wear pagnes wound round their bodies. Trousers or pagnes are all made of cotton dyed in dark indigo. Dao Quần Trắng women, as shown by their name, wear white trousers on their wedding day. The trousers are kept in place by a belt and have particularly close-fitting legs. Dao Quần Chẹt women wear close-fitting trousers. The Dao tiousers are decorated with a patterned band, but as an exception, the Dao áo Dài trousers are only dyed in indigo.
Dao women’s attire is characterized by a long dress open at the chest which they cover with a bra or other underwear. The flaps of their dress are knotted at the front or held in at the waist with a belt as with the Dao Làn Tien. The dress has a stand-up indigo collar. Red Dao women embroider the symbolic image of Bàn Vương on the shoulders of their dress. To the same place, the Dao Tiền tie seven or nine coins. The attire of “green-dress” Duo women is the longest and has floating sleeves, the hem of which is decorated with a band of red cloth.
Dao women arrange their haừ in different ways: long hair wound round the head in the fashion of the Red Dao\ hair with a parting in the middle and combed up into a chignon at the nape of the neck like the Dao Quần Trắng and the Dao áo Dài, or hair cut short and waxed (bees-wax) like the Duo Tiền, Dao Lô Gang, and Dao Quần Chẹt.
The Dao rarely go out without headgear. Women wear indigo scarves, except for the Dao Tiền in Cao Bàng, Lạng Sơn, Bắc Thái and Hà Tuyên who wear white turbans.
In addition to the turban, the Dao customarily wear square or round conical hats. The frame of the hat is made from waxed hair or dried pumpkin fibres sewn together, the whole thing then covered with an embroidered square piece of cloth decorated with silver. Dao Làn Tien old women wear flat disc-¬shaped hats. For the Red Dao and Dao Quần Trắng, only married women wear conical hats. For the Dao Tien, the hat is the rule at ceremonies and on other special occasions. The Dao Áo Dài always wear hats evoking tiles. The daily attire of Red Dao women also includes a red scarf. And the upper right and left edges of their dresses are adorned with bright red floral motifs.
The bra of the Red Dao, Dao Quần Chẹt and Dao Quần Trắng is a pad decorated with embroidered and silver patterns.
Dao Làn Tiẻn, Dao Lô Gang and Red Dao women wear white leggings; those of the Dao Lô Gang are adorned with traditional motifs.
The Dao people, both men and women, like to adom themselves with silver and copper jewellery including rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets.
Corresponding to the three types of dwelling, there are three modes of production.
In rocky mountainous regions, the sedentary Dao cultivate permanent fields or farms in rotation on small mountain plots surrounded by rocks. Here, the principal crop is corn, then come millet, cassava and rye. They do not use manure to fertilize their fields, except for the Dao in the region of Cao Bằng, Lạng Sơn, Bắc Cạn, Hà Giang, and Tuyên Quang. Owing to the steep mountain slopes, water cannot be retained in the soil, and the annual output from farming is so low that food shortages are a constant threat.
The strip of land at a medium altitude is the most densely-populated by the Dao who cultivate milpas and often change their place of residence. They grow rice and com. The land for swidden cultivation deteriorates after two or three crops; then, it is left fallow and new land will be reclaimed elsewhere.
The agricultural implements of the Dao in this region comprise axes to fell trees, knives to clear bushes, digging sticks, rakes, and small knives to cut rice at harvest time. Seeding is done in two ways; either the seeds are put into holes dug with a stick or they are thrown in handfuls. In general, multiple cropping is practised, with rice grown besides other crops: corn, millet, leguminous and gourd plants. Cassava is planted separately, but in corn fields, sweet potato, taro and yams are also grown.
At low altitudes, the Dao live in precipitous valleys or along comunication routes, on good terms with the Tày, Nùng and Việt. Agriculture is caưied out in submerged or terraced fields, or fixed milpas. The farming techniques are the same as those of the neighbouring ethnic groups. The area of irrigated fields is increasing constantly as many Dao have come down, from high mountains, to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and new production methods.
Among the sedentary Dao, animal rearing is developing fast, supplying them with meat to improve their daily diet, and manure to fertilize the soil. Many families have up to dozens of large domestic animals; in certain villages there are several hundred heads of cattle. Goats are also raised for meat, while horses are kept as pack- and saddle-animals. The Dao rear a large number of dogs, some families having up to several dozens. In their poultry yards, chickens prevail, then come ducks, geese, and pigeons.
Handicrafts are only sidelines undertaken during the farm-slacks of the agricultural cycle. Women grow cotton, make thread and weave cloth themselves. They are very skilled at embroidering beautiful motifs and printing patterns on cloth. A characteristic of the embroidery is that it is done on the wrong side of the cloth to set in relief the motifs on the right side. Women of the Dao Tiền apply wax to the drawings before dyeing the cloth in indigo. As a result, the motifs appear in a lighter colour on the dark background.
Dao men are excellent in making household objects from bamboo or rattan. They make agricultural implements themselves, including axes, harrows, knives and ploughshares. They also make flintlocks and pig-iron bullets. They have long produced paper from straw and the bark of certain trees. The product is of high quality, thin, smooth, off-white, ink-proof and durable. It is used for writing genealogical records, official documents and religious books. Some Dao people practise trades transmitted from genera¬tion to generation, such as the making ot silver and copper jewellery.
They also gather forest produce and grow medicinal plants such as tea, betel leaves, caryota, oleaginous plants and anise. They go hunting and fishing, and raise fish in ponds and submerged fields.
Social and family relationships
Formerly, in large Dao population centres, administrative functions were assumed by the Dao themselves, from the châu (district) down to hamlet level, through a system which existed along with the colonial administrative apparatus. Villages and communes were headed by the Động trưởng and the Giáp trưởng respectively. The canton chief was called Man mục; the function equivalent to that of the Tri châu (district chief) was performed by the Quản chiêu. These different authorities were granted certain rights and privileges in return for their loyalty and devotion to the colonio-feudal administration whose strategy was to oppress and exploit the Dao and to sow discord between them and other ethnic groups. These were also sorcerers who claimed divine authority to exert a malevolent influence on the people. The rest of the population was subject to oppression and exploitation. In the areas where the Dao were relatively few in number, they were under the yoke-of the ruling classes (Thổ ty, Phia tạo and Lang đạo) of other ethnic groups.
According to some ancient documents, the Dao were originally composed of 12 lineages, of which the Ban is “the eldest”. Each lineage was divided into branches, which in turn were subdivided into several great families. Each great family has now a Tộc trưởng (chief) reponsible for the veneration of ancestors. His house is called “the great house” to distinguish from the small houses of other member families. The Tộc trưởng plays an important role in the community life.
The cell of Dao society is the patrilineal nuclear family. Monogamy and patrilocate are the rule.
Dao matrimonial customs differ from group to group. To be allowed to marry, a young couple must not only obtain the approval of their parents, but their birth dates should be in “concord”. The young man may request the girl’s family to allow him to live here and work without pay for three or four days. One or two months later, he returns to the girl’s house again for a second stay. But this time, he is permitted to talk to his fiancee and to share a bed with her. After two or three days, the man will come back to his parents to prepare for the wedding, if the family of his would-be wife agrees. He must above all bring the required wedding presents to the latter’s family. When he cannot fulfil this obligation for lack of means, the wedding can take place any way, but in the form of a “temporary wedding”. It is not uncommon for a couple to have grown up children before the celebration of their “definitive” wedding. In such cases, if the couple have a daughter who is going to get married, the husband must make offerings to the ancestors’ spirits, and invite his parents-in-law to a feast where the latter will remind him of the wedding presents that have not yet been offered. Thus, the value of the presents demanded for the marriage of the young girl must be equiv¬alent to those already mentioned and must be rightfully returned to the parents-in-law.
Due to poverty, the rate of child mortality among the Dao stands high; so the population number is going down alarmingly. A pregnant Duo woman is obliged to obey a series of unreasonable taboos and abstinences as she is believed to cause woes and harm to the environment.
The Dao woman gives birth in a squatting position. Three or four days after childbirth, a ceremony is held to “inform” the dead ancestors of the event. When the child is 30 days old, another ceremony is needed to honour the bà Mụ (a kind of fairy matrons) and to name the baby after a guardian genie. Only when then child is ten years old, does he/she receive the true name. In addition to the surname, the personal name has a particle chosen in a strict order from among a system of words unique to his family group. This important baptismal ceremony of Taoist origin is sometimes performed at the same time as the cấp sắc at the age of 15 or 20, marking the maturity of the boy. From then on, he is considered by society and deities as a full member of the community.
Young Dao women follow the custom of cutting short and waxing their hair; the hair-waxing ceremony (putting hot wax onto the hair and rolling it up in a turban) takes place when a girl is 13 years old, and has the same importance as the cấp sắc rite for a boy.
As the Dao believe in the existence of souls, their funerals include special rites to “accompany” the soul of the deceased back to his/her original country known as “Dương Châu”.
According to Dao custom, there are three types of funerals: inhumation (burial), cremation and “aerial” funerals. The place for the cremation is chosen by the Thầy tào. The coffin is put on top of nine layers of dry wood arranged in the shape of a cage, then the Thầy tào sets fire to it. This custom is observed mainly by the Dao áo Dài, and less frequently by the Dao Quần Trắng. Aerial funerals are reserved for people who die at an inauspicious hour. The coffin is made of wooden boards or bamboo and placed on a shelf 2 metres above the ground. After a year, the bones are collected, put in a jar and buried. This custom is often followed by the Dao Tiền.
If for the Dao áo Dài and Dao Quần Trắng, funeral houses should be built, the tomb of the Dao is generally marked only by some white stones piled up on the side of the deceased’s head and as a small dolmen on the side of his feet.
Spiritual life
The Dao practise the cult of ancestors who are worshipped at home or at the house of the lineage chief. They also worship Bàn Vương (Chẩn Đàng), the mythical common ancestor of their ethnic group.
In the spiritual life of the Dao, the influence of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism is very marked. Particularly, Taoist traces are clearly manifested in the Dao seasonal festivals and in their pray sessions to invoke divinities’ protection in illness, childbirth, funerals, or natural calamities.
Folk arts and literature enrich the intellectual life of the population. The Dao have long used Chinese writing (but pronounced in the Dao way) for religious books, genealogical records, and to transcribe stories in verse, and other oral traditions. The principal genres are ancient tales, humorous tales, fables, riddles, and folk-songs, which have rich and evocative contents. The most popular folk-song is pa dung, a kind of lyrical alternate chants. Many Dao stories have been published.
Decorations on cloth testify to the skill and taste of Dao women — embroiderers. Realistic motifs (animals, plants, agricultural implements and human activities) are presented with coloured threads.
View other:
( 0 Votes )
< Prev | Next > |
---|
Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam
- Thai People in Vietnam
- Chut People in Vietnam
- Hmong People in Vietnam
- Lao People in Vietnam
- Co-Tu People in Vietnam
- Khmer People in Vietnam
- Tay People in Vietnam
- Mnong People in Vietnam
- Bru-Van Kieu in Vietnam
- Tho People in Vietnam
- Ta-Oi People in Vietnam
- Kho-Mu People in Vietnam
- Dao People in Vietnam
- Gia-rai People in Vietnam
- Giay People in Vietnam
- Muong People in Vietnam
- Co Lao People in Vietnam
- Xo-Dang People in Vietnam
- Ba-Na People in Vietnam
- Xtieng People in Vietnam
- Hre People in Vietnam
- O-Du People in Vietnam
- Gie-Trieng People in Vietnam
- Mang People in Vietnam
- Ro-Mam People in Vietnam
- Nung People in Vietnam
- Co-Ho People in Vietnam
- San Chay People in Vietnam
- Ngai People in Vietnam
- Cho-Ro People in Vietnam
- Ma People in Vietnam
- Pa Then People in Vietnam
- Ha Nhi People in Vietnam
- Brau People in Vietnam
- Bo Y People in Vietnam
- Pu Peo People in Vietnam
- Cham People in Vietnam
- Xinh Mun People in Vietnam
- La Ha People in Vietnam
- Khang People in Vietnam
- San Diu People in Vietnam
- Lu People in Vietnam
- Phu La People in Vietnam
- La Chi People in Vietnam
- Hoa People in Vietnam
- Si La People in Vietnam
- La Hu People in Vietnam
- Co People in Vietnam
- Chu-Du People in Vietnam
- E-De People in Vietnam
- Lo Lo People in Vietnam
- Ra Glai People in Vietnam
- Cong People in Vietnam
Top 10 Most Interest
Angkor Wat 1 Day
Angkor Wat - 1DaysStarts : Siem Reap City, ends : Siem Reap CityHighlights: Siem Re...
Myanmar Highlights 6 Days
Myanmar Highlights - 6 DaysStarts : Yangon City, ends : Yangon CityHighlights: Yangon...
Yangon - Bago - Kyaikhtiyo 4 Days
Yangon - Bago - Kyaikhtiyo - 4DaysStarts : Yangon City, ends : Yangon CityH...
Vientiane - Luang Prabang 4 Days
Vientiane - Luang Prabang - 4 daysStarts : Vientiane , ends : Luang PrabangHighligh...
Free Hanoi Cycle Trip through the Vietnam countryside
Free Hanoi Cycle Trip through the Vietnam countryside Tour type: FreeLocation: Hanoi - One Day Trip...
Nha Trang Island & Snorkeling – Diving Tour – 1 Day
Pick up from the hotel transfer to the Cau Da harbor get on the boat to sail out. First diving sites...
Hue Full sights 3 days
Hue Full sights 3 days Day 1: Hue arrive & Cooking class Pick up & transfer to hotel from airpor...
Da Nang & My Son 1 day
Da Nang & My Son 1 day Starting & ending at Da Nang/ Hoi An Depart Daily Pick up at your stay i...
3 days fishing & sightseeing in Ninh Binh
3 days fishing & sightseeing in Ninh Binh Starts : Hanoi City Ends : Hanoi City Trip code: 3DEFIVAC...
North of Vietnam Fishing & trekking 6 days
North of Vietnam Fishing & trekking 6 days Starts : Hanoi City Ends : Hanoi City Trip code:...
-
Angkor Wat 1 Day
Friday, 08 June 2018 07:52 -
Myanmar Highlights 6 Days
Friday, 08 June 2018 07:24 -
Yangon - Bago - Kyaikhtiyo 4 Days
Friday, 08 June 2018 07:11 -
Vientiane - Luang Prabang 4 Days
Thursday, 07 June 2018 09:04 -
Free Hanoi Cycle Trip through the Vietnam countryside
Sunday, 25 March 2018 19:34 -
Nha Trang Island & Snorkeling – Diving Tour – 1 Day
Sunday, 15 October 2017 10:07 -
Hue Full sights 3 days
Monday, 04 September 2017 02:40 -
Da Nang & My Son 1 day
Monday, 04 September 2017 01:17 -
3 days fishing & sightseeing in Ninh Binh
Sunday, 03 September 2017 13:22 -
North of Vietnam Fishing & trekking 6 days
Sunday, 03 September 2017 13:07