The Indigenous Groups

As Vietnam is very close to China, the origin of many ethnic groups were from the different groups of Chinese. There are two groups that I would like to highlight which are believed to be indigenous to Vietnam. They are the Viet (or Kinh) and the Tay.

The Viet (Kinh)

In ancient times, the ancestors of Viet had settled down in the Northern and Central Vietnam. The Viet had played an important role in uniting all ethnic groups in Vietnam throughout the history. Wet rice cultivation is their major production activity and generations after generations of working in the rice fields, the Viet had gained a lot of experience in which they summarised the cultivation process to four profound words. "First water, second fertilizer, third hard work, fourth good seeds."

The ancient farmers also raise pigs, poultry, birds and some other activities would include fishing and producing of handicrafts.

    

Water puppet is believed to have originated
from the Viet people in the Red River Delta

Rice and green tea are the basic everyday food and drink while fish, vegetable or crab soups are part of their daily meals. Sauces are greatly loved by the Viet and they are usually made from shrimps, crab and fish. Spices like chilli, ginger and garlic are also popular. On festive occasions, sticky rice and alcohol are consumed.

The Viet live in one story houses where there are yards, gardens and ponds. Each house has about 3 to 5 rooms with the most important one in the middle for the ancestor's altars. Families are small with 2 generations living together and women are the ones managing the finance and the welfare of the family.

Games are played during leisure time and there are different games for different ages, genders, seasons, individuals and groups. Some play chess, fly kites and release birds for enjoyment while some engage is sports and communal games such as tug-of-war, swings, wrestling and boat racing.

(Vietnam-Culture, 2009)

The Tay (Tho)

  

Banho village

It is believed that as early as 500 BC, the Tay have been present in Vietnam. Just like the Viet, the Tay are farmers and also cultivated wet rice. Irrigation methods such as digging canals and laying water pipes were already implemented at that time. During harvesting, they would thrash the grains out on wooden racks, which they call loong, in the fields and carry baskets of grains home. Fruit trees are grown and cattle and poultry were also raised. Similar to the Viet, there are household crafts such as brocade weaving.

The Tay mainly ate sticky rice and almost every family use stew and steam pots for cooking. Many types of cakes were made during festive occasions such as Bahn Chung which is square rice cakes made from glutinous rice, mung bean and pork, wrapped in banana leaves.

   

Banh Chung

The Tay villages are large and crowded, with hundreds of houses in some villages. Traditional houses are built on stilts, using wood or bamboo for the walls and tiles, straw or palm leaves for the roofs.

Some games include throwing con, which is a sacred ball made of cloth, badminton, tug-of-war and chess. Children would play spinning top.

(Vietnam-Culture, 2009)