AsiaLIFE

In the foothills fringing Dalat, in southern Vietnam, the matriarchal Chil and Lat tribes continue traditions thousands of years old. Yet it’s feared their culture is succumbing to the modern world. Jade Bilowol visits these two ethnic minorities to explore their fascinating way of life.

Sitting cross-legged on a bamboo mat, I down rice whisky shots with a cluster of women when the conversation turns to how many buffaloes a husband is worth. This may not seem like normal after-dinner banter but it’s a serious matter for the matriarchal Chil and Lat tribes.

Our guide Colieng Rolan—a lithe and softly spoken 23-year-old Chil woman—says the number of buffalo a woman gives her husband’s family hinges on how strong he is. Women were even able to have two husbands until 1995, when the practice was outlawed.

“If I pay five buffalo, he must work like five buffaloes,” one woman says.

Buying husbands with buffalo, which are highly prized and very expensive, and making other significant decisions have been women’s rights for thousands of years. “We are in charge of marriage, finances, looking after the children and hospitality while the men generally sow crops and brew and drink rice whisky,” says Rolan. The Chil and Lat also take on the mother’s family name, and daughters inherit the family’s land.

A short drive north of Dalat in the southern reaches of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the Chil and Lat live among a total of 5,000 people from five ethnic minorities. These tribes have their own dialects and customs unique from mainstream Vietnam and the world.

Relations between the Lat and Chil, who are farmers and weavers respectively, have been hostile. However, feuding and rivalry, long underscored by the Lat people’s stronghold over the land, have dramatically subsided in recent times.

The tribes were pushed to the outskirts when the French founded Dalat—which literally means “river of the Lat tribe”—in the late 19th century. When the French fled Vietnam during the 1950s, the borders between Laos and Cambodia were cemented, with responsibility for the tribes falling to Vietnam. Under Vietnam’s push to maintain social cohesion, these tribes have united to preserve their culture and have greater representation on a political level.

“We are now friends,” Rolan says before introducing her friend, Lat Village elder Kragan Hai. He invites us inside his modest longhouse—a structure that distinguishes these people from the rest of Vietnam. The longhouses are propped on stilts up to three meters high to protect against snakes, wild animals and floods, and provide a place under the house for stock to sleep.

Hai’s love of telling stories is immediate and infectious. He talks of working as a nurse in Nha Trang and Saigon during the French and American wars, his two daughters and making rice whisky. “My wife bought me for five buffalos,” he says with pride, as a man’s family aims to raise strong and healthy sons to gain as many buffalo as possible.

Good times, bad times

The tribes have a mutual love of festivals. “We used to fight but we came together at festivals,” Rolan says. They have many traditional dances and play instruments including gongs, drums and bamboo flutes.

When evening descends a celebration of food, drink, song and dance is ushered in around a bonfire lit inside a 30-metre longhouse in Chil Village, a 15-minute walk from Lat Village. We are served a delectable dinner of rabbit skewers, sticky-rice wrapped in leaves and zesty salad while our hosts offer up rice whisky shots. Surprisingly, they don’t burn your mouth and throat, and taste a little sweeter than expected.

Donning traditional costumes, the Chil people then entertain with a mix of songs—some upbeat and cheery, others mellow and almost haunting. Once the rice whisky sets in, I have no inhibitions joining the singing and dancing circling the fire. We continue drinking rice whisky, from big plastic straws extending from large clay jars, as the folk songs give way to pop anthems such as The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” and Abba’s “Happy New Year.”

Life among the hill tribes is not all song and dance. Rolan’s typical day sees her up at 4am to pray before working in the garden and doing chores. She then spends the rest of the day weaving by hand.

“Three of the villages in this area, including the Chil Village, are very poor,” says Rolan. “There are large families, the children go to school, there’s not much money and they have no land to work on so it’s all very hard.”

A 2008 report prepared by Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, says about 39 percent of Vietnam’s population living in poverty come from ethnic minority groups. “About 61 percent of all ethnic minority people are poor, compared with only 14 percent of majority Kinh,” the report says.

Despite ongoing government efforts promoting ethnic culture to tourists in a bid to alleviate poverty, a drop in tourists in Rolan’s area has exacerbated financial woes. “In my village there are 500 people and most of us weave textiles for a living,” says Rolan. “Five years ago many tourists came to the village and bought our handicrafts but now they don’t come; our weaving is stored at home.”

What does the future hold?

Under a yellow sun and dome of blue sky, worshippers file into Lat Village’s wooden A-frame Catholic church built by the French in 1948, and the sounds of soft hymns drift by. A steeple atop the church’s gable, of a cross standing on a set of buffalo horns, encapsulates the fusion of faith and culture.

“The buffalo horns represent one of our most sacred totems,” Rolan says. “Every two years during the festival of the buffalo, the most-prized beast is slaughtered and the meat is shared.”

The buffalo’s sacrifice symbolises the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and its consumption is a form of communion. Like many of the people, Rolan is Catholic, while others are Protestant or Animistic.

Rolan gazes over her surrounds, taking in signs their culture is succumbing to the modern world. They are not changes she happily accepts. “Some of the old lifestyle is being forgotten already,” Rolan laments. “People wear what is convenient rather than traditional clothing. Two years ago I saw a wedding with very old instruments played. Now they play modern musical instruments. We can’t cut the forests to build longhouses, so I think we will build houses with sand.”

Rolan believes further change is inevitable. “I think the Chil and Lat will forget the traditions of our grandparents, and I’m afraid of that. We live next to the city.”

Ultimately, she and others are saddened by the prospect of her culture fading into oblivion. “We have to keep the traditions—the stories, history, customs and lifestyle. That’s us.”

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Intermarriage is Forbidden
Intermarriage between the two tribes is strictly forbidden—they even have their own Romeo-and-Juliet folktale.

Two mountain peaks named after ill-fated lovers Lang and Biang loom in the background, seemingly watching over as Rolan tells the tale. Lang, from the Chil, was walking through the forest when a snake frightened her. Biang, from the Lat, heard her cries and rushed to her rescue, killing the snake. They were instantly attracted to each other and despite the ban on intermarriage, wished to tie the knot. So they bade farewell to life among the tribes to live further in the hills.

But things took a turn for the worst when Lang became sick. Biang came down from the mountains to fetch medicine for her but was delayed when he became embroiled in a fight. By the time he returned, Lang was dead. In turn, the devastated lover ingested lethal herbs. Meanwhile both tribes, realising the young lovers could not survive in the mountains alone, searched for them only to stumble upon their dead bodies.