Presentation, origin
The Tày – Tho, reign over a vast portion of the Northeast, going from Quang Ninh to Lào Cai.
It is an indigenous people, its knowledge goes back to more than 1000 years, one finds some related to the Ly dynasty.
Food crops
Nowadays, the Tay cultivate mainly wet rice, with an appropriate irrigation system, it is their main food. For thousands of years, the Tay have cultivated aniseed, soya, cinnamon, tobacco, cotton, indigo, precious woods and tea. They have a lot of experience in the cultivation of bamboo which is used for construction and basketry. Animal husbandry is also developed, beef, buffalo, Nuoc horse, pig and poultry. They excel in fish farming and fishing.
The houses – the villages
Nestled at the foot of the mountains or on the banks of rivers, the Tày villages have an average of 15 to 20 houses, houses on stilts, surrounded by a stone wall and a ditch to protect them… from bandits! The roofs, with two or four slopes, are generally covered with leaves of latanier, tiles or thatch. The interiors are partitioned, the central place being reserved for the altar of the ancestors, a sacred place par excellence in front of which is laid out a bench on which it is forbidden to any person outside the household to sit.
The familly
Each couple must go through four rites: the reception of the son-in-law, the conduct of the bride to the groom, the engagement and the wedding. The customs are equally complex for the funeral ceremony.
The system of life is patriarchal, and the father of the family the central character.
The man and the son are always privileged by their position of first importance attributed by the family order.
The costumes
The Tay are satisfied with indigo-dyed cotton clothes.
The women wear a four-sided tunic, slit up to the armpit, and a silk belt tied behind the back with two ends floating freely. They wear a lot of silver jewelry: necklaces, bracelets, anklets.
The White Tày wear a headdress and a shirt in indigo, a blue belt and a necklace. The Black Tày wear a long skirt and a short shirt with silver buttons in the shape of a beehive.
Les croyances
Polytheists, the Tày show a devotion without equal.
They believe in celestial forces that guarantee them happiness and prosperity. As for repelling bad luck and evil spirits, they rely on Ma Hin, a sacred stone dog who is omnipresent among them.
Superstitions, taboos, the Tây are not lacking! Woe betide the one who would have the foolish idea to push a burning log with his foot to put it back in the hearth. Woe betide the one whose gaze would rest on a domestic animal while returning from a funeral ceremony…
They practice ancestor worship and devotions to the genies of the house, the kitchen and the goddess of childbirth.
L’art
The Tày have nothing to envy to the other ethnic groups. Because of a long cohabitation, they necessarily undergo the influence of the Kinh, which did not prevent them from developing a particular writing, the nôm-tày, inspired by Chinese characters.
Their culture is vast: poems, stories, legends, tales, Hát then (ritual singing), music.
The then songs are accompanied by the dàn tinh, a kind of lute with two strings, a round body and a long neck.
The “hat luon” song is a love duet.
