Vietnamese in the ancient time
1. Origin of the Vietnamese people
Scholars have been constructing many hypotheses on the origin of the
Vietnamese people. Some believed that Vietnamese belonged to a group of
"Bach Viet" (one hundred clans of Viet) living in a wide region
spreading from the delta of the Yang-tse kiang river to the South - south of
China nowadays. One of them was the Lac Viet clan whose people practiced fishing
and often went over to the sea. Each year, when the north wind came and blew
south they crossed the sea to the southern side and sometimes reached the
Indonesian islands. In their trips they got acquainted with a kind of bird named
"Lac" - a kind of swan - and made it their totem. Their choice
explained the name Lac Viet attributed to their clan. Around 333 BC, when
Chinese invaded the area south of the Yang-tse-kiang river, the Lac Viet clan
migrated to the South and settled in the area where the Melanesians were living
and built up their nation, which has become Vietnam.
The hypothesis that Vietnamese were "children of the dragon and grand
children of the fairy" has always been cherished by the Vietnamese people
through centuries. It based its logic on myths, legends and folklore transmitted
from generation to generation. A great number of historians and writers in the
past backed this hypothesis in their research and writing. According to it, the
Vietnamese took their origin from a bag of one hundred eggs born out by Au Co, a
fairy married to a dragon, Lac Long Quan, the king of the Under-sea. The couple
was separated sometime after their marriage, and Au Co led their fifty sons to
the upland where they built a new nation according to the legend mentioned
earlier. Those people were the ancestors of the Vietnamese.
2. Social structure and characteristics of ancient Vietnam
The ancient Vietnamese society was matrilineal and without class. The groom
dwelt with his wife's family. Kinh Duong Vuong once married to Long Nu -
princess of the under-sea -- had to live with his wife in the under-water
kingdom. Lac Long Quan, their son, lived with his mother. When he married Au Co,
he would have had to live with her at her dwelling on land according to the
custom. But he didn't have this intention so Au Co had to leave him and led half
of their children away.
The ancient society was without class; there were no masters nor slaves. The
relation between its people was the kinship relation. A system of extended
family had been applied and sustained over centuries, from the time the
Vietnamese people still lived in tribes to the time they built a nation. They
called each other by the role in the family, such as grandfather and
grandmother, father and mother, uncle and aunt, brother and sister, even when
they didn't belong to the same line of blood. This is a custom that did not
exist in other societies.
3. Customs and practice
Ancient Vietnamese used to decorate their body either by painting or
tattooing. They were fishermen and had to dive deep into the sea to catch fishes
or to look for marine foods. They were often attacked by submarine monsters and
complained it to King Hung who advised them to decorate their body so as to make
them similar to the monsters' coat and, by doing so, to avoid their attacks.
From this time the practice of decorating the body began and ended only in the
year 1299 AD under the Tran dynasty.
Ancient Vietnamese had their hair cut short, probably to allow them swimming
and living more easily in the sea. They wore short garment with the flap closing
to the left, but during festival time they wore a hat made of feathers and a
long skirt decorated with strips hanging in the bottom and danced.
Their houses were constructed on piles with the ridge of the roof curved and
projected out of the gable on each side. The top of the houses were decorated
with figures of birds. Their boats were long and a little curved with the front
part raising high and decorated with the head of a bird.
4. Concluding remarks
According to the legends, the old Vietnam territory spread farther to the
North into the delta of the Yang-tse-kiang river. This nation was called Xích
Qui and its ruler was Kinh Duong Vuong, the father of Lac Long Quan. They later
moved south and built a new country named Væn Lang with King Hung the first,
the eldest son of Lac Long Quan and also the founder of the Vietnamese nation.
The dynasty of Hong Bàng marked a period for the tribe "Lac Viet" to
gather and prosper. Those people hold firmly their territory and fight back
against any invasion from China. Although the Chinese domination had taken place
over one thousand years, it could not subdue them. They continued their own
culture and many times rose up against the Chinese administration until the time
they got rid of this domination in the year 939 AD in a decisive battle on the
Bach ñ¢ng river. The history of Vietnam has long been a history of struggle
with the Chinese imperialism, a two-pronged struggle, to avoid annexation and to
avoid acculturation.
Today, on the tenth of the third month of the lunar year, Vietnamese
celebrate the anniversary of death of King Hung to bestow their gratitude to an
ancestor who had educated them and saved them from the threat of extermination
from outside invaders.
The ancient folklore of country promote the value of relationships within the
family, between fathers and sons, between brothers and sisters, and between
husbands and wives. People placed sacrificed their individual rights for the
common harmony. Loc Tuc gave up his thrown for the benefit of his elder brother.
Au Co was separated with her husband but still kept intact love and feeling. To
compare this value to many legendary tales of other countries that are full of
hatred and killing within family, one must acknowledge their positive effects on
the people.
On the psychological side, the legend of King Hung and folk-tales served as a
strong support for the Vietnamese people to get over the complex of being
treated as uncivilized as the Chinese often foisted to their neighboring
countries. The Vietnamese took their origin from a dragon - the leading of the
four sacred animals - and a fairy symbolized by the bird they chose as their
totem - a bird called "Lac" or "Hong", a kind of swan or sea
bird, whose familiar figure decorated their dwelling.
Even though the legend of King Hung might sometimes be deemed as fictional
story transmitted orally over centuries and subjected to possible distortions,
it could at least help the Vietnamese to better understand their ancestors. At
least, the strong will of their ancestors to overcome the threat of Chinese
acculturation merits to be engraved for ever into their collective memory.
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