To Dong Hai
With a population of some 400 people now residing largely in some communes in Dong Van, Yen Minh and Meo Vac districts of Ha Giang province, Pu Peo was among the first to have settled down in this region.
The Pu Peo people, who speak Tay - Thai language, grow glutinous rice, long-grain rice and barley on terraced fields as their main economic activity. They have practiced intensive farming and inter-cropping techniques since their early days. Since time immemorial, the people of this ethnic group have led a sedentary life in quarters, each accommodating four to five houses used to be on stilts, but now earthen-constructed.
Marriage has been strictly stipulated by Pu Peo customary laws fully with the parental arrangement, monogamy and patrilocality. (Except where the bride’s family has no son, the groom can stay matrilocally). Marriage between people of the same blood line is strictly forbidden, being considered incest as are the marriages between boys and girls of two different descents or between people of two different generations.
Marriage between cousins is not popular. A sister’s sons can marry her brothers’ daughters but a brother’s sons are not allow to marry his sisters’ daughters while the marriage between children of sisters is permitted because they are considered being of different lines of descent when they bear their fathers’ family names.
Under the Pu Peo customary laws, widowers can marry their deceased wives’ sisters if they so agree and widows can marry brothers of their deceased husbands provided that they have had no children with their previous husbands. Yet, such laws forbid the marriages between two brothers and two sisters.
From time immemorial, the intra-clan marriage was once upheld among the Pu Peo community, which is no longer valid now, with Pu Peo boys and girls having married people of other ethnic groups.
The wedding ceremony once practiced by Pu Peo people was very complicated through different rites.
First, the marriage-proposing rite, called “xe tham pu” (meaning visiting the brides), for which the match-maker, called “mri”, brought presents including a pack of sticky rice wrapped in phrynium parvillorum leaves and an even sum of money to the girl’s family. The acceptance of such presents would mean that the girl’s family agrees to the marriage proposal.
Second, the betrothal engagement rite, called “kham chung”, which was organized on a date not long after the “xe tham pu” fixed by the two families. On that day, the match-maker and his assistant brought to the girl’s family the plighting presents including sticky rice, meat, red cloth, a pair of bowls, a string of glass beads and a pair of bracelets, which were all put into a bamboo basket. The girl’s family accepted the presents, putting them on the ancestral altar for worshipping the forefathers and informing them that the daughter was going to be married to other person. During this rite, the match-maker also distributed money to the girl’s senior relatives from the rank of elder brothers and sisters upward, among them the girl’s parents and uncles would receive larger sums. The sum of money used as engagement presents must be even. From then on, the groom’s family would, on such festive occasions as the new year festival, the new rice festival, bring offerings to the bride’s family.
Third, the pre-bride greeting rite, called “xe xa”, for which the match-maker again had to hand over to the girl’s family two baskets of presents including offerings like in the engagement rite. After such presents and money were accepted by the girl’s family, the girl would belong to the groom’s family.
Fourth, the wedding ceremony which would be organized on the date named by the groom’s family. On that day, the groom’ family sent a delegation comprising the even number of people (14 or 16) to greet and take the bride home, carrying four baskets of sticky rice plus one basket for their meal on the way, two meters of red cloth, one string of glass beads, a pair of bowls and a roaster to the bride’s house. Meanwhile, the bride’s family arranged tables in front of the house’s door, on which alcohol and water are served. Upon the arrival of the groom’s delegation, the bride’s family invited the guests to drink alcohol and water and started exchanging love songs with the bride-taking delegation until the evening before the bride’s family agreed to open the door to invite the groom’s family in. The groom’s people placed offerings before the ancestral altar of the bride’s family; then the match- maker again offered presents and money to the bride’s parents and relatives, particularly to her mother who would be given an extra sum for having given birth to and brought her up.
In the morning of the next day, the young couple started worshipping the ancestors, kowtowing before the family altar. Later, a bridesmaid carried the bride on her back through the house gate and the groom’s delegation greeted and took her to her in-laws’. According to Pu Peo traditional customs, on the first day in her husband’s house, the bride, the groom and other members of her in-law family ate rice and food served on a flat and large winnowing basket with their fingers. Later, the newly wed made several re-visits on odd days such as the 3rd, the 7th, the 13th… to the bride’s parents. After each childbirth, the girl had to organize ancestral worshipping before entering her parents’ house.
When giving birth to a child, a woman is confined to her own room. The infant’s placenta is either put into a bamboo section for burial under the bed or wrapped with a piece of old rush mat for hanging on a tree branch in a forest. A name-giving rite shall be held three days after the birth of a girl or five days after the birth of a boy. According to Pu Peo custom, a person shall be given two names. The infant name, called “ni lac”, is given by the parents and used in the family. Such name must not be coincident with the name of any member in the descent. The second name is given when the child grows up, which is called “ni su.”
It is customary that when the father or the mother died, the worshipping jars shall be put slantingly on the altar; the coffin is placed in the middle compartment; food is cooked on tripods made temporarily in the middle compartment with rocks. When the corpse is laid in the house, the trancer read worshipping prays, recalling the ethnos’s history. Before the dead body is carried off for burial, a worshipping pray is read to see off the dead’s soul back to the ethnos’s native place.
After the coffin is carried off into jungle, the grave shall be dug. After the coffin is lowered into the grave, the eldest son of the deceased will step on the top of the coffin, kneeling down and kowtowing, then hoes twice on both sides of the grave before pounding the hoe on the coffin lid; then the younger brother of the deceased and a representative of the family line will do exactly the same. Placed on the grave are three rocks at the head, in the middle and at the end of the tomb. When returning home from the burial services, the participants shall build a fire on the yard, boiling water to wash their hands and feet before entering the house. Shovels and hoes used for digging the grave must be left in the animal stables for three days before they are brought into the house. Like people of many other ethnic groups, the Pu Peo fear that the dead person’s soul would return home and harm people in the family.
Also according to the Pu Peo customs, children shall not get married when they are in mourning for their parents for three years. The customary law of this ethnic group respect the private ownership of property and severely punish those who infringe upon the property of other people.
Though with a small population, this ethnos has preserved its cultural identity through it ages-old customs, practices and customary laws, which all have constituted a firm foundation for strengthening this ethnic community in the past and also for its development as well as building its own culture at present.