To Dong Hai
La Chi is among the smallest ethnoses in Vietnam with a population of only 7,800 (according to the 1989 statistical figure), residing largely in the provinces of Ha Giang (in some areas of Xin Man, Hoang Su Phi, Bac Quang... districts), and Lao Cai (in some areas of Muong Khuong and Bac Ha districts).
Bearing various ethnic names such as Tho den, Man, Xa or Cu Te (self- labelled), this ethnos has settled down in Vietnam from time immemorable, except for a small section with some descents having migrated from China not long ago. Therefore, many researchers have held that La Chi is an indigenous group.
With their tradition of practicing wet-rice farming on hill slopes, the people of La Chi have turned bare hills into fertile terraced fields irrigated by systems of water cannals built on hills and mountains.
With such stable production mode, the La Chi have early opted for sedentarization, building their hamlets on high-mountain slopes. Usually, each hamlet accomodates five to ten houses on stilts, with the ground floor being used as kitchen and the first floor for sleeping as well as other family activities. A house is built in three compartments with the first compartment for ancestral altar and the parents’ domicile, the middle compartment for worshipping and domicile by sons other than the eldest who stays in the end compartment. There is no separate bed rooms for girls who usually sleep on the floor of the lean-tos or the front compartment.
The La Chi house has only one door and a single staircase leading up into the house.
A La Chi hamlet is headed by a chief called “Kha Po”; and a big hamet is divided into various quarters, each of which is managed by a man called “Xeo Phai”. Several hamlets are grouped into a commune headed by a chief called “Ly Chang”. Kha Po, Xeo Phai and Ly Chang are considered belonging to the “upper class” in the society, who enjoy many privileges and special interests. Some of them have freed themselves from manual labour. Local people have to work as coolies for such local officials’ families, working the fields, reclaiming waste land, fetching firewoods or doing other housework.
Each La Chi line of descent has its own drum and several gongs which are kept in the house of a man called “Po mia nhu” who is in charge of the lineanage’s worshipping, and shall be put to use only for big linear rites or worshipping which is organized often in the seventh moon as the La Chi people’s biggest festival in the year like “Tet” (New Year Festival). On this occasion, each family nominates a person to bring rice, liquor, meat and a buffalo horn if the family has a member died in the year, to Po mia nhu’s house for worshipping their ancestors, inviting them back for “Tet” festival together with the descendants. In the evening of that day, such people have to stay at Po mia nhu’s house to watch over the drum and gongs. On the morning of the following day, Po mia nhu gives the drum and gongs to those people for organizing worships in their families by turns. When all families in the hamlet finish their worshippings before the 13th of the seventh moon, the drum and gongs shall be returned to Po mia nhu. On the evening of that day, all the hamlet inhabitants gather, singing, dancing, beating drums and gongs throughout the night or, in some places, for several nights.
The La Chi society and family are characterized by patriarchy, where all affairs are decided by men while women are only in inferior position. When parents die, the assets are divided equally among sons, with the parents’ house being given to the eldest son and a bigger share of land to the youngest because, to the La Chi people’s perception, the latter has to look after the graves of the entire family. Girls are not entitled to inherit their parents’ estate.
It is commonly seen in a La Chi house people of three generations living together, sharing their labor fruits and their meals. However, each nuclear family therein additionally undertakes to work one or several small plots of field and earn the proceeds therefrom for its own.
Monogamy has long been practiced by La Chi people whose customary law prohibits intralinear marriage, namely the marriage between people of the paternal blood line for under three generations. The brothers’ sons are not allowed to marry daughters of their sisters but the brothers’ daughters are allowed to marry sons of their sisters. Children of sisters are allowed to marry each other. A younger brother may get married with his sister-in-law when his elder brother dies but an elder brother is not allowed to marry his deceased younger brother’s wife. Also under the La Chi customary law, a man is prohibited from marrying a sister of his deceased wife. People of this ethnic group have strictly adhered to intragroup marriage. The marriage between La Chi and people of other ethnic groups is rarely seen.
Marriage is often arranged by parents. The match-maker (called “Po phi” in La Chi language) shall represent the bridegroom’s family in maintaining contacts with the bride’s family. In the bride-taking ceremony, there exists a custom that the bride’s family plans to tie up the bridegroom and the best men with a sheet of white cloth, but is pursuated not do so by the match maker. When the bride is taken out of her room, she pretends to fight back before giving herself up when a conical hat is put on her head. All such rituals seem to reflect the bride-snatching custom which once existed in the La Chi community.
Women give birth to their children on the ground floor or by the kitchen. When the first visitor enters a house where a child is newly born, he/she shall have to tie a thread around the newborn’s wrist and take the child as his/her foster child. The name-giving ceremony is held in a complicated manner. The child’s family shall worship the ancestors and have his/her name told through a rice-egg fortune-telling. After the name-giving ceremony, the mother shall carry her baby to her parents’ house and stay there for several days. If a newborn snivels, a rite must be organized to worship his/her goddess (called “mieng pho”) and conjure up his/her soul. At the same time they shall have to find the foster parents for the newborn. The foster parent is found in a very particular manner by placing a red thread on a bowl of water and waiting for the first visitor to enter the house who shall become the child’s foster parents, or by taking the baby out of the house and the first person they encounter on the road shall be the child’s foster parent. When grown up, the child often visit his/her foster parents.
A sick person, when at death’s door, will have his/her coffin prepared in advance only after the fortune-teller tells he/she has been haunted by the “hungry ghost”. The coffin is made in the forest and, when completed, must not be placed near the sick’s house for fear that his/her soul will go into the coffin first. It is customary that a handful of sticky rice is put into the coffin in order “to feed it”. The dead person is placed into the coffin in parallel with the house’s ridge beam. When buried, the coffin head turns to the mountain; the grave is heaped on in the pyramid form. Four stakes are planted at four corners of the grave, and another stake is planted about one meter from the grave, on which a bag shall be put, if the dead person is a male, or a conical hat, if the dead is a female. If the dead person is the father in the family, his dear shall take the bamboo sections from the family altar and tie them around such stake, then strike to death a dog and place it by the grave side to keep an eye on the dead’s house.
On the afternoon of the same day, the deceased’s children and relatives visit the grave and put into the bag a rice ball, several pieces of meat and a can of water as meal for the dead. This is done for three consecutive days, then the dead’s family shall prepare a tray of food to worship the dead.
Within 13 days after the funeral, the dead’s children and relatives have their meals by hands. On the morning of the 13th day they lead a buffalo around the grave three times then kowtow before the dead and pull up the four stakes at the four corners of the grave. When returning to their house, they plant a long bamboo with top at the back of their house and organize a worship to offer the buffalo to the dead.
Seven months or one year later, right on the death day, a buffalo- offering ritual (called “ni khung”) is organized and 12 pairs of bamboo stakes, if the dead’s soul has gone through three-grade ancestral altar worship, or six pairs, if the soul has just gone through two-grade altar worship, are planted at the foot of the grave.
There are many altars in a La Chi house: The ancestral altars of the father and sons in the family. The sons’ altars are placed lower than the father’s. The father in the family is entitled to the three-grade altar first, then the eldest son, the elder sons. Only married men are entitled to altar worship while the widowers are not.
The private ownership was established and recognized very early in the La Chi community. Therefore, thievery, burglary and infringement upon other people’s ownership are severely punished by La Chi customary law.
Though not written, the La Chi customary law has constituted a firm basis for this ethnic group to thrive. The study of such law turns out to be necessary so that good and proper provisions thereof can be applied to the building of a new cultural life for the La Chi people now.-