Viet Nam News
The Co Tu ethnic community has been struggling to preserve its culture and traditional customs that have mostly faded away with rapid urbanisation. This group lives in Ta Lang and Gian Bi villages of Hoa Bac Commune, situated in a vast valley between the two nature reserves of Bach Ma in Thua Thien-Hue and Ba Na-Nui Chua of Da Nang. The community is now trying to develop eco-tourism to revive its culture. Bui Hoai Nam reports
Phan Thi Thien, a 34-year-old woman belonging to the Co Tu ethnic group, recalls the pre-wedding customs practised by her people – when a pig is offered as a wedding gift by the groom’s family, and the bride’s family presents chicken or ducks to the groom’s for pre-wedding parties.
This is one of the rare customs that have been preserved by the Co Tu for the past two centuries – when the community settled in the area.
“My wedding’s offering from the groom’s family is one of the oldest traditional customs that our community has preserved. It’s a celebration of happiness for both families when relatives are invited to pre-wedding feasts,” Thien says.
“House on stilts, a symbolic accommodation of the Co Tu people, is no longer seen in the community now that brick walls and metal roofs have replaced traditional houses,” she says.
The Co Tu still speak their own language in daily life, but they have changed their lifestyle to look modern as the townfolk.
“Our village is 40km west of Da Nang City and with easy connectivity; we are very close to the people of the city. So the Co Tu can learn modern ways from them, says Thien.
She also says that the traditionally woven brocade costume and traditional dances are only seen once a year at the village’s festival in June when villagers have finished their crop cultivation.
Bui Van Cam, 85, head of Gian Bi Village, recalls that the first generation of the Co Tu set foot in the area some 200 years ago.
“A group of the Co Tu arrived from the mountainous Tay Giang District in Quang Nam Province to build new villages in the valley. Our community still adopted the traditional culture and customs in the new land, but they started fading from the late 1980s,” Cam says.
“Only the language has been preserved; the written word had disappeared long time ago. The Co Tu people stopped weaving ethnic clothes as industrial textiles became more fashionable and popular among the old and young alike,” says Cam, the eldest in the village.
The tan tung da da dance (to express gratitude to heaven) and gong play of the Co Tu are rarely hosted by the village anymore,” he says. He attributes it to poverty and unstable income to host traditional festivals regularly.
He recalls that traditional houses on stilts were built from big logs chopped down from the forest, and each village often built a guol (long communal house) for villagers to gather during festivals and meetings. The house was also meant for the spiritual protection of the community, he says.
Illegal logging in jungles to construct traditional houses is now banned, and almost all modern houses are built with State subsidy, says Cam.
Disappearance
The Co Tu people living in the two villages have adopted the family names of the Kinh (Vietnamese majority) people. The Dinh, Bui, Phan and Nguyen clans are popular in the community, but traditional family names such as Arat, A Tieng, Clau, B’h Riu or A Lang are not used anymore, as it is among the Co Tu community living in Quang Nam.
Bui Van Sieng, 70, from Gian Bi Village says the emigration of the Co Tu along the mountain range from Hai Van Pass in Da Nang and the lowland areas of neighbouring Quang Nam was a major reason for the disappearance of the traditional family names of the Co Tu.
“The Co Tu mixed freely with the Kinh people during the mass movement. Some women from the Co Tu community married Kinh men, and their children were given the father’s family name,” Sieng says.
“They (young generation) speak both Vietnamese and the Co Tu language. They also practise the traditional culture and farming methods of the Co Tu, as well as their means of communication, but they have the family names of the Kinh,” he says.
“It’s great intermingling of cultures, but a detailed research on the changes in the family names is yet to be done,” he says.
The wooden masks and sculptures on timber columns of the Co Tu are not seen in the newly built long house in Gian Bi Village.
Although spread over 10,000ha of prime forest – 30 per cent of the total 33,000ha of Hoa Bac Commune – the Co Tu people in Ta Lang and Gian Bi villages still live in poverty.
“Hoa Bac Commune has a population of some 4,000, of which more than 700 were Co Tu, living on an area of 33,000ha (95 per cent is native forest) with rich biodiversity. However, villagers of Ta Lang and Gian Bi, who live off poorly planned exploitation of livestock and forestry production, are still among the poorest in the commune,” says Thai Van Hoai Nam, deputy chairman of Hoa Bac communal people’s committee.
“The Co Tu people breed more than 1,000 buffaloes and cows, but they are left to graze on farms or the forest,” Nam says, adding that well-planned farms are yet to be built in the community.
“We have called for investments in hi-tech farms and organic agricultural businesses to improve the living standards of the Co Tu community. Making provision for eco-tour services will be a sustainable solution for the locals while easing forestry exploitation,” Nam says.
Dinh Van Nhu, 38, who is the party secretary of Gian Bi Village, says acacia farms have emerged as a positive occupation for more than 132 households, who are farming on 400ha and earning an average income of more than VND12 billion (US$530,000) after five years.
Nhu says residents also earned from Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES), getting VND100,000 ($4.4) per hectare a month.
“Some 81 households have joined the forest patrol teams to keep an eye on 5,000ha of primary forest. Some households have joined the ranger teams of the Ba Na-Nui Chua protective forest management board to raise awareness among the community about environmental conservation,” Nhu says.
The Co Tu man says that despite the hard work, villagers still live in poor conditions, earning an income of just VND1.2 million per month ($53).
He blames the unstable market price of acacia for the risk undertaken by the log farm owners, who are mostly from the Co Tu community.
“The price of a tonne of acacia wood sharply dropped from VND1.2 million in 2016 to VND970,000 ($43), while the labour and other production costs remained high. The labour often accounts for 50 per cent of the output cost, while saplings and fertilisers add to the production cost,” he explains.
Profitable crops, including coffee and pepper, must be planned for mass production in the area, he says.
Nhu says community-based tourism and eco-tour services will help villagers of Ta Lang and Gian Bi improve their living standards, while reviving their traditional culture.
The young Co Tu people can revive their culture by learning from the elderly and by conducting cultural activities and performances while serving the tourism sector, he says.
New way
Hoang Van Long from the Da Nang Institute of Socio-Economic Development says studies and programmes with support from international organisations have been undertaken to seek sustainable development for the Co Tu living in the two villages.
“The community-based tourism was started among the locals to raise their awareness about the need to protect the forests. They should understand the importance of the rich biodiversity of the Ba Na-Nui Chua nature reserve, thus preventing possible illegal logging and hunting in the forest,” Long says.
“If they can earn better from community-based and eco-tour services, they will give up exploitation of forestry products,” he adds.
He said the two villages are close to the Ba Na-Nui Chua nature reserve – which is one of the richest area in biodiversity in Da Nang City.
The locals can earn from the nature-based eco-tour services and by showcasing their traditional culture rather than logging or hunting illegally, according to Long.
Biologist Bui Van Tuan from the Da Nang-based Centre of Biodiversity Conservation, GreenViet, a NGO, says the Ba Na-Nui Chua nature reserve can be protected well with positive participation from the local community.
“They are the best guardians of forest and wildlife. They should understand that protecting the forest will bring them more benefits than destroying the nature and wildlife illegally,” Tuan says.
He says the nature reserve – 6km away from Ta Lang and Gian Bi villages – is home to a population of the red-shanked douc langur (Pygathryx nemaeus), an endangered primate recognised by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
A community-based tourism pilot project has been started in the two villages with the aim to revive the traditional ethnic culture.
A group of 40 villagers were called to set up teams to prepare their cuisine, perform dances and gong play, offer home-stays and serve as tour guides.
Dinh Xuan Hai, 27, who plays the drum, says he earns a living from masonry, but he could spare time to serve tourists.
“We offer gong and dance performances to tourists staying in our villages. We introduce them to our traditional culture, cuisine and nature,” he says, adding that providing tourism services will give him a stable income in the future.
Thien, who has also joined the dance team, says she could earn more from tourism than the acacia farm and livestock.
“It’s fine when we earn money from our traditional culture, at the same time preserving and boosting our culture,” she adds. — VNS