I was chatting with a group of Brâu people in a village in the northernmost area of the Central Highlands. We sit by the flickering fire and drank Can wine (wine drunk out of a jar through tubes). The Brâu ethnic group has a population of only 499, most living in Dak Me village and the rest in Iec and Ta Ka villages. These villages are in Bo Y commune, Ngoc Hoi district, Kon Tum province close to the Vietnam-Laos border.

A flickering fire on the border area

Artist Thao Pam is said to be more than 130 years old now. He is a rare elder of the Brâu people in Dak Me. He recalled the time when the Brâu lived in high mountainous areas.

“We used the slash and burn cultivation method. We celebrated the new crop every year by the flickering fire in our communal house. This is our traditional Tet or Lunar New Year festival," he said with a touch of sadness.

“With the help of border-guards and local authorities, we were relocated here in 1979. I am old now but still want to climb up the ladder to our stilted house. Now, I have no chance to tie a wine jar to the house pillar and sit under the high roof listening to the wind whisper through the bamboo wall”. He seemed lost in this memory.

The older and middle-aged people in Dak Me village all pierce their ears and wear earrings made of Lo O bamboo, silver, bronze and ivory. In the eyes of the Brâu people, larger ear piercings are more beautiful. According to Nang Blo, another village elder, some children also have their ears pierced early when they are one or two years old. They then expand the hole by pushing a Lo O pipe through it.

“In the past, they did not wear Lo O but ivory earrings,” said Nang Blo, adding that Brâu women also wear silver bracelets and anklets.

During the war, the Brâu moved deep into the forest to avoid the bombings. The practice of group and child marriage slowed down development and population growth rates. In the past, Brâu men and women had their bodies and faces tattooed and their teeth filed. Nowadays, these customs are gone.

At dusk, artist Thao La brought us to his home to show their precious gongs. The Brâu gongs are called Tha.

“My father exchanged 20 buffaloes for this 6-piece gong set,” said Thao La. “He had to go to the Lao province of Attapeu and asked a friend for help. Only the Brâu have Tha gongs, while other ethnic groups like Xo Dang, J’Rai and Bahnar have other types.”

Tha gongs look like other types. However, they resonate even with a slight touch because it is made of bronze mixed with silver or gold. Tha gongs are only used in traditional festivals such as new rice, grave-hut removal and buffalo killing ceremonies. They are hung along the communal house and played by 20 to 30 artists. Village elders select gifted children and teach them to play the Tha when they are very small.

Gala night in the Central Highlands

At nightfall Thao La and several young men and women from the village took some jars of wine to the communal house where they are seated around the Can wine jars by the fire talking to us in Vietnamese while drinking and smoking tobacco pipes. After a while, they began to dance to the company of the Tha music echoing through the wild forest.

The preparations for a Brâu couple to get married are somewhat similar to those observed by other ethnic Vietnamese couples. First of all, the groom must find a match-maker. After that they will go to the bride’s house, bringing along a chicken and a pig. The wedding is held at the bride’s house. The groom should give his bride’s family gongs, cooking pots, baskets, dossers (special carrying bags), earrings and even pigs or a buffalo.

The wedding is a village festival where villagers drink and sing through the night to give their best wishes to the young married couple. The bride and the groom will eat together. While eating they serve each other to show their sentiment, then go out to greet the villagers.

After marriage, the groom will live with the bride’s family from 2 to 5 years. After this period, the groom’s family will hold the Po nga ceremony to worship the bride’s ancestors. After that, the girl will officially become their daughter-in-law.

After a person dies, all villagers will come to his house to drink, dance and strike the gongs for 2-3 days and even 4-5 days to say goodbye to the dead. The dead is buried in a special way. Only half of the coffin is buried. Around the grave, villagers dig four deep holes to prevent the ghost from returning to the village. They build a miniature house on the fresh grave and put many jars, gongs, dossers, axes and cross-bow in it. In the past, they kept these things intact. Now they smash or chip them to show that the family is now broken.

Before saying goodbye to the dead, the villagers will mix wine in chicken blood and sprinkle it around the grave. They throw pieces of chicken liver around it and sing songs to comfort the dead and entreat them not to come back to the village to take others with them.”

Dak Me village now looks like a small street in the green forest, with poverty and backwardness almost non-existent. A festival of ethnic minority culture was recently held by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Dong Mo cultural and tourism area in Hanoi. That was an opportunity for Brâu men and women to perform their shows and gain access to the outside world. They now have a chance to improve their living standards while preserving local customs and traditions.