The Hong Bang Family
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-> myths-and-legends
| Wed, 02 Dec 2009 | viewed (112x)
King Minh [Chinese, Ming], a third generation offspring of Than Nong [Chinese, Shen Nong] or the Viem Da [Chinese, Yen Ti] clan, begot King Nghi [Chinese, Yi]. One day, as he was touring the South he met with the daughter of Immortal Lady Vu [Chinese, Wu ] in the Five Range Mountain and he married her. On coming home, she gave birth to Loc Tuc [Chinese, Lu Xu].
Tuc had a noble face, was intelligent and generous in nature. King Minh was delighted and wanted Loc Tuc to inherit his throne. Loc Tuc refused and asked that the honor be given to his brother. King Ming therefore made Nghi inherit his northern throne, invested Loc Tuc with the title of King of Kinh Duong [Chinese, Jing Yang] and made him rule the South, which became the country of Xich Quy ["Red Demons"].
The King of Kinh Duong had the gift of going underwater. He married the daughter of the Dragon King under Dongting Lake and begot Sung Lam, whose title was Dragon Lord of the Lac [People], to whom he left his throne. It was not known where the King of K inh Duong went after that. The Dragon Lord of the Lac taught the people agriculture and sericulture; he established the various ranks of officials and the ways of parents and children, husbands and wives. [He did it so well that] sometimes he would go ba ck to the Underwater World and the hundred name clans would still be at peace, unaware themselves of how that was done. When the people had some business [to solve] they would loudly call to their Dragon King: "Father, why aren't you here to save us?" T he latter would immediately appear, his sacred communion with the people was something that nobody could understand.
This story is worth examining for several reasons. First, this myth contains much more detail than most other Vietnamese myths. Secondly, the clear explanation of the lineage of Loc Tuc, the first king of the south, is reminiscent of the concise genealog ies found in the Bible in Genesis. This may be a Chinese influence, for the Chinese love lineages, real or putative, but one should also note that many of the names are given in the Vietnamese word order: De Minh (King Minh) , Than Nong (God of Agricultu re), and De Nghi (King Nghi) rather than Minh De, Nong Than, and Nghi De, which would be the normal Chinese word order. The title of this tale, "The Hong Bang Family," further reinforces this Chinese-influenced effort to trace back as far as possible the lineage of the Vietnamese people. Hong and Bang are two eagle-like mythological birds figuring prominently in the very earliest Vietnamese religious beliefs, beliefs which were totemic. By giving their myth of origin such a title, the Vietnamese are si gnalling their intent to prove that their history is at least as long as China's.
Thirdly, the very first myth of Vietnam is a political myth; it clearly divides the north, associated with the Chinese, and the south, associated with the Vietnamese. But more than that, it asserts an irreconcilable cultural difference: Loc Tuc, as the K ing of Kinh Duong, i.e. the south, "had the gift of going underwater," which allowed him to marry the daughter of the Dragon King, traditionally the lord of the Water World. In this way Loc Tuc differed from his northern father and half-brother Nghi. No rtherners, especially Chinese, have traditionally been perceived as coming from the inland, the mountains, who were afraid of the sea. Finally, this myth asserts that Sung Lam is the Dragon Lord of the Lac People: thus the name of the ancestral tribe of the Vietnamese is given as the Lac, a tribe thought to be related to the Lolo of modern times.
In the generation of Sung Lam, the Dragon Lord of the Lac, the North was ruled by King Lai, the son of King Nghi. One day, Lai left the kingdom to the care of others and headed south to visit the sights. At one point he left his wife Au Coo the Princess of Au (or maybe, of the Au, name of a tribe) , and her attendants in one of his temporary palaces and went into the woods, forgetting to return. Because he left his realm unattended,
... the southern people suffered depredations from the northern people, they were not allowed to live in peace as they used to, so they called on the Dragon King: "Father, where are you, why do you let the northern people harass and attack us, your people ?" The Dragon King suddenly appeared, and what he saw was Au Co with her fantastically beautiful features. He felt glad in his heart and transformed himself into a very handsome young man, accompanied right and left by numerous attendants who sang and b eat on their drums as they went. Palaces rise up out of nowhere. Au Co willingly followed the Dragon King, and he hid her at the Dragon Platform Rock.
When King Lai came back from his wanderings, Au Co was no longer there. He sent out parties in every direction but because his uncle the Dragon King had the capability of "changing himself into all kinds of shapes, from devils to demons, dragons and snak es, tigers and elephants, he scared away all the search parties, which dared not venture too far." Then follows the narration of how King Lai's descendants lost their throne, ending the line of Shen Nong in China. The story goes back to the Dragon King a nd Au Co:
The Dragon King took Au Co for wife and she bore him a bagful [of eggs]. Considering this to be an ill omen, he had the bag thrown away in the field. After six or seven days, however, out of the bag hatched one hundred eggs and out of each egg was a boy ; only then were they brought home to be raised. These boys needed no breast-feeding or mouth-feeding, they just naturally grew up into fantastically handsome young men, blessed each one of them with great mind and courage. Everybody respected them, thi nking they were an unusual breed auguring well [for the country].
But as the Dragon King liked to stay long in the Underwater World, his wife and children yearned to go north. When they got to the frontier Huang Ti [the Chinese Emperor] heard about it, he got scared and had troops sent out to hold the pass. Unable to proceed further, Au Co and her children came back south and called out to the Dragon King: "Father, where are you, why are you leaving us alone, unprotected so that day and night we are in this terrible plight?" The Dragon King at once appeared and they met at Tuong [Chinese, Xiang]. Au Co said: "I originally came from the north and after living with you, I bore you one hundred sons. You left me and did not raise the children with me, and I became like a widow. All I could do was to pity myself." The Dragon King answered: "I am of the dragon breed, the king of the aquatic breeds; you are an immortal living on land, and though we have children born of the combination of yin and yang elements we are, like fire and water, not meant for each other, we ar e different breeds. I am afraid our union cannot last, we must now separate. I will take fifty boys with me down to the Underwater World and divide it up for them to rule, let the other fifty follow you on land and you can divide the land up for them to rule. Though we may go up to the mountains or down to the sea, if anything happens we should let each other know. Don't forget." The one hundred children obeyed, said farewell to one another and parted.
Au Co and her fifty sons went up to Phong Chau. The sons established their suzerainties and vassalities while they raised the eldest son to be their king with the dynastic name of Hung Vuong and they called their country Van Lang.
The story concludes by recounting the extent of the Van Lang country, its 15 subdivisions (with their names), the feudal system obtained under the Hung kings, the division of officials' ranks into military and civilian ranks, the names of ranks correspond ing to princes and princesses within the royal family, and the establishment of a patriarchal system of royal succession. The myth provides a long listing of the various customs associated with the ancestral Vietnamese, including the custom of tattooing one's body and that of "ploughing with knives and growing [plants? rice?] using fire," clearly a reference to the slash-and-burn method of the present-day highlanders of Vietnam. "Thus," the story ends, "the hundred sons [of Au Co and the Dragon King] ar e the ancestors of the Hundred Viet [tribes]."
Several observations are in order here. The last sentence of the story shows that the story of Lac Long Quan, the Dragon King of the Lac, and of Au Co is not merely the story of the one tribe or group that eventually became the present-day Vietnamese. R ather, the story purports to tell the ancestral story of all the Viet groups (the Hundred Viet) in the area corresponding to southern China and present-day northern Vietnam. The names given to the 15 subdivisions of Van Lang should be seen also in this l ight. The direct ancestors of the present-day Vietnamese, however, can claim to be primi inter pares since it is recorded that the capital apparently was established at Phong Chau, in the vicinity of present-day Tam Dao in northern Vietnam, and th at the first Hung king was established here. Many of the customs given as identifying the Viets show them to be very much like the modern-day Thai minorities of northern Vietnam with a good number given to fishing and diving, possibly for pearls, hence t he custom of body-tattooing. (Ancient Vietnamese pearl-divers used to tattoo themselves with all sorts of phantasmagoric figures in the hope of scaring away sea monsters they feared to encounter in the waters.) This, incidentally, gives a possible interp retation of Van Lang, the name of the country, as "[Country of the] Tattooed People" -- which bears out the earlier name of Xich Quyt "[Country of the] Red Demons."
But the most contemporary note sounded in this Vietnamese myth of origin is its mention of divorce, or at least separation; the first that we have in Vietnamese history. Thus is destroyed the stereotypic view that divorce is almost unknown among Vietnamese.
