TL;DR: The Phù Lá are one of Vietnam's 54 recognised ethnic groups, with three main local groups: Phù Lá Lão (Bồ Khô Pạ), Phù Lá Đen and Phù Lá Hán, living mainly in Hà Giang, Lào Cai, Yên Bái and Lai Châu. Their language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group, closer to Burmese. They worship male and female ancestors separately, celebrate Lunar New Year plus the fifth-month, seventh-month and new-rice festivals, and hold a village ceremony each second lunar month.
Who are the Phù Lá people and how many are there?
The Phù Lá are one of the 54 ethnic groups recognised in Vietnam, per the List of Ethnic Components issued with Decision No. 121-TCTK/PPCD dated 2 March 1979. According to the Survey of 53 Ethnic Minorities of 1 April 2019, there were 12,471 Phù Lá people. Earlier, the 2009 Population and Housing Census recorded 10,944.
The Phù Lá call themselves Lao Va Xơ, Bồ Khô Pạ, Phù Lá. Other names formerly used include Xá Phó and Cần Thin. In the List of Ethnic Components, the Phù Lá are also recorded under the names Bồ Khô Pạ (Xá Phó), Mun Di Pạ, Phù Lá Đen, Phù Lá Hoa, Phù Lá Trắng, Phù Lá Hán, and Chù Lá Phù Lá.
It is important to distinguish clearly: Phù Lá Lão, Phù Lá Đen and Phù Lá Hán are local groups within the Phù Lá ethnic group, not three separate ethnic groups.
Where do the Phù Lá live?
According to the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (cema.gov.vn), the Phù Lá live concentrated in Tuyên Quang province (formerly Hà Giang), Lào Cai province (formerly Yên Bái) and Lai Châu province. The Government's List of Ethnic Components also records the Phù Lá's residence area as Lào Cai, Lai Châu, Sơn La and Hà Giang.
These two sources do not fully match on the list of provinces (one records Yên Bái, the other Sơn La), showing that recorded residence areas can differ by time and survey scope. A reasonable reading is that the Phù Lá live in the northwest and northern mountainous region, most concentrated in Hà Giang, Lào Cai and Lai Châu.
In terms of settlement form, Phù Lá villages are often far from their swidden fields. Phù Lá Lão households tend to live scattered in small clusters, while other groups live more concentrated. Depending on the place, the Phù Lá live in stilt houses or ground-level houses. Rice granaries are usually grouped in one area away from the house to prevent fire.
Which language family does Phù Lá belong to?
Phù Lá belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group, within the Sino-Tibetan family, and according to the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs it is closer to Burmese. This is notable because most ethnic groups in Vietnam's northwest speak languages from other families.
Some Phù Lá in Mường Khương, Bắc Hà and Xín Mần districts traditionally used Chinese characters and treated southern Chinese as a daily communication tool. This reflects the long cultural contact of the Phù Lá Hán group with the Chinese script environment in the region.
How does the historical origin of the Phù Lá groups differ?
According to the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, the Phù Lá Lão - Bồ Khô Pạ group were relatively early inhabitants of Vietnam's northwest. Other groups arrived later, roughly 200 to 300 years ago. The integration process of the Phù Lá Hán group continued until the 1940s.
This difference in settlement timing partly explains why the Phù Lá groups differ in clothing, customs and settlement organisation, though they belong to one ethnic group.
Production and economic life
The Phù Lá work swidden fields and terraced rice fields. Their woven rattan and bamboo products with many patterns and colours, such as containers for clothes and food, are recorded as famous. They are familiar with crossbows, poison-tipped arrows, cotton growing, cloth weaving, and spinning with a slider.
The Phù Lá Lão group still maintains cotton growing and cloth weaving to meet the family's clothing needs. Women use time at home to card cotton, and spin thread even while walking to the fields.
For transport, the Phù Lá Lão - Bồ Khô Pạ group carry baskets with a forehead strap. By contrast, the Phù Lá Hán and Phù Lá Đen carry baskets on their backs or use pack horses.
For food, the Phù Lá pound rice daily with a hand pestle, eat plain rice twice a day in the early morning and evening, suited to swidden farming. Sticky rice dishes are used in offerings and cakes. Sticky rice with fish and meat dishes marinated with ground roasted rice, chilli, herbs and grilled meat are favourites.
What is special about traditional clothing?
Women's clothing differs between groups. Women of the Phù Lá Lão - Bồ Khô Pạ group wear skirts, short pullover shirts with square collars, both embroidered and decorated with beads, and belts studded with mountain snail shells. Other groups wear trousers, long shirts split at the chest, or short shirts split at the armpit.
The shirt of Phù Lá Lão men is recorded as unique, with many beads attached at the back. The shirt has no buttons, usually only the hem is crossed to tighten the body before tucking into the waistband. Phù Lá men and women often carry cloth bags.
Social relations and clan organisation
Neighbourly relations are the dominant relationship in Phù Lá villages. During harvest days, families in the village often exchange labour and eat dinner together with the host. When a family has a major event such as a wedding, house building or funeral, they receive help from other village members.
A village has many different surnames, each divided into several branches. Besides surnames with Han, Sino-Vietnamese, Vietnamese and Thai sounds, there are also separate surnames in the ethnic language. Traces of totem worship in clans are especially clear in the Phù Lá Lão group. According to the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, Phù Lá clan relations are not very tight.
Marriage and childbirth according to custom
Phù Lá boys and girls are free to court before marriage. In the evening, unmarried boys and girls gather to play at a friend's house and sleep in the guest room reserved for unmarried people. If they love each other, the boy may sleep with his sweetheart. After several nights, if both are truly satisfied, the girl returns to sleep at her own home, then at night her lover comes to sleep with her. Then come the usual proposal, asking and wedding ceremonies.
At weddings there is a custom of drinking wine and singing alternating verses to be allowed into the house to receive and escort the bride to the groom's and bride's homes. There is a custom of splashing dirty water and smearing soot on the faces of the groom's party before they leave, along with a return-visit custom 12 days after the wedding.
For childbirth, the mother gives birth in a sitting position. She may not sleep on the bed but must sleep on a straw mat. The placenta is buried under the bed or at the foot of a pillar under the floor, on the sleeping room side. After birth, the family avoids strangers entering the house for 3 days, marked by a conical hat placed upside down on a post in front of the door or a blackened post with leaves stuck outside the door. The naming ceremony is held 12 days after birth, led by a shaman. Each person is given two names, one used only to report to ancestors or in death rituals.
What is distinctive about Phù Lá worship customs?
A notable point in Phù Lá worship is the separate worship of male and female ancestors. Male ancestors are worshipped to bless health, while female ancestors bless crops. The new-rice ceremony is mainly offered at the female ancestor altar, represented by women, and women in the house eat first.
This division shows the role of women in the agricultural religious life of the Phù Lá. This is a difference from many other ethnic groups in the region, where worship is usually led by men.
In addition, the Phù Lá perform many agricultural rituals in fields. A new fishing net must also pass a ritual before use. Shamans hold an important position in society and are usually taught orally during the first-month and seventh-month Tet.
Festivals and main Tet occasions
The Phù Lá celebrate Lunar New Year, the fifth-month and seventh-month Tet, and the new-rice Tet. The village ceremony is usually held in the second lunar month each year.
The table below summarises the main festivals according to the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs:
| Occasion | Time | Main features |
|---|---|---|
| Lunar New Year | Start of the lunar year | The biggest Tet, also when shamans are taught orally |
| Village ceremony | Second lunar month yearly | A communal ceremony of the village |
| Fifth-month Tet | Fifth lunar month | One of the main Phù Lá Tet occasions |
| Seventh-month Tet | Seventh lunar month | A Tet tied to the harvest, also when shamans are taught |
| New-rice ceremony | Harvest season | Offered at the female ancestor altar, represented by women, women eat first |
Arts, games and spiritual life
The Phù Lá folk literature treasury is recorded as rich, with many fairy tales very close to Vietnamese motifs. The Phù Lá use horns and drums. Boys and girls enjoy singing love duets. The Phù Lá Lão group also know the xoe dance in the sound of Thai folk melodies.
Phù Lá children enjoy swings, shuttlecock, hide and seek, grass fighting and spinning tops. At festivals and Tet, even adults join the games with a manner described as very innocent.
The hearth is the centre of family life in the stilt house. When moving into a new house, the first and very sacred act is to light the fire and keep the flame on the hearth.
Why distinguish local groups from ethnic groups?
In writing about Vietnam's ethnic groups, distinguishing between an ethnic group and a local group is an important principle. The List of Ethnic Components of Vietnam recognises exactly 54 ethnic groups. Names such as Phù Lá Lão, Phù Lá Đen and Phù Lá Hán are local groups within the Phù Lá ethnic group, not separate ethnic groups.
This understanding helps avoid two common errors: first, splitting a local group into a separate ethnic group; second, merging groups with different cultural features into one uniform block. Differences between Phù Lá groups in clothing, transport or settlement are cultural differences within one ethnic group, not better or worse, right or wrong.
The Phù Lá in the wider picture of ethnic minorities
According to Nhân Dân newspaper on Vietnam's ethnic communities, the 53 ethnic minorities make up about 14.6% of the national population. Ethnic minorities often live in communities, interwoven with each other and with the Kinh. Ethnic minorities are mainly in high mountainous, border, remote and far areas, concentrated in the northern mountains, Central Highlands, North Central and South Central coasts, and the Mekong Delta.
In that context, the Phù Lá are among the groups with a modest population, living in the northern mountains. The traditional cultural values of many ethnic minorities, including the Phù Lá, are affected by socio-economic development, urbanisation and integration. Recording, studying and preserving cultural values such as language, clothing, worship customs and festivals is long-term meaningful work.
