Who are the Tay and how many of them are there?
The Tay are one of the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam and are currently the country's largest ethnic minority. According to the 1 April 2019 Survey of 53 Ethnic Minorities, the Tay population is 1,845,492. The 2009 Population and Housing Census recorded 1,626,392, showing natural population growth over one decade.
The Tay have another name, Tho. A clear distinction is needed: this is an alternative name for the Tay in certain historical contexts, and it is not the same as the Tho ethnic group (a separate group living mainly in Nghe An and Thanh Hoa in the list of Vietnam's ethnic groups).
The Tay's local groups include Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, and Pa Di. These are groups within the same ethnic group, not separate ethnic groups.
Where do the Tay live?
The Tay live in the valleys of the northeastern provinces, stretching from Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, Lang Son, Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Thai Nguyen, Ha Giang, and Tuyen Quang to Lao Cai and Yen Bai. They traditionally live in crowded villages, some with hundreds of households.
The list of Vietnam's ethnic groups published by the Government Portal also records the Tay's residence as including Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Cao Bang, Lai Chau, Bac Thai, and Ha Bac. This listing reflects administrative boundaries at the time the list was made, so province names differ from current names.
The traditional Tay house is a stilt house, with a frame built in a 4, 5, 6, or 7-row column style. The house has 2 or 4 roofs, covered with tiles, thatch, or palm leaves. The surrounding walls are made of wooden planks or bamboo panels.
Why do the Tay choose valleys?
The Tay are agricultural people with a tradition of wet rice farming. They have long practiced intensive cultivation and widely applied irrigation methods such as digging canals, building water flumes, building weirs, and making water scoops to irrigate fields. Valley terrain suits this wet rice farming and is convenient for establishing concentrated villages.
They traditionally thresh rice in the field on wooden troughs called loong, then carry the grain home with baskets. Besides wet rice, the Tay also grow dry rice, crops, and fruit trees. Animal husbandry is developed with many kinds of livestock and poultry, but free-range raising is still fairly common. Family handicrafts receive attention, most famously brocade weaving with many beautiful and unique patterns. Markets are an important economic activity.
What is special about the Tay language and script?
The Tay language belongs to the Tay-Thai language group in the Thai-Kadai family. In terms of script, the Tay have two notable periods.
Tay Nom script was built on pictographic characters, close to Vietnamese Nom, and appeared around the 15th century. It was used to record poetic stories, songs, and worship texts. This script is tied to the Tay's traditional literature and rituals.
The Tay-Nung script based on the Latin alphabet appeared in 1960 and existed until the mid-1980s. It was once used in primary schools in areas where Tay and Nung people lived.
The coexistence of an ancient Nom script and a Latinized script is a notable point when studying Tay culture, because it reflects two layers of script adoption in history.
What are the Tay's worship customs?
The Tay mainly worship ancestors. They also worship the land god, kitchen god, and midwife goddess. This worship structure is fairly close to many other wet rice farming peoples, but the practice has its own features.
The role of the ritual master, called thay mo, is very important. The thay mo knows the ethnic group's customs and has high social status. Major life-cycle and annual rituals are all tied to the thay mo's leadership or guidance.
Life-cycle worship
Marriage: men and women are free to love and court, but whether they become husband and wife depends on both sets of parents and whether their "fates" are compatible. Therefore, before marriage, the groom's family must ask for the girl's horoscope to compare with their son's. After the wedding, the bride stays at her parents' home until she is pregnant and near giving birth, when she moves permanently to her husband's home.
Childbirth: when pregnant and in the early period after giving birth, the woman must avoid many things, hoping for a safe mother and child, a baby who grows quickly and stays healthy, and protection from harmful spirits. Three days after birth, a ritual is held to cleanse the spirits and set up an altar to the midwife goddess. At the full month, a celebration is held and the child is named.
Funerals: funerals are often held grandly with many rituals meant to show filial piety and send the deceased's soul to the other world. Three years after burial, the end-of-mourning ceremony is held, bringing the deceased's soul to the ancestor altar. Every year, a death anniversary is held on a fixed date.
New house: when building a house, one must choose land, direction, age, and an auspicious day. On the day of moving in, the household head must light a fire and keep it burning through the night until the next morning.
It should be noted that this is a general description based on materials introducing the Tay. The degree of avoidance, ritual order, and organization can differ between local groups and areas of residence. Available sources are not fully consistent in recording the details of each ritual by each group.
Festivals and main Tet holidays of the Tay
The Tay follow the lunar calendar and have many Tet holidays each year with different meanings. The two biggest Tet holidays, held more grandly than others, are Tet Nguyen Dan, opening the new year, and the 15th day of the 7th month, when wandering souls are honored. There is also the buffalo and cow soul-calling festival on the 6th day of the 6th lunar month, after the transplanting season, and the new rice festival, held before harvest. These are very characteristic holidays for wet rice farming people.
During Tet and festivals, the Tay often make many kinds of cakes such as banh chung, banh giay, banh gai, banh dom, banh gio, banh ran, banh troi, and banh khao. There is especially a steamed flour cake with ant egg filling, and com made from young sticky rice heated over fire, or roasted and then pounded.
Long tong festival and folk games
The long tong festival is an important community cultural event. During long tong, many places hold con throwing, shuttlecock, tug of war, lion dance, and Chinese chess. On ordinary days, children play spinning tops, khang, chat, and o an quan.
The tinh lute is a musical instrument widely used by the Tay. The gourd body is made from dried gourd shell, the neck is wood, and the strings are silk. The lute may have 2 or 3 strings. The tinh lute is often used in rituals and to accompany then singing, and today it is also performed on stage.
The Tay have many folk song melodies such as luon, phong slu, phuoi pac, phuoi roi, and ven eng. Luon includes luon coi, luon sluong, luon then, and luon nang oi, a courtship singing style widespread in many areas. People often sing luon at long tong festivals, weddings, new house celebrations, or when guests visit the village. Besides ritual dance, some localities also have puppet shows with quite unique wooden puppets.
What is notable about Tay clothing and cuisine?
The traditional Tay outfit is made from self-woven cotton fabric, dyed with indigo, and almost without embroidery or decoration. Women wear skirts or trousers, with a short blouse inside and a long shirt outside.
A notable point is that local groups differ in clothing:
| Local group | Recorded clothing features |
|---|---|
| Ngan | Wear slightly shorter shirts |
| Phen | Wear brown shirts |
| Thu Lao | Wrap a scarf into a pointed peak on top of the head |
| Pa Di | Wear roof-shaped hats; women's shirts have patterns at the collar and shirt flaps, and sleeves joined by colored fabric sections |
| Tho | Dress like Thai people in Mai Chau (Hoa Binh) |
Tay clothing in general is almost without embroidered patterns. Only Pa Di women's shirts have patterns at the collar and shirt flaps, with sleeves joined by colored fabric sections. The most striking feature of Pa Di women's clothing is the roof-shaped hat.
In cuisine, in some places the Tay formerly ate mainly sticky rice, and almost every family had a rice steamer and sticky rice basket. The Tay (Pa Di) traditionally make cakes from flour. On Tet and market days, women in families are often very busy making cakes. Lang Son is famous for golden shredded tobacco, good tobacco because of soil, variety, drying, and also the way it is sun-dried.
Traditional social organization: the quang regime
A notable social feature of the Tay is the quang regime, a form of social organization specific to an early feudal style with aristocratic, hereditary, father-to-son characteristics.
Within their domain, the quang owned all rice fields, forests, mountains, rivers, and streams, and therefore had the right to control the people living on that land and exploit them through labor rent, forced unpaid labor, and in-kind rent requiring tribute. The quang regime appeared very early and persisted until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This institution ended in history and is recorded as a milestone in research on traditional social organization in the Northeast.
Points to note when learning about the Tay
First, on population figures, sources may cite data from different times. The figure of 1,626,392 in the 2009 Population and Housing Census and the figure of 1,845,492 in the 1 April 2019 Survey of 53 Ethnic Minorities are two different milestones, not contradictions, and reflect different statistical times.
Second, on names, the Tay have another name, Tho, but the list of Vietnam's ethnic groups still includes a separate ethnic group named Tho, living in Nghe An and Thanh Hoa. These are two different entries in the list of 54 ethnic groups.
Third, on local groups, Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, and Pa Di are groups within the Tay ethnic group. Some sources may use the terms "small group" or "local group," but all refer to internal groups of the same ethnic group, not separate ethnic groups.
Fourth, on scope of description, materials introducing ethnic groups often present the most general features. In reality, worship customs, life-cycle rituals, and festivals can differ between local groups and areas of residence. When studying a specific locality, compare with that locality's own materials rather than applying a general description to the whole ethnic group.
