(TÓM TẮT LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ NGỮ VĂN BẰNG TIẾNG ANH) NHÂN VẬT ANH HÙNG VĂN HÓA TRONG TRUYỆN KỂ DÂN GIAN VỀ THỜI KỲ VĂN LANG ÂU LẠC

(LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ NGỮ VĂN) NHÂN VẬT ANH HÙNG VĂN HÓA TRONG TRUYỆN KỂ DÂN GIAN VỀ THỜI KỲ VĂN LANG ÂU LẠC(LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ NGỮ VĂN) NHÂN VẬT ANH HÙNG VĂN HÓA TRONG TRUYỆN KỂ DÂN GIAN VỀ THỜI KỲ VĂN LANG ÂU LẠC(LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ NGỮ VĂN) NHÂN VẬT ANH HÙNG VĂN HÓA TRONG TRUYỆN KỂ DÂN GIAN VỀ THỜI KỲ VĂN LANG ÂU LẠC

INTRODUCTION

1 State-of-the-art and reason behind the choice of thesis topic

1.1 So far, the folktale always have full of vitality, especially the folktale

of the first stage of history

1.2 In the treasure of folktale, there is a type of character in the central area of the oldest folktale that is cultural heroes Most recent researchs offer better analysis, discussion and somehow correction for previous theories about cultural heroes in legend and mythology Amongst the novel theories, the life cycle model of cultural heroes proposed by Lord Raglan paves new analysis pathways and angles to understand cultural heroes in folk literature in different cultures worldwide In this thesis, we applied Lord Raglan theory to investigate the structures of archetype and motifs of cultural heroes described in the folktale of Van Lang - Au Lac period in Vietnam We aim to identify similarities as well as special characteristics of these motifs compared with those described for heroes motifs in the folktale

of other cultures Our objective is to identify how living conditions, special natural and historical conditions of Van Lang - Au Lac period influence on the structure and characters of cultural motifs in the folktale

1.3 Van Lang - Au Lac period is indeed a “Heroic Age” in the long history of Viet population which displays full of characteristics that Friedrich Engels employed to describe a “Heroic Age” During this Van Lang - Au Lac period, typical motifs of cultural heroes were created, developed within excellent the folktale These motifs passed overal characteristics resembling to those described for heroes in prior mythology but also special characteristics those characterize Van Lang - Au Lac folk literature

However, investigation on historical role and vitality of these cultural heroes to the development of culture of Vietnamese and of Vietnam as a nation remains open Thus, in this thesis, we propose to apply novel theories, e.g Lord Ragland theory, for studying heroes’ motifs within folk

literature of Van Lang – Au Lac period This thesis is entitled: Cultural heroes in the folktales about Van Lang – Au Lac period

2 Research goals

Through the lifecycle structure survey, explains the typical motifs in

the structure life cycle of heroic culture in Van Lang - Au Lac period In this thesis, we identified the similarities as well as the orginalities of Heroes motifs in the Van Lang – Au Lac period in the direct and close comparison with the heroes motifs described in the international folk literatures We then discussed the characteristic difference in the function

of culture, living area/ living conditions, historical conditions of the community and of the Nation In order to continue confirming separate properties, we identified the vestiges, images of these heroes motifs in the festivals, habits those are conserved to date Through these analyse, we discussed on the evolution, the continuity and the impacts of the Heroes archetype to the modern life of Viet population

This thesis targeted to study cultural heroes archetype in the folktale about Van Lang- Au Lac period To this end, following works have been completed:

+ Collect and classify available literature In each literature review, we focus on the origine of the document, cultural and historical conditions giving creation and development of the cultural heroes

+ Analyse about antique samples and motifs of cultural heroes

+ Analyse and weight contribution and vitality of these heroes to the development of culture of Vietnamese and of Vietnam as a nation

3 Sources of literatures referenced in this thesis

To study the cultural heroes in the folktale about Van Lang - Au Lac period, we focus on two genres of myth and legend

In this thesis, we employed literature that has been edited and printed

such as Tuyển tập văn học dân gian (Viện KHXH Việt Nam (2004), Tổng

tập văn học dân gian người Việt, tập 4, tập 5, Truyền thuyết dân gian người Việt, Nxb KHXH, HN; Viện Văn học (2001), Tuyển tập Văn học dân gian Việt Nam, Tập 1 – Nxb Giáo dục) Other than these mentioned

references, we also use documents wherein folk literatures of different provinces/ towns are selected and edited by regconized interlectuelles like Hong Dieu, Phan Dang Nhat etc

In this thesis, we first appreciated results on studying Vietnamese myth, the folktale published by Vietnamese researchers in the past We then introduced novel theories, developed by international researchers for investigating Heroes archetype within folk literature, to study Heroes archetype in Vietnamese folk literarure about Van Lang – Au Lac period

In this thesis, we proposed to study these cultural heroes as an archetype, following the theory of antique motif analysis, so thus to find a universal structures/ features to characterize these Heroes

We are convinced that this thesis is the first study wherein cultural heroes archetype of the Van Lang - Au Lac period in the folk literature are analyzed and discussed in a systematic and well structured manner

In this thesis, we analyzed structures and identified characteristic features of heroes motifs in the Van Lang - Au Lac folk litereature following the life cycle model proposed by Otto Rank, Lord Raglan

In this thesis, we identified the similarities as well as the orginalities

of heroes archetype in the Van Lang - Au Lac period in the direct and close comparsion with the heroes motifs described in the international folk literatures We then discussed the characteristic difficiencies in the function of culture, living area/ living conditions, historical conditions of

the community and of the nation

We identified the vestiges, images of these heroes archetype in the festivals, habits those are conserved to date Through these analyse, we discussed on the evolution, the continuity and the impacts of the heroes archetype to the modern life of Viet population

6 Thesis organization

This thesis is structured in three main chapters together with Introduction, Conclusion, List of references and Annex

- Chapter 1: Overview about research and theory

- Chapter 2: Structure and life cycle motif of cultural heroes in the folktale about Van Lang – Au Lac period

- Chapter 3: Cultural heroes of the Van Lang - Au Lac period in beliefs, festivals, customs and habits

CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW ABOUT RESEARCH AND THEORY

1.1 Overview about the state-of-the-art

Indeed, cultural heroes in folk literature of Van Lang – Au Lac period gained great attention of researchers working in the field of Folk Arts and literary criticism Herein, we introduce our literature review focusing on (i) different research directions on motifs of cultural heroes in folklorelogy at global scale, (ii) main and historical discussions on mythology of the Van Lang – Au Lac period Based on the literature review and appreciation of remarkable contributions made by previous researchers, we then try to address in this thesis the remained questions related to cultural heroes motifs in the Van Lang - Au Lac period folk literature

1.2 Overview about Van Lang – Au Lac period in the history of Vietnam

1.2.1 Relevent archives and the definition of Van Lang - Au Lac period

The presence of Van Lang - Au Lac period in the history of Vietnam

is certificated through stories handled from generation to generation and

also through later documents such as in earliest history archives: Đại Việt

sử lược, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư Beside, this presence is also supported by

other archives like Việt điện u linh, Lĩnh Nam chích quái, Ức Trai di tập,

Dư địa chí, Vân Đài loại ngữ, Lịch triều hiến chương loại chí, Sử học bị khảo…

Evidently, archives from China are important references to gain understandings about the Van Lang - Au Lac period in the story of Vietnam

Briefly, the Van Lang - Au Lac period is believed to be commenced

by the creation of the Van Lang state in the VII century (BC) (ref Viet Su luoc) and ended in the III century (BC) when the AuLac state is reversed The early Van Lang - Au Lac state was created and developed on the basis

of DongSon culture when bronze art was developed at the highest level and when Iron art was initiated In the Van Lang - Au Lac period, original Lac Viet communities live in very harmony with Nam Dao, Au Viet population (areas now located in the shouthern China)

Thus, the territory of Van Lang state, the same for followed Au Lac state, consists of parts of Quang Dong and Quang Tay provinces (nowday

located in Southern China) and Northern Vietnam provinces The southern border of this state was found in the Hoanh Son Mountain (Quang Binh, Vietnam) This territory is indeed consisted with the distribution of vestegies belonged to Dong Son- Viet Co culture

1.2.2 Van Lang-Au Lac as the name

As it can be easily seen, Van Lang - Au Lac is composed of “Van Lang” and “Au Lac” names

Van Lang: the name initiated from vlang or blang (homonymous words) Indeed, vlang and blang are the terms used for naming the symbolic bird (Chim Viet), the Totem of the Viet population, the original community of Hung kings

Au Lac: This term can be understood representing for the united, living in a harmonic style of different population such as Tay Au and Lac Viet (two major branches of multiple Viet population) under the An Duong Vuong Kingdom

1.2.3 Some characteristics of materially culture, society and spirit of the Van Lang - Au Lac period

1.2.3.1 Materially culture

In the Van Lang - Au Lac period, a resplendent evolution of Bronze art was recorded At that time, Viet communities achieved certain level in the organization of collective forces for rice cultivation, planting, feeding domestic animals, jewelry creating, pottery creating etc At the same time, Viet population actively reclaimed new virgin soils as the need of the community evolution Viet peoples started to create different weapons for themselves protection and for protecting new reclaimed soils

The organization of VanLang state followed the typical organization

of an antique state: power and leadership was handled from father to son Continuating the development of Van Lang state, the AuLac state was

better structured and runned with clearly better organization level We note that such an evolution in structuring and managing the Nation was a need (sometime urgent demand) to reform the Nation when an eventual attack from foreigner force was present

1.2.3.3 Spirit of the population

Beside the conservation of some features of the antique beliefs, Viet population in the Van Lang - Au Lac period created new features to enrich their beliefs: Totemism, Church of Ancestors, Materially beliefs, etc

Aparently once wants to discuss about the spirit of Viet population in the Van Lang - Au Lac period, a discussion about different Viet festivals is necessary Especially, we can consider festivals related to the commencement or ending of cultivation season/ year as the best examples demonstrating the spirit of the Viet population of that time

In this Period, rich valuable folk literature was created wherein several motifs are now considered as reference to gain insights into the evolution

of history of Viet Nation

1.3 Overview about the folktale of the Van Lang - Au Lac period

1.3.1 Introduction about the folktale

1.3.1.1 Myths

In general, our concept about the myth is the story of the beginning and created the world, it was believed to be true by sacred properties The main character of myths was the gods or heroes They did not act as the usual logic but acted by the logic of the imagination The structure of myth and the details of the story are set in the archetype and symbol

1.3.1.2 Legend

In general, we do agree that legend is usualy a short story with conventional characteristics and also “local motif” characters Legend describes story with historical facts or events introduced, thus some how legend is a historicalized story These historical facts or events are to describe, by the most convincing manner, the motifs who represents for the popular beliefs as well as living experiences or philosophy of the community

1.3.2 Cultural history bases for creation of the folktale about the Van Lang - Au Lac period

Resplendent evolution of the Dong Son culture, e.g with great technological achievement in Bronze art, provided great social bases for

the early creation of an united state for the Lac Viet, Au Viet, Nam Dao and Australoid populations Unification leading to creation of the Van Lang - Au Lac State was an urgent need, a kind of critical condition for these populations

Creation of the Van Lang - Au Lac State evidently marked a historical evolution of these populations: from nature depending and un-organized life to the period of technical evolution when they were able to created bronze, iron objects, as efficient tools and as powerful weapon From that onward, people tried to control some periodic natural phenomenon: raining, flood, drought etc Excel in some fightings against these natural events made that people somehow felt prounds of themselves Thus Van Lang – Au Lac period was the period of heroes, of nationalism and of creation of legend within the mythology

1.3.3 Typical features of the folktale in the about the Van Lang - Au Lac period

In the early created the folktale of the Van Lang - Au Lac period, because of the myth philosophy and pride of population on their achievement, motifs of heroes of community with having characters of myth ancestors were created The folktale in this period described also stories with historical (people or acts) and national features The central motifs in these folktales are heroes who created cultural values for community or even society, organized the society Other motifs were the gods of religions, the gods who protect the agricultural cultivation lies and farmers, etc

It is worth noting the presence of the folktale where the border between conventional legendcy and mythology was not evident In fact, in these stories, the characteristics of mythology seem to be introduced even though they still described important issues of the society and/ or of the Nation

In conclusion, thankful and veneration of the Viet population in regard

of Heroes, who contributed to the early days of the Nation, are the main direction lines of the the folktale of the Van Lang - Au Lac period

1.4 Overview about cultural heroes in the folktale

1.4.1 Concepts of cultural heroes

We are convinced that cultural heroes in the folktale are the gods who created cultures to each community Thus, the heroes are someone who

reclaimed new soil, created tools for the agricultural cultivation, for more comfortable life, initiated a profession and then handled it to the selected people of a community, etc Heroes can be also leaders of the community and society who proposed new structure, organization of the society, proposed rules and laws for the best management of the community

1.4.2 The origin and explanation about cultural heroe characters

Indeed, researchers studying folk literature are trying to attacking several difficult aspects related to origine of heroes in the folk the folktale

A possible approach is to identify the general reason for the creation of these motifs Another approach is via identification of historical origine of the heroes: the facts or events happened in the past decided the creation of the heroes Several researchers in other hand are convinced that the heroic acts of the heroes as described in the folk literature are actually the way the population characterized and symbolized natural phenomenons (climate, astronomy etc) observed Thus, in such cases, heroes represents the hyper powers of the Sun, Moon, Planets and Stars

In parallel, other researchers try to analyse the characteristics of Heroes motifs in order to make a link between these motifs in the folk literature with the evolution of the population, community and society representing in the evolution of different aspects such as social values, beliefs as well as reactions or behaviors of the population in regard of a given fact or event

Most recent fidings suggest that Heroes motifs in the folktale and Mythologies of different nations over the world have quite similar characteristics and these motifs seem to be fitted in a universal story structure

Most of the researchers thought that cultural heroic characters were popular and a part of the folktale At the same time, they said that in fact

has found a relative stability life cycle model of those heroes in the

different cultures In summary, we can notice, the cultural hero character is the symbol of what most brilliant that people can achieve The symbols of

cultural hero characters are the expressed honor of man for God's world 1.4.3 Classification of heroes motifs in the folktale

In this thesis, we adopted the main points within the classification theories proposed by Wilhelm Schmidt and Heilbringer Van Deur for grouping cultural Heroes motifs in fundamental groups Indeed, Wilhelm

Schmidt proposed classifiting cultural Heroes motifs into five fundamental groups while grouping these motifs into four groups was classification system proposed by Der Heilbringer Van Deursen Actually, we adopted in

a selective manner these theories and paied our great attention in the most important factor: the the folktale of the Van Lang - Au Lac period being available as the object for this thesis study We then proposed to group the Heroes motifs descibred in the Van Lang - Au Lac the folktale in following five (05) groups:

(1) Cultural heroes who are ancestors of the populations, creators and foundators of the communities and/ or of the nation

(2) Cultural heroes are gods conquering the nature and natural hyper powers

(3) Cultural heroes are creators creating novel cultural values to the community and/ or society and making essential contribution to the civilization

(4) Cultural heroes are gods protecting the argicultural population (5) Cultural heroes are actual leaders guiding the communities/ nation

in the fighting against foreigner attacks/ occupation

1.5 Overview of theory

- Theory of archetype analyses

- Theory of litteratury analysis, type and motif theory

- Theory of structures

- Theory of cultural anthropology

In particular, the thesis applies the theory of Raglan, launched 22 points of the life cycle of cultural heroes

CHAPTER 2 STRUCTURE AND LIFE CYCLE MOTIF OF CULTURAL HEROES IN THE FOLKTALE ABOUT VAN LANG - AU LAC

PERIOD

Indeed, the folktale tells about the heroes in folk literature gain great attention of researchers The scholars have summarized and modeled the main events of the life and career of this particular character type The research indicates that the cultural hero is an archetype and that has left many traces in the category of folk literature, especially categories the

folktale Thus, based on the theoretical research on the cultural hero and on the research on the movement of the the folktale characteristics in the folktale about the Van Lang - Au Lac period, we analyzed and finding the tructure of typical motifs culture heroes in the folktale about Van Lang -

2.1.1.1 Archetype of culture heroes in the Mythology

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was pioneer of the investigating archetype approach He proposed that collective unconscious is the highest level of the people mind which decides destiny of each individual in the community but also of the community or society He was able to point out the typical motifs in the folk literature whose stories describe experiences, knowledge and philosophy of a population in a given time but these values are universal and can be regconized by other populations irrespectively their living times or living territory These typical motifs are named archetype in the literature These archetypes are found to be repeated along

with the human evolution history Typical archetype include: Personal –

Shadow – Anima – Animus; Mother – Spirit – Rebirth – Trickster – Father – Dead – Water , especially the Heroes archetype

2.1.1.2 Structure of cultural heroes archetype

Indeed, cultural heroes archetype, being gained great attention as one

of the most important topics in the studying folk literature, is a great demonstration for the periodicity in the mythology thoughts In the book

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell proposed to group

antique Heroes archetype following his adventure and glorious feat of

arms In the monograph Mythology - The Voyage of the Hero David

Adams Leeming discussed that the whole life of heroes, somehow being quite strange, resembles very much to a great voyage with periodic characteristics Thus, D A Leeming proposed to split the stories into eight (08) portions corresponding to important events occurred in the life of the Heroes

Remarkable contributions to studying antique Heroes archetype in

folk literature were made by Raglan, reported in the The Hero: A Study in

Tradition, Myth and Drama wherein he discussed for the first time the

famous 22 points model This model is widely accepted by folklorist world wide because of its exceptional generality Thus, Raglan model is considered as a perfect model about the life cycle of Heroes The role of this model in studying Heroes life cycles in the folktale somehow is similar to that of V.IA.Propp model (with 31 functions and 7 character groups) in the folktale

2.1.1.3 Antique model characteristics conserved in the heroes archetype

in VanLang - AuLac period

In the folktale, the heroes are created as representators of the population so heroic achievements of there heroes are actualy the sum of all contributions, achievements of the population These heroes motifs are described as the ancestors of the population and thus hold the most representative values of the population Indeed, the folktale contain characteristic features of the mythology The central conflicts in these stories are most of the time between the agricultural population and the nature This is in shape contrast with later folktale wherein the central conflits are between the populations or nations

It created just after mythology, folktales in the Van Lang - Au Lac period therefore conserved characteristics of antique heroes archetype, who are cultural heroes

2.1.2 Investigating life cycle structure of cultural Heroes through some selected folktales in Van Lang - Au Lac period

In this thesis, following heroes were selected for investigating life

cycle structure of cultural heroes archetype employing Raglan model: Lạc

Long Quân; Tản Viên Sơn Thánh; Thánh Gióng; Thánh Mẫu Thượng Ngàn; Út Soi; Vua Bà; Chử Đồng Tử; Lang Liêu; Hoàng Phủ Thiều Hoa; Ông Đống; Lý Ông Trọng; Câu Mang; Hùng Vương; An Dương Vương; Cao Lỗ It was found that in most of the cases, fundamental features of

Raglan model are presents However, we found that, in very shape difference compared with the heroes archetype in the folktale of orther nations wherein family tree of these heroes are well described, Van Lang –

Au Lac period focus in describing about the contributions, achievement and glorious feat of arms of the heroes rather than their origine This

typical characteristic is obivious in the folktale created in the Au Lac period wherein points 1 to 10 in Raglan model, used to describe the mystic appearance and/ or mystic family tree of the heroes as usually found in the Western the folktale, are no longer evident We note that these points are somehow visible in the folktale created in the Van Lang period, the prior

of Au Lac period in the history of Viet nation Absence of these features provides more human characters to heroes, bringing these heroes closer to the actual life of the population This is a clear indication that achievement and feat of arms of the heroes motifs in the Van Lang - Au Lac period is not just those of an individual but those of the whole community, population We aim to identify similarities as well as special characteristics

of these archetype compared with those decribed for heroes archetype in the folktale of other cultures Our objective is to identify how living conditions, special natural and historical conditions of Van Lang - Au Lac period influence on the structure and characters of cultural archetype in the folktale

2.2 Discussion on some typical motifs of life cycle of heroes in Van Lang - Au Lac period

2.2.1 Heroes motifs relevant to mystic origine of appearance and childhood, characteristics in life cycle of cultural hero (points 1-9 in Raglan model)

2.2.1.1 Mystic orgine of heroes

Mystic orgine of heroes with typical motifs: A510 Origin of the

culture hero (demigod) A510.1 Culture hero as god A510.2 Culture hero reborn A511 Birth and rearing of culture hero (demigod) A511.1.4 Magic origin of culture hero A511.1.4.1 Origin of culture hero from bursting stone A511.1.5 Culture hero son of mortal (half-mortal) father A511.1.8 Culture hero son of animal A511.1.9 Culture hero born from egg In this motif, Heroes are described with mystic orgine of apprerance

However, beside stories wherein heroes are descendants of an elegant family as usually found in mythology, some stories wherein heroes are given birth by a Mother of the popular class were also created

2.2.1.2 Childhood of cultural heroes

In this stage, these motifs appear: A511 Birth and rearing of culture

hero (demigod); A527.1 Culture hero precocious A511.2 Care of culture