selected bahnar epic and its fate in the contemporary society

With the above-mentioned reasons and my desire to contribute my voice, we selected Bahnar epic and its Fate in the contemporary society as our research topic.. Definition, research purpo

1 Reasons for choosing the thesis topic

Bahnar1 ethnic group has an unique culture with various forms of art

including epic (h’mon) Being an achievement of a group of age-old inhabitants

in Indonesia, h’mon is imbued with indigineous characteristics, less or not

affected by foreign factors like a large proportion of epic of other ethnic groups

of Southeast Asia Therefore, leanrning about the relationship between h’mon

and Bahnar society in the past will help us beware clearly typical endogenousart products of the ethnic people

The changes in many aspects of economy and society, and impacts of thewave of contemporary culture in the past few decades have led to thedissolution of Bahnar traditional cultural structure at different degrees in areas

The existence of h'mon in particular and of epics of other ethnic groups in

Highlands in general has faced many challenges in the new context What the

future of h'mon is merits consideration

However, researches on above mentioned issues, that is, finding out aboutBahnar epic in the past and current political and socio-economic context, or inother words, putting it in the angle of interdisciplinary approach of culturology,have not been carried out systematically Thus, additional appropriateresearches are necessary to fill this gap With the above-mentioned reasons and

my desire to contribute my voice, we selected Bahnar epic and its Fate in the contemporary society as our research topic

2 Definition, research purposes, research objects and research scope

Definition: 1) Bahnar epic: Oral narrative works of Bahnar people mainly

revolve around a hero named Dam Giong who is considered to be a symbol of

the community of the ethnic people in the history; 2) Fate: life; 3) Contemporary

society: the society of Bahnar people since after Renovation (1986)

These definitions are presented based on definitions of Vietnamese Dictionary published in 2003 by Da Nang Publishing House and

1 The topic uses Bahnar instead of Bana or Ba Na, etc., because it is the familiar name commonly-used by Bahnar people

and in the phonetic aspect, this word is more accurate than other words For those materials that use other words instead of

Bahnar, we would like to replace them with Bahnar.

Lexicography Center Epic:“A big work of narrative literature describes thecareer of heroes and major historical event“ – basically, this definition isconsistent to that of some dictionaries/ encyclopedias that currently catch

attention in the world such as Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature (1995), A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1998), Encyclopedia of Literature and Criticism (2000) ; 2 Fate: “Life,

existence given for each person and each thing”; 3 Contemporary: “of thepresent time”

Research purposes: Specify the essence of h’mon as a work of a

specific historical context, wherby identifying its fate in the contemporarylife

Research objects: 1) Contents, forms and roles of h’mon as the results of

the interaction between the work and the historical context that formed this

work; 2) Life of h’mon in the community of Bahnar people at present

Research scope: H’mon and its life in Tay Nguyen before and after Renovation Research areas are Gia Lai and Kon Tum where basic h’mon is

collected and subject ethnic people reside These two localities, especiallyGia Lai, also keep Bahnar traditional cultural imprint relatively clear Inaddition, they are also where changes in all aspects of the ethic people todayare obviously shown To ensure representativeness, research points includerural, urban and mixed areas

3 Contributions of thesis

This theme systematically studies Bahnar epic under cultural perspective

in order to determine the nature of the object in relation with the historicaland social context that created it and point out the fate of this unique culturalform in a contemporary society

In terms of theory, through addressing issues, the study theme givesproposals for a more precise application of a theory that has been used for along time in epic studies in Vietnam but this application remains manyshortcomings

In terms of practice, the theme proposes solutions to Bahnar epic andworks that belong to intangible cultural heritages of the Central Highlands,attract the public’s undivided attention, and act as reference materials forpolicymakers.

4 Structure of the thesis

In addition to Introduction, Conclusion and References, the thesis consists

of three chapters

CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF ISSUES RELATED TO THE RESEARCH TOPIC 1.1 Some characteristics of the ethnic people of Bahnar1 epic

1.1.1 Historical process of the ethnic people

Bahnar people belong to Indonedien type It is the ethnic group rankingsecond in speaking Mon-Khmer language in Vietnam and living in the longestperiod in Tay Nguyen

History of the Bahnar people connects closely to that of ethnic groups ofTay Nguyen After centuries of self-rule, land of the Bahnar people was more

or less affected by external political and military forces in the period from thetwelfth century to the early twentieth century However, traditional socio-economic structure until before 1945 was quite sustainable After 1975, theBahnar ethnic group became a member of the great community of ethnicgroups of unified Vietnam

1.1.2 Charateristics of natural environment of the residence

Residence of Bahnar people was created by valleys, highlands and

mountains Land of the area includes three groups: bazan, alluvium and granite.

The climate in the residence of Bahnar people is humid tropical monsoon withdifferrent sub-areas Water resources including rainwater, surface water andunderground water are a big potential for production activities

burnt-Breeding is one of important production activities of Bahnar people Inthe past, livestock and poultry were often raised without being caged but beinglet wander freely or both with caging and without caging, while at present,breeding is increasingly becoming a commodity production activity Oldtechniques of breeding have been replaced with new ones (caging, inoculatingagainst an epidemic, feeding according to a stable diet, etc.).

The most familiar handicrafts of Bahnar people are bamboo weaving andfabric weaving Bamboo weaving products are made from materials such asrattan, bamboo, neohouzeaua, etc Fabric is weaved from cotton yards whichare grown in the moutain field Handicrafts are currently in recession, partlybecause of lack of materials and partly because of the advantage of industrialproducts

Bahnar people previously exploited resources from the nature such ashunting, fishing and gathering vegetables The birds were usually hunted in thedry season The fishing took place all year round and provided food sourcesmore often People also found and picked vegetables and fruits, and dug starchy

tubers in the forest in order to meet the needs of a meal Currently, due tochanges in the natural conditions, the hunting and gathering are lost in oblivion.

Several decades ago, the trade of Bahnar people did not develop as theyearned their living mainly by cultivating on their burnt-over land There was nopaper money and barter and exchange one thing for another was common.Exchanged things were livestock, poultry, food, woven products, gongs, salt,ironwork, etc Due to the decrease in the natural resources meeting the closedlife and impacts of the market economy and transport development, selling andbuying services have been expanded

1.1.3.2 Social life

Villages of Bahnar were previously managed by a village chief and aboard of patriarchs who were experienced elders Duties of the village chiefwere to deal with general issues related to internal and external affairs Eachvillage also had a military leader responsible for commanding young people incase of occurring conflicts within the village or with other ethnic groups Atpresent, the village is no longer a unique social organization Roles of thevillage chief and board of patriarchs have been narrowed

The family of Bahnar people is form by members who are descendants of

an ancestor within his 5 or 6 generations A family of Bahnar people is former afamily of different generations before transferring into the small family model

In addition to the disappear of some traditional marriage forms, the trend that acouple has a private life after marriage instead of taking it in turns to resideaccording to the bi-generational marriage form has become more popular.Economic functions of a household are changing according to the direction ofdecreasing self-sufficiency activities and increasing the commodity production.Meanwhile, educational functions are shared with the society

1.1.4 Culture

Bahnar people previously followed the animistic belief Their belief wasshown in different rituals and taboos Main rituals of Bahnar people wereagricutural ritual, ritual of a life cycle and community ritual They also

performed quite a lot of taboos that were strictly stipulated in production,fights, village establishment, house construction, pregnancy, birth-giving,sickness, funeral, etc.

Bahnar folk art is imbued with the identity of the ethnic group Bahnarmusic is diverse both in instrumental music and in vocal music Musicalinstruments is assessed to be more abundant than those of other ethnic groups

in Vietnam Bahnar dances are usually performed in community festivals, andmore or less represent the production and natural exploitation Sculpture anddecoration art of Bahnar people are inspired by the landscape of the rainforest,and shown at the communal houses, grave houses, as well as on woven fabricsand weaving products Bahnar literature includes many epic genres, fairy tales,folk songs, proverbs, riddles, etc., but the most prominent is epic - the majorworks depicting the heroic deeds

Like in many other ethnic groups of Tay Nguyen, the culture of Bahnarpeople currently witness major changes Polytheistic faith has faded Thetraditional art forms such as dances, folk songs, grave statutes, epic telling, etc,are all in a gradual recession, especially in areas with many religious people.Along with the explosion of modern mass media, the import of new culturalwaves has made significant changes in the demand for the spiritual life of thelocal people

1.2 Research situation of Bahnar epic

1.2.1 Some features about the research situation of Tay Nguyen epic

After a relatively long period of learning about Tay Nguyen epic, thereare certain findings Generally, researches aims to generalize epic of the wholeregion or of a specific ethnic group other than a particular epic This suggeststhat identifying Tay Nguyen epic with its system in recent years has still been amatter of concern However, these research works relatively lean on surveyingthe aesthetical aspect of the research object, whilst epic is not only an art formbut also an overall cultural phenomenon that should be studied more from theinterdisciplinary perspective

1.2.2 Research situation of Bahnar epic

H’mon has become a research object of related scientific sectors in the

past 30 years Although epic works of one of ethnic groups living in a longestperiod in the Highlands have attracted the interest of the scientific circles, thenumber of works surveying these epic works in fact is limited, especially works

of large volume

In general, except for those articles that introduce the works in the Project

of Surveying, collecting, conserving, translating and pulishing the Tay Nguyen epic treasure (2001 – 2007), researches on Bahnar epic, similar to those on Tay Nguyen epic in general, often mention to h’mon system of the whole ethnic

group rather than a particular work In case of referring to a particular work,they aim at general issues

In terms of the approach of these researches, there are two angles: basicresearches and applied researches

Firstly, those researches that approach h’mon from the basic angle include

1) researches for specific purposes, and 2) interdisciplinary researches.First of all, those researches for specific purposes are ones that studyobjects in reference to literary works These researches focus on specifyingissues on genres, topics and prosody of epic works In terms of determining the

literary genre of h’mon, there are some typical articles such as “Some thinkings

about the epic genre in the oral literature of Bahnar ethnic group” (1995) ofPhan Thi Hong, “Try to explain the phenomenon of a lot of Bahnar epics allnamed Dyông” (2005) of Phan Dang Nhat, and some articles introducing epic

works announced in the period of 2005 – 2007 of the Project of Surveying, collecting, conserving, translating and pulishing the Tay Nguyen epic of Vo

Quang Trong, Nguyen Viet Hung, Phan Hoa Ly, Le Thi Thuy Ly, etc

Regarding topics of h’mon, there is the article named “Topics of Bahnar epic” (2001) of Nguyen Thi My Loc With regard to prosody of h’mon, there are

some works and articles such as “Epic group of Bahnar ethnic group (Kon Tum) (2006) of Phan Thi Hong; “Action without end in the epic named “Tiger

kidnaps Giong in his childhood” (2008), “Storyline and characters of Bahnarepic” (2009), and “Narrative in Bahnar epic” (2009) of Le Thi Thuy Ly;

“Variation of the storyline type, that is, the fight to save a beautiful woman in

Bahnar epic” (2012) of Phan Thi Hong

In addition to researches approaching h’mon from specific purpose

perspective, there are researches of different levels aiming at approaching the

object from the interdisciplinary angle They are following works: Folklore Bahnar (1988) of To Ngoc Thanh and his coworkers, Epic of Bahnar people of Talo group in Kon Chro District, Gia Lai Province (2006) of Nguyen Quang

Tue, “First steps to learn about names of characters in Bahnar epic” (2006) of

Nguyen Quang Tue, “The animal world in Bahnar epic (2008) of Ngo Thi

Hong Van, “Premitive cultural factors in the phenomenon in which a heroseeks for his wife in a remote area, characters’ selection of movementdirections, and the essence of the competitions to seize beautiful women inBahnar epic (2008) of Nguyen Giao and Le Thi Thuy Ly, “Based on magicelements and taboos in Bahnar epics to think about the formation time of these

works” (2009) of Le Thi Thuy Ly, “About the h’mon work named Jip Bo Ling gives birth to a Te Te bird” (2012) of Bui Thien Thai, etc.

Secondly, researches approach h’mon from applied research angle

These researches are ones finding out about real situations of h’mon inthe contemporary life, showing causes of these situations and/or proposingsolutions to conserving and exploiting Examples are “Gia Lai with TayNguyen epic” (2008) of Vu Ngoc Binh, “Epics in Gia Lai Province” (2008) ofCham Huong Viet, “Fate of Tay Nguyen epic in the social conditions ofcontemporary society ” (2008) of To Ngoc Thanh, “Some issues on collecting,

translating, researching and popularizing Giarai epic and Bahnar epic in Gia

Lai” (2008) of Nguyen Quang Tue, “Không nổi rồi con ơi or a sad story” (2010) of Nguyen Quang Tue, Tay Nguyen epic in the contemporary life

(2010) of Phan Dang Nhat - Chu Xuan Giao and coworkers, etc

In brief, Bahnar epic has been studied in several aspects, both from basicand applied research angle Even so, in terms of our research topic, in theresearch portfolio, there is no overall research, because researches that more orless mentioned to this topic were not carried out intensively or overally.Originating from the new situation of the materials in recent years, we want tosurvey systematically, in terms of culturology, the characteristics andmovement processes of Bahnar epic in the relationships with the historical andsocial context, and on that basis, making our own judgments about its fate

1.3 Theory and research methods

With questions of the topic being “What is Bahnar epic? and what is itsfate in the contemporary society?“, main theories used by us are the historicalmaterialism of K Marx and the cultural materialism of M Harris (Marx’stheory has various contents, but from a culturology thesis perspective, we areconcerned only about the content discussing about the relationship betweeninfrastructure and superstructure of the society, a content that is considered to

be a cultural theory by culturology) Marx and Harris who was inherrited someMarx’s opinions all affirmed decisive impacts of material conditions on socialconsciousness While Marx focused on relations of production that createdinfrastructure and decided superstructure, Harris concentrated on technologyand ecology Dispite of some certain arguements over their views on culturalautonomy, both theorists, particularly Marx, have been widely acknowledged

by the scientific circles that they created a number of notable impacts in thefield of cultural studies as well as many other areas of social sciencehumanities Acceptable features of these theories are that they require a

necessary attention to roles of material conditions in social consciousness,including cultural products Epic is a product closely connected to collecitvepsychology, and a key origin of collecitve psychology is the collectiveness inthe production activities, so studying it in the relationship with materialconditions of the society is appropriate In addition to critics about their opinion

to accurately apply theory, with the selection of Marx’s theory and hisinherriter, we want to, by our own findings, affirm the accuracy of previousscientists‘ opinions on Tay Nguyen epic in general and Bahnar epic inparticular who mainly used materialis theory in their research

Method used to research the topic is the interdisciplinary method, atypical method of culturology With above-mention method, at the level of

detail, we use the following research tasks: text surveys (h'mon), intensive

interviews, analysis and synthesization of existing research results

Specifically, we compare and contrast contents of h'mon text with ethnographic

materials, combining with interviewing local people to answer the first aspect

of the research question (what Bahnar epic is) Then, basing on my owninvestigations and analyzing and synthesizing research results of previousauthors to answer the second aspect (what its fate is in the contemporarysociety)

Sub-conclusion

From specific social and natural conditions of Tay Nguyen, Bahnarpeople have create a typical culture for ethnic groups in the region, of which

h’mon is a special achievement Since being detected, a lot of h’mons have

been collected, translated and introduced Subsequently, the survey on them hasbeen promoted both from the basic scientific angle and from apllied scientificone, but mainly from the arts studies Our topic, by approaching culturology,

aims to find out about the essence of h’mon as a cultural product of a particular

historical and social context and its Fate in the contemporary life

CHAPTER 2

BAHNAR EPIC – THE SPECIFIC CULTURAL PRODUCT OF

TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

In this chapter, we analyze the relation between Bahnar epic andtraditional society of the subject by learning the influences of society on the

formation of characteristics of h’mon as well as h’mon’s effects, that means the

internal and external relationship of the work

Based on definition of tradition in Vietnamese dictionary of the Institute

of Linguistics (2003), we use the clause traditional society to refer Bahnar

society before 1975, when it basically brings “natures inherited from theprevious generations” From the theoretical perspective used in the topic, weregard the most important “natures inherited from the previous generations” of

this society as unspecialized communist preoduction Recently, traditional society has been seen problem term (that mentioned societies virtually are

unchanged while they have changed little, therefore, that leads toromanticization or discrimination of the target) and got around by many

researchers For our part, we see that, a “traditional society“ has certain

mobilization and a modern society has reserved traditional elements, however,the key feature is that the something new is the key property On the other hand,

if you call the thing(s) by its or their real names, it can lead to romanticization or

discrimination, because of their reason is to not correct recognize the target In

our opinion, basically, the unspecialized communist society of Bahnar peoplebefore 1975 is traditional society

2.1 The content and form of Bahnar epic and its social context reflection

2.1.1 Content

2.1.1.1 Military conflict and ware heroes

Military conflict in h’mon reflected historical reality of Bahnar people,

though not directly, refracted by the prism through thinkings of folk art First

of all, h’mon sees that after external causes of battles in h’mon being pretty

diverse, the indirect causes are property appropriation and detention ofprisoners of war, which creates a typical phase of “military democracy” of

Bahnar people And then, by the picture of war, h’mon clearly reflected the

organization of contemporary society being very suitable for regular military

conflict Moreover, h’mon also shows the central role of hero’s clan, who

dominates all power elite of the community with exceptional physical strengthand military ruling abilities

2.1.1.2 Labor and cultural heroes

H’mon portrayed a vivid picture of labor life of Bahnar people Main

living activities in labor life of Bahnar people are such as agriculturalproduction, handicraft and exploitation of natural resources in works Labor,not only regularly appears, but also are main or unique topic in many works,and in these works, the main characters are cultural heroes They show theirroles to the community by guiding people to work well

2.1.1.3 The roles of women

Women in h’mon play a special role in the war Standing by the justice

force, they enthusiastically participate in battles by fighting capacities not lessthan the male heroes, even in many cases, they also decide war situations

Moreover, women in h’mon are a specific symbol of power We can see it by learning the nature of contests in h’mon with the prize of beauty – the contests

are organized to look for a military coalition object The roles of women in

h’mon somewhat show the imprints of machiartry of the nation

2.1.1.4 Beliefs and customs

H’mon reflects magic and animism beliefs and many customs and habits

of Bahnar people which mostly relate to the beliefs mentioned above First of

all, h’mon reflects magic beliefs in which you do or do not something for the

other to happen or not happen And then, it reflects animism beliefs in which allthings and phenomena in the natural have souls and may impact on people’slives On different levels, traditions, rites of worship of these gods are

demonstrated in h’mon, especially rituals in life cycles and community spirit Beliefs and customs in h’mon show commitment with traditional world outlook

of Bahnar people regarded as polytheism memories of Dong Son people