SECTION: 2:ii

STREAMS OF CULTURE

by Hugh M. Lewis

Beginning with the small rafts of bamboo or logs of the upriver people in the shallow or the gorges, we find lower down river hollowed out or plank rowboats, then sailboats, motor boats and finally steamers docked at the wharves of the bustling port cities. Technology, agriculture and socio-legal organization also become increasingly complex as we voyage downstream…. (Tweddel and Kimball 1985: 279)

The givers and takers of life in Southeast Asia, setting the tempo of living in their seasonal ebbing and flooding, the Rivers are another characteristic feature of the physiography of being Vietnamese. The one most important in regard to Vietnamese culture is the Red River, so named because of "the mass of red silt it carries." (According to Vietnamese folklore "the red color of the river is caused by the blood of its guardian dragon") Known by the Vietnamese as the Great River, it is important not only because upon its alluvial plains it supports one of the densest and most rice intensive populations in the world, but also because it is one of the most dangerous, swiftest and unpredictable rivers in the whole world. It was indeed the prime mover of Vietnamese hydraulic civilization incorporating multivariate factors, its sheer force, the tremendous pressures exerted by the "extremely large rate of flow" of thick concentrations of silt carried down from the barren highlands, create periodic flooding of the alluvial plains with which the Vietnamese were long ago forced to confront in order to survive.

In the dry season its level drops to low to be utilizable for irrigation, leading to drought and famine. In the wet season its level rises way over the elevation of the entire plain, threatening to wash away the entire plain if the Vietnamese had not long ago constructed a truly monumental system of dikes and canals and dams with which to harness and temper its violent powers for wet rice cultivation. Vast inundations often recurred, sometimes several times a season, in spite of this elaborate network of flood control, rapidly and without notice, the cause of "perennial death and destruction through severe and sudden floods." After each flood, the relief map of the entire delta would need to be redrawn, the major course altering, "with cones of alluvium indicating the place of rupture of the old river bed. Such cones around Hanoi rise to 7 meters above sea level." (Holmgren 1980: 25)

What better prime mover for corporate solidarity than the Promethean struggle against the elemental forces of life and death of the Great River. The singularly noteworthy achievement of the Vietnamese in their early collective efforts of rising from the earth itself an elaborate and massive network of ramparts against ruthless and relentless forces of Mother Nature was born from a collective need for survival in the face of natural adversity and calamity.

These are unquestionably noble stakes in allowing one’s freedom to be co-opted for the survival of civilization, and then the children do not ask to be born into the adverse vicissitudes in which their parent conceived them in, and excessive population which perennially accumulates (excessive only when there is not enough food because there is too little or too much water) do not often ask for their freedom back, but always demand to be fed. Whether one chooses the Hen or her Egg, one cannot but help marvel about the miraculous synergism that exists in human culture as well as in Mother Nature. Nor can one help but sometimes wonder about the achievements of Human civilization. "It would be hard to say whether the people of the Red River Valley have suffered more from the armies of invasion that have descended on them….or from the furious waters of the Red River in the many seasons of excessive rainfall, often followed by an equally murderous period of drought." (Buttinger 1959; 46-48)

"For the general conditions of human existence as determined by geography, nothing is more important than a country’s climate." A land of tropical monsoons, a biannual fluctuation of wet and dry seasons bringing 40 to 80 inches of monsoon rains on "monsoon Winds" all of life in Southeast Asia is governed by the coming and going of the rains, making the water element in the form of rain the most decisive factor of life and death in Southeast Asia.

All Southeast Asian peoples depend upon the plentiful monsoon rains to fall in just the right amounts at the right times to assure an abundant surplus of rice. Agricultural cycles are tied to seasonal cycles of precipitation—too little or too much will upset a delicate ecological balance the Southeast Asians have struck with Mother Nature over many centuries of transplanting and harvesting.

The annually renewed fertility that rainwater brought to the land is unsurprisingly associated with the fertility of the female, and this fertility is associated with the power of giving or of taking life. In Vietnamese culture feminine symbolism for complex "chains" of metaphorical associations. Ultimately, the water element is the primary referent of the female principle, or yin or am. Early Chinese conquerors were awarded the title of "Peaceful Sea Military Governor" or "Wave Calming General", symbolizing "in particular a reduction of female power in Yueh society." (Holmgren 1980: 17-21) Early Dong Son Drums, politico religious symbols of chiefly authority, are associated with female power. Design motifs on these drums feature important symbolic chains of female symbolism, a water chain linking frogs and fish, rivers and female river Goddesses, rain making, water animals and the dragon, and a ship motif associated with the ship of the dead, with death by drowning and drowning sacrifices to female river deities. 

These have been described by Holmgren (1980:17-21) as female water darkness chains. The Water Kingdom is an important netherworld in Vietnamese mythology associated with fertility, death and the female principle of am, or darkness. It is often confused with Hell in popular folklore. Often the way to the Underworld and Hell is through the Water Kingdom—the great womb of Vietnamese mythology from which its many culture heroes issue with their mandate to rule. "in mythology snakes are the Water King’s children and announce floods and deluges to come." It is associated with magical amulets and talismans.

The sacred animals of Vietnamese mythology, or "Tu-Linh" are all associated with the water element and the feminine principle. Representing "virtue, grace, peace and concord," the Phoenix is the symbol of "womanhood and female virtue and was used as the principal emblem of queens and other female royalty as the dragons was used by the emperors." (Whitfield 1976:229) Characterized by "pride, nobility and grace of movement" (respect, modesty, moderation and harmony) 

Its songs included all five notes of the traditional music scale and its feathers included the five basic colors. Symbolizing intelligence, goodness, and gentleness, the Unicorn is associated with female virtue and purity. "Women are involved in creating every generation….Those with a sacred task are themselves considered sacred, and efforts are made to keep them pure in order to keep the group pure." (Pandian 1982:14) The Tortoise was associated with the water element, symbolizing longevity and perfection, "it is usually found with a coral branch in the mouth and a crane on its back." The crane usually has a lotus in its mouth, a Buddhist religious symbolism associated with both the water element and the female principle. It is the symbol of the female principle par excellence for the Vietnamese people—"the most popular flower in Vietnam." It is associated with the florescence of Buddhism in Vietnam, which became associated with the art of rain making, and spirit cults of Buddhas of "clouds, rain, thunder and lightning" and of the worship of trees and aquatic powers. Buddhism became widespread among the common Vietnamese people as "a new method of controlling the vagaries of nature in the interests of agriculture." (Taylor 1983:83) Many villages found Buddhist temples for guardian spirits of agricultural fertility.

With numerous, often unpredictable water courses there is little wonder that death by drowning is "a particularly horrible death" for Vietnamese peasants which has received much cultural focus and symbolic elaboration. Death, drowning and darkness are associated with the water element and with the female principle. There are a host of water-spirits posses ambivalent forms of power—"some are inherently wicked, and some occasionally wicked, and others capricious or benevolent." Ba-Thuy, the Water Goddess, is most frequently associated with Noi, "an irresistible urge to plunge one’s face into water" which can cause the drowning of whole families. "Some drowned in earthen water jars, one man cursed with noi is supposed to have drowned in a cup of water, and one villager cited the case of a man who stumbled in the road, and, because he was cursed with noi, his face was fatally drawn into water that had seeped into a buffalo footprint." (Hickey 1964:77) Death by drowning was not only a symbolic preoccupation of peasants,"but was recurrent theme of regicide as well. The T’rung Sisters, "the Rain Maidens," after their defeat, drown themselves in the "Hat-Giang River". Lady Trieu rode her elephant into the sea. The Thuch family overthrew the last king of the old dynasty who "threw himself into a well", and Thuc Phan himself, defeated by the Chinese, "walked into the ocean" while his son also jumped into a well. "The last of the Tran rulers, Buy Khoach, jumped into the sea from the boat that took him to China; etc." (Buttinger 1959:113) Many Vietnamese culture heroes and heroines alike returned to the watery realm in apotheosis, from which their mandate originally came.

Another symbolism is the moon, associated with yin, it is a symbol in the Vietnamese language of femininity and beauty—"moon face beauty" and "Fairy of the Moon" (Hang Nga). One of the most popular subjects of Vietnamese poetry and folklore, "the moon has a special attraction for the Vietnamese and occupies a special place in his heart." (Pham 1983:67) The calendar, and especially the lunar calendar, used still for holidays, festivals and anniversaries of the dead, is another female symbolism, associated with the agricultural cycle and with renewal of fertility. The moon is commemorated during the "Moon watching festival", a holiday especially for young boys and girls. Annual renewal ceremonies are closely connected with the lunar calendar, which is in turn tied up with other systems of divination like the I-Ching, with Chinese Cosmology, with Chinese Medicine, between all of which the correspondences between geographical directions, seasons, elements, tastes, colors, musical notes, the fluids, tissues, emotions, orifices, viscera, flavors, climates, qualities and foods, internal organs and planets run thick.

There are few clear cut dividing lines where one form of symbolism leaves off and another begins, all inter-linking into cultural chains in a vast pantheon of myriad elements, a continuous networks of symbolic associations and metaphorical meanings, forming a mythological universe, with cycles within cycles. As a symbolic cultural universe, it is a synthesizing cultural complex of an indigenous cultural idiom that originally conceived, created and is itself created by and brought into being in conjunction with this complex. Its comprehension from within translates back into the everyday existential concerns of so-called average Vietnamese villagers.

The symbolic complexes which help to regulate and reorient the life of the individual and the group, in relationship to the symbolic universe. Just as an individual will perform certain prescribed rituals to avoid Tam tai, or the "three misfortunes" of "fatal accidents, sickness, and loss of good fortune" which may be caused by inauspicious circumstances, bad years, or the light of the star showing brightly at one’s birth being hidden, so will a grouping perform certain prescribed rituals, feasting, sacrificial food offerings, and communal prayer gatherings, to avoid three classes of disasters that are most feared—"diseases and epidemics, drought and too much rain, and banditry and war Spirits and gods are the main source of protection from practically all these troubles. The yearly cycle of life in the community consists largely of periodic offerings to the spirits and gods…."(Hsu 1967:21)

Foreign invasions, domestic political strife, rebellions and banditry, perennial flooding, droughts, drowning, and famine, disease epidemics, have been endemic to Vietnamese culture since time immemorial. There is little wonder why Vietnamese are insensitive to finer distinctions between political policies and planning and religious customs and ceremonials. To understand the rooted sense of Vietnamese traditional culture to its environment is to understand it s need for survival within that environment. Root boundness to a common environmental heritage and artistry in day-to-day survival and perennial endurance, resistance and resilience are inseparable core adjuncts of traditional Vietnamese culture and character.