Lesson 4: Blacksmith's tools and nostalgia

(Baonghean)-The life of the highland people is closely linked to the fields and ridges, so the agricultural tools of this profession are quite diverse, such as tools for sowing seeds, weeding, harvesting rice, and are still very necessary for the lives of people in areas where rice is still grown on the ridges...

She said: "My family planted the rice late, so the villagers celebrated the new rice before cutting it." I followed her to the field because I wanted to see how to use a sickle, a tool with a blade as small as a pocket knife, attached to a wooden frame. This tool can be held in the palm of the hand, helping people pick each rice flower. Cutting upland rice with a sickle will not be fast because the upland rice does not grow evenly like when transplanted in the field. Moreover, when picking each flower, the rice bundle looks more beautiful. In my hometown, people have not used this tool since the ban on slash-and-burn cultivation, which has been over 20 years.

Cutting rice with a sickle

Being a "9x" generation, her friends all went to work in the North and the South, but Ms. Van remained faithful to the fields in her village. According to her, no matter where they went, they would eventually return to their village. Not passing the university entrance exam, she decided to stay home and work with her parents. Nowadays, a village girl like her is really rare.

Ms. Van talked about the job of tilling rice enthusiastically, seemingly unaware that I had also spent my childhood in the fields: "Working in the fields requires many tools, the hep is just one of them." That was the introduction to the story about the tools for tilling rice, although it was not unfamiliar to me. When the fields are cleared, the work of the tilling knife is over. The Thai people's knives are usually forged by the Kinh people, only a few Thai people know how to forge. Unlike the Mong people, they can forge knives that are both sharp and hard. After the cleared fields are dried in the sun for about a week, they can be burned to sow rice. Now, it is time for the chi le, a tool for tilling rice and corn, made from a blunt knife inserted into a long handle used to poke holes for sowing seeds. However, some people are more elaborate, the old knife is reforged to be sharper, the handle is carefully made, durable and beautiful, and can be used through many tilling seasons. In the past, when people did not know how to use this tool, they used a sharp stick (ch'lum) to poke holes for seeds, which was both easy to break and labor-intensive, and the productivity was only half that of using a single thread. Those who were passionate about sowing also wove a ca dang to wear on their chest to hold the rice seeds. When they had sown a handful, they would reach out to scoop up the seeds, which were not contained in the phac pa (a tool used by women in the highlands to attach a jungle knife). The phac pa was smaller than the ca dang and could hold fewer seeds, and was often worn on the back, making it quite inconvenient when sowing rice.

The rice weeding season is when the weeding knife comes into play. It is used instead of a hoe, but is more compact, so as not to break or cut the young rice plants. The weeding knife is forged like a jungle knife, bent into a right angle, with a sharp blade to cut grass. Therefore, sometimes people also take advantage of a blunt knife, bend it, and then sharpen it into a weeding knife.

The He and Cpick a rice flower

Mr. Vi Van Doan, a resident of Mon village (Thach Giam - Tuong Duong), who is quite proficient in blacksmithing and weaving, said: Forging agricultural tools is not a difficult thing. People still use the wooden saw blades of abandoned forest workers to forge saws, and use broken iron bars from old cars to forge tools for sowing seeds and weeding rice. However, the most popular "material" for forging agricultural tools of the Thai people is still the remaining war bombs. This type of steel is difficult to forge, requires a lot of effort but is very sharp and durable, some can be used for dozens of farming seasons.

Mr. Doan shared: "The Thai people's farming tools now are all bought from Kinh blacksmiths. They can be bought at the market, they are cheap and readily available, so the locals are gradually becoming lazy and moving away from the traditional blacksmithing profession!". Another reason is that the traditional bellows and forges are very time-consuming, sometimes it takes several days to forge a knife to go to the forest. Maybe that's why the locals are gradually moving away from the blacksmithing profession...

Mr. Doan confided: Sometimes he still misses the blacksmithing profession. He wants to blow the bellows but after a long time it has become cold. However, every now and then he blows the bellows to forge a few bellows for his daughter-in-law and son to harvest rice so he won't forget the profession!

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