The story of a Mong family that is afraid of eating animal hearts

(Baonghean.vn) – Mong clans in Western Nghe An all have taboos. Among them, the Gia clan has a very strange taboo: they never eat animal hearts.

We entered Na Ngoi, crossed the winding small road to Huoi Xai village, where the Gia family lives. Here, we heard the descendants of the Gia family say that, under any circumstances, the Gia family never eats animal hearts. When they see an animal heart served on a tray, the Gia family members feel scared and avoid it.

In Mong villages in the Western Nghe An region, there are taboos.

Village chief Huoi Xai Gia Ba Bi said: "We don't know when this taboo started. We only heard from our ancestors that we had to abstain from it, so no one dared to violate it."

According to village chief Gia Ba Bi, the worst thing is when going to feasts in other places, the elderly can taste a little or smell the food to know if it contains animal heart or not and avoid it, but it is very difficult for young people to distinguish. If any Gia family member accidentally eats an animal heart, they will vomit and for several days after that, they can only drink water but not eat rice. Therefore, the Gia family is very afraid of eating and drinking with other families.

Whenever going to the market, the Mong people of the Gia family always avoid buying animal hearts.

To find out the underlying cause of this, we learned that: In the past, when the Gia family was still settled in the land of China, life was prosperous so the people in the family often held worship ceremonies to thank their ancestors. One day, the Gia family held a ceremony, the whole family slaughtered a very large buffalo. Normally, when offering, they took the internal organs (except the intestines and stomach) of the animal and offered them on the altar. However, when putting the buffalo's heart in the pot to cook, they mixed it with the other parts, so when offering it, it was found to be missing.

Even when slaughtering animals for offerings, the Gia family throws away the hearts because they believe that they are the cause of their children's deaths.

Suspecting that the child was standing near the pot to eat, the whole family was angry because the child dared to offend the ancestors of the Gia family. Everyone discussed killing the child to take the heart to offer, to replace the heart of the lost buffalo. But when the child was killed, one of the family members cried out in panic: "Here is the heart, here is the heart". It turned out that the piece of buffalo heart was right at the bottom of the pot so they could not see it, and so the child died unjustly. The whole Gia family was ashamed, no one could say a word. They gathered together and declared that from now on, Gia family members were not allowed to eat animal hearts, and anyone who violated the prohibition would be blinded in both eyes.

This story is similar to the story we heard about the Ly family in Muong Long. The only difference is that the Ly family avoids eating the spleen of animals. Thus, it can be said that the taboos of the Mong people in today's life all have their own deep roots. This shows a very typical concept of the Mong people, which is to preserve the purity of the family line.

Dao Tho