The image of a ferocious yet familiar elephant to the Thai community in Nghe An

Hunting and taming elephants, turning them into pets requires experience, courage and many people to participate. Therefore, elephant hunting is also a symbol of community cohesion.

For Thai peoplescary elephant. Few people raise elephants. Thai people rarely become elephant trainers. Yet the image of the elephant is quite popular in Thai literature and art.

Image of an elephant on an embroidered blanket in Quy Chau district. Photo: Huu Vi

The Thai and Tay people have a fairy tale about the girl with fragrant hair. The Thai people in Con Cuong district (Nghe An) say that: An old woman, one day went into the forest and drank elephant urine, when she came home she was pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl. The girl cried so much that her mother threw her into the forest to return her to her father, an elephant. The elephant built a hut for her daughter in the middle of the forest. When she grew up, the girl became beautiful, especially her hair gave off a seductive fragrance. Every day, the elephant went to find wild fruits for her. Every time he left, the elephant called: "Girl with fragrant hair, let your hair down for me to smell, I smell it and then I go". A hunter picked up a strand of her hair flying in the wind and came to marry her. She said my father is an elephant, no strength can match it. If my father does not allow it, no one can marry me. The young man brought the girl with fragrant hair home and built a house with an iron and gold fence. The elephant came to claim her child. After breaking the iron fence, the helpless elephant used its tusks to commit suicide. The girl cried and mourned her father but still built a family with the man she loved.

The writer heard this story since childhood through the elders. The story is very different from the story of the fragrant-haired girl at Choong temple (Chau Ly commune, Quy Hop district).

For the Thai community in Nghe An, stories about elephant hunting are rarely told. Elephants are a symbol of the power of nature rather than the desire to conquer nature. Stories about elephants often stop at legends and fairy tales. In the folk consciousness, elephant trainers are highly respected. They make elephants tame, riding an elephant is an extraordinary thing. After work, Thai people often sit on the stairs of their stilt houses. There is a saying: Riding an elephant is not as good as sitting on the stairs. The saying has a humorous meaning. Riding an elephant is very good, very happy, but not as good as sitting on the stairs. Comfortable, relaxing. All the fatigue after work seems to disappear when the legs are relaxed.

Then, from the stairs of the stilt house, we sometimes see brocade skirts with many embroidered motifs. Flowers, leaves, birds, dragons and snakes. There are also embroidered elephants. People embroider elephants on traditional skirts, but the most popular ones are still on brocade blankets. Blankets embroider a single elephant. Blankets embroider a pair of elephants. Some places embroider pairs running along the length of the blanket. The Thai people in Bac Ly commune, Ky Son district weave elephants on brocade blankets.

Elephants on embroidered cloth in Bac Ly commune (Ky Son). Photo: Huu Vi

Weavers in Bac Ly commune, Ky Son district said that they learned how to embroider and weave elephants from the Lao people. This is understandable because Lao culture still has a profound influence on the minority community in Nghe An; while elephants are still familiar animals to the Lao and Thai people - two countries with a very high percentage of Buddhists, and elephants are a familiar symbol of this religion. Could it be that these are also manifestations of Buddhist culture that have more or less influenced the Thai community in Vietnam as well as the Southeast Asian region?

Not only onbrocade pattern, many Thai place names are also associated with stories about elephants. In Que Phong district, there is Na Chang village (elephant field), Quy Chau has Chang village (elephant village). In Tuong Duong and Con Cuong districts, there are places called Cap Chang (trapped elephant). People in Chi Khe commune, Con Cuong district have a slope named Cap Xang (another pronunciation of Cap Chang), saying that in the past, a war elephant carrying a general passed by here and got stuck. People had to use crowbars to rescue it. This slope used to have a narrow ravine. On a stone slab, there was a mark like a crowbar.

Of course it is just a legend, but the story shows that elephants and the places associated with this animal's name were very familiar in the minds of the indigenous people.