Tribe of people who sleep sitting up and use pebbles to count their age

(Baonghean.vn)- Before knowing about the calendar, the Dan Lai people in western Nghe An still used pebbles put in cloth bags to count the age of everyone in the family.

A photo of a Thai funeral in Nghe An. Photo: Huu Vi

Cloth bags containing stones used to be important to Mr. La Van Lieu, a Dan Lai ethnic, residing in Co Phat village, Mon Son commune, Con Cuong (Nghe An). He had more than a dozen bags. Every year, he put a pebble in each bag. That was how he calculated the age of each person in the family. The old man had 13 children and could not remember the birth dates of each one. He only remembered their ages through the number of stones in the bag.

Dan Lai is a famous ethnic group that sleeps sitting up in the Western region of Nghe An, living completely isolated from the outside world in the core zone of Pu Mat National Forest. After being discovered and gradually brought out of the forest, the Dan Lai people came into contact with advanced civilization. Mr. La Van Lieu said that when calendars, birth certificates, and household registrations became popular, he gradually stopped using stone bags. Now remembering, the old man just smiles with relief. These ancient ways of calculating age are now a thing of the past.

Illustration photo - Source Internet

Not only for the Dan Lai people, lifeless pebbles have long been familiar to the highland communities. In the past, when sending her son off to join the army, a Thai mother had the habit of putting a small, cleaned pebble in her backpack. The mother told her son to bring it along to ease his homesickness, to be confident in fulfilling his duty. The pebble helps those who travel far away from home not to get sick, "fall in the water", and avoid illness when going to a new land. A child told him to remember to put a small pebble in the kettle while boiling water, which is also a good way to avoid getting sick when going to a new land.

When the highlanders return to their ancestors, their resting place is the ghost forest next to their village. Before sending a deceased person back to the motherland, they choose two stones to bury at both ends of the grave. The Thai people in Con Cuong call it “tang”. In Que Phong, they call it “dieng”. A highlander Thai grave cannot lack two stones buried at each end of the grave. That is also something that no one is allowed to violate because it will disturb the eternal sleep of the deceased.

In the past, the Thai people buried their dead and never returned to the graves or the haunted forests. When they left the village, the haunted forests were also forgotten. Only when someone came to clear the fields to make fields and discovered the stone buried at the head of the grave did they know where the deceased lay. People told each other not to touch the “burial” stone. The farmers burned incense and prayed for the deceased to rest in peace and for the living to have a prosperous business.

The eldest son is usually the one who carries the "burial" stone to the grave. Photo: Huu Vi

Mr. Lang Van Cuong in Cam Muon commune, Que Phong district (a long-standing residential area of ​​the Thai community) is interested in the customs of the community. He has painstakingly recorded many documents, including the funeral customs of the Thai people in Cam Muon area.

“The “dead” stone is the most important thing in a grave,” said the old man in his sixties. When someone dies, the son or closest relative of the deceased goes up the mountain to choose a stone to bury next to the grave of their loved one. People hold a ceremony to ask for the stone. Then, information about the deceased is engraved on a stone slab in Thai characters, just like when people carve a tombstone.

The stone buried next to the grave is carried by the eldest son or the person closest to the deceased. After the burial, people hold a ceremony to bury the stone next to the grave before leaving.

Nowadays, Thai people know how to take care of their loved ones’ graves at the end of the year. The stone buried next to the mound is still carefully preserved.

You Wei