The Central Highlands tomb statues are in danger of disappearing.

Tomb Statues – a unique cultural value of the indigenous ethnic groups in the Central Highlands is about to disappear. This is the opinion of experts when researching the Tomb Statue culture of the Central Highlands provinces.

In previous years, when visiting the cemeteries of the indigenous ethnic groups in the Central Highlands, people would encounter countless wooden statues with the familiar name: Tomb House statues. This is a unique cultural value, very special to the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands. It is associated with a tragic legend, full of the Central Highlands epic about the fate of a beautiful girl.

Statue of the Central Highlands tomb. (Source: Internet)

The Tomb Statues are made by the artisans of the great forest for the grave-leaving ceremony - the last jubilant farewell between the living and the dead, to send the souls to the world of ancestors. After the grave-leaving ceremony, the Tomb Statues also remain in the cemetery with time, rain and sun.

The cemeteries of the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands are often located in deep, old forests, with countless wooden statues of various shapes and postures, making people feel like they are lost in a maze between the real world and the spiritual world. The statues depict the formation, birth and growth of a human life: men and women displaying their genitals, intercourse, pregnant women, children, gong festivals... However, those tragic and heroic scenes of a "ghostly" nature are now almost just memories.

In Dak Lak, many cemeteries used to be a unique complex of tomb statues, but most of them have now been stolen by thieves. Specifically, dozens of tomb statues in a famous cemetery in Buon Don district "evaporated" in one night. In the newspapers, we occasionally read information like: "the person with the largest collection of tomb statues," "the person passionate about collecting traditional wooden statues of the Central Highlands"... Thinking about it, to satisfy the passion of those individuals, many tomb statue complexes had to disappear from their traditional space.

Tombstone statues are increasingly disappearing in the cemeteries of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands. Village elder Ma H'trinh - Yang Lanh hamlet, Buon Don district said: in the past, there were hundreds of people in this area who knew how to carve Tombstone statues. Every time families held a grave-leaving ceremony, people would carve dozens, even hundreds of Tombstone statues. But now, in the surrounding hamlets, there are only a few people who know how to carve statues skillfully. They are all "blind and have shaky hands", and can no longer hold an axe to carve statues.

According to village elder Ma H'Trinh, in the village there are a few young men who know how to carve statues, "but the statues they carve are so carefully carved that no matter how much you look at them, they don't look like the old statues, they have no soul" - village elder Ma H'Trinh sighed.

A Central Highlands culture researcher believes that the shift from traditional model statues to smoothly carved statues has caused the philosophy of life about the concept of birth to be lost. Instead, today's statues are more like servants attending to the dead. This causes the new Tomb House statues to increasingly lose the contemplative, rustic, and suggestive features of traditional statues.

Another reason why the tomb statues are becoming increasingly rare is that the materials used to carve the statues (the selected woods are ca chit, cam xe ...) have become scarce. Currently, in the cemeteries of the ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, tombs built with reinforced concrete in the Kinh style are replacing traditional tombs. People who know how to carve statues are getting fewer and fewer, and the young generation is not interested, so the profession of carving tomb statues is almost lost.

The shift in beliefs and spirituality has also made the Tomb statues increasingly unfamiliar in the lives of the people. A few years ago, during the Central Highlands Gong Festival, a business in Dak Lak invited artisans from the Central Highlands provinces to carve Tomb statues. However, these statues were not placed in the traditional space, but were then displayed along the paths in a tourist area as strange objects for visitors to admire.

For the Central Highlands people, the Tomb House statues are made only to serve the Grave-leaving Ceremony, after which they are left in the cemetery. Over time and with the sun and rain, these statues will be damaged, disintegrate, and become dust mixed with the mother earth. Meanwhile, due to the lack of new additions, the Tomb House statues are increasingly disappearing from the cemeteries of the indigenous people. A unique cultural heritage is gradually disappearing./.

According to Vietnam+