Dan Tri reporter recently had a conversation with Mr. Bhling Mia - Secretary of Tay Giang District Party Committee, Quang Nam - about preserving and promoting the cultural heritage of the Co Tu ethnic group in the mountainous district.
During the process of survival and development, the Co Tu ethnic group has a rich and unique cultural heritage. So, can you tell us how Tay Giang district has preserved the cultural heritage values in the villages over the years?
- As a locality with over 96% of the population being ethnic minorities of the Co Tu ethnic group, with the aim of preserving the fine cultural traditions of the nation, in recent years, the Party Committee, government and people of Tay Giang district have invested a lot of effort and funds to preserve, maintain and develop the unique tangible and intangible traditional cultural values of the Co Tu ethnic group in the community of 54 ethnic groups.
Mr. Bhling Mia - Secretary of Tay Giang District Party Committee, Quang Nam (Photo: Anh Kiem).
The District Party Committee issued Resolution No. 16-NQ/HU on "building and developing Tay Giang culture and people to meet the requirements of rapid and sustainable development", with the motto "Using culture to develop the economy and stabilize society; using culture to unite the nation; using culture to strengthen the Party's grassroots organizations, maintain security and order; using culture to develop culture and using culture to attract investment and tourism".
Since then, the work of restoring, preserving and promoting traditional Co Tu cultural values has been vigorously carried out by both the political system and the people. Many tangible and intangible traditional cultural values have been preserved and introduced to the public, contributing to building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity.
First of all, the Co Tu culture is closely linked to the village culture and community culture. The Co Tu village is arranged in a circle, with houses arranged around it, and the Gươl in the middle.
The Gươl is a sacred place, gathering the living soul of the village, creating the solidity of the culture of the Co Tu ethnic community and also a place to propagate the Party's policies and guidelines and the State's laws. The whole district has 59/63 villages with Gươl.
Guol of the Co Tu people in Tay Giang district. This is a place for community activities of the Co Tu people (Photo: Anh Khiem).
Second, the Cotu language and writing have been gradually restored and preserved, making an important contribution to preserving the traditional cultural values of the Cotu ethnic group. Many articles and books about Cotu culture have been printed and published.
Third, the culinary cultural values of the Co Tu people are always promoted during festivals, entertaining guests with traditional dishes such as sticky rice, cassava, rice cakes, meat and fish cooked in bamboo tubes, and various types of wine, tr'din, ba kích, and dang sam.
Fourthly, every year, the district organizes the reconstruction of the new rice festival, the sculpture competition, and the gong and drum competition in the district. Currently, over 54 artifacts have been collected and are on display at the Co Tu Cultural Museum of the district.
In the current development trend, what is the significance of preserving the unique indigenous cultural identity for the Co Tu people in Tay Giang?
- Currently, ecotourism and community tourism are the trend. Preserving the unique cultural identity of the local Co Tu people will create a unique feature of the Tay Giang Co Tu people, not mixed with any other ethnic group or Co Tu people in other localities.
The tung tung da da dance of the Co Tu people in Tay Giang district is performed during festivals (Photo: Anh Kiem).
This has a certain economic significance in attracting tourists to Tay Giang instead of other regions, contributing to increasing income, solving employment, improving the quality of life for the people; tourists interested in indigenous culture will come to Tay Giang more, the Co Tu people in Tay Giang have more opportunities to introduce and sell traditional handicrafts such as brocade, woven products... This helps people maintain traditional handicrafts, increasing income.
Currently, many Guols in the area are being concretized and corrugated iron (built with reinforced concrete and roofed with corrugated iron), gradually losing the architectural value of the Co Tu people. What is your opinion on this issue?
- It can be affirmed that in Tay Giang district, no Guol belonging to the community cultural institution has been concretized, except for one case of being concretized due to some unavoidable reasons.
However, the consistent viewpoint of the locality is to preserve traditional cultural elements, absolutely not allowing them to be mixed or degraded. In particular, preserving the architectural values of the Co Tu people must be given importance.
What is the significance of preserving, protecting and developing primary forests in Tay Giang district to the economic and spiritual life of the Co Tu people?
- The Co Tu people believe that forests are closely linked to people; when people are born, the forest already exists, protecting and nurturing them. That is why the Co Tu people attach great importance to all actions that affect the forest; protecting old-growth forests, forests at the headwaters of rivers and streams has become a unique cultural feature.
With the motto "If the forest exists, Tay Giang will develop, if the forest is lost, Tay Giang will decline", in recent years, the work of forest management, protection and development has been focused on by all levels, sectors and people; the burning of old forests, upstream forests, clearing forests for farming, and forest fires rarely occur, forest cover is increasingly increased; exploitation and trading of forest products do not occur.
The Co Tu people have a unique cultural identity that is not confused with that of other ethnic groups (Photo: Anh Kiem).
Tay Giang forest is like a natural treasure that shelters and protects the lives of the people. Therefore, not only protecting the forest, people are still quietly planting forests every day, preserving the green lungs of the Truong Son mountain forest.
The total area of newly planted forests in the 2015-2022 period is over 4,000 hectares, raising the current forest cover to over 73%.
In addition, Tay Giang district has focused on disseminating and popularizing relevant policies and guidelines on planting large timber forests associated with forest certification. The district has developed a new planting plan for the 2020-2025 period with a total area of 2,500 hectares; to date, more than 1,900 hectares have been planted.
Currently, the entire Tay Giang district has a forest area of over 91,300 hectares, of which natural forests account for over 74% of the area, with many precious forests such as ironwood forests, rhododendron forests along with a diversity of rare flora and fauna systems, with more than 2,000 trees ranging in age from several hundred years to thousands of years.
Many rare animals and plants are listed in the Vietnam Red Book, such as the brown-shanked douc langur, pangolin, large-antlered muntjac... and plants such as ironwood, pơmu, do rhododendron, doi...
In particular, the district has discovered, managed and preserved many rare flora and fauna systems, such as the pơmu primeval forest with 1,366 trees, of which 725 trees are 200 to 1,328 years old and are recognized as Vietnam Heritage trees; saola special-use forest; ancient rhododendron forest; lim forest, with a total area of over 1,000 hectares.
Many opinions say that currently, in the process of development and integration, the cultural identity of the Co Tu people is also affected. What is your view?
- Globalization has been creating a trend of increasingly deep international integration in all areas of social life, helping peoples and nations come closer together to cooperate, exchange, communicate, learn, and develop together.
However, developing in the new international context with rapid, complex and unpredictable developments, national culture is also subject to negative impacts, most clearly the negative side of the globalization process, market economy and the dominance of new media, the internet and social networks.
Nowadays, the widespread promotion of popular culture, consumer culture, fashion, cuisine, and entertainment is becoming more and more popular, leading to new trends, including negative trends that attract young people to participate.
However, these are just some isolated cases and do not represent the cultural identity of the Co Tu people.
In my opinion, cultural identity is the eternal value of each nation, not changing because of some external manifestations. Perhaps there are positive changes, suitable for the new era such as the elimination of backward customs, child marriage, expensive weddings and funerals... In this way, it is not considered a change but a development suitable for the times.
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