Gábor Vargyas:
Ancestors and the Forest among the Bru of Vietnam

[Originally published: Diogenes, No. 174, Vol. 44/2, Summer, 1996: 117-127]

The Bru and Their Pantheon
The Bru people, whom we shall be discussing here, belong to the ancient Austro-Asiatic stock of the Indochinese peninsula. They are spread out on either side of the border separating Vietnam and Laos And settled in particular to the north of Route Nine, which joins Savannakhet (Laos) to Dong Ha (the Vietnamese provinces of Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị), with their area of the greatest concentration being the district of huyện Hướng Hóa/Khe Sanh where we studied them.

One cannot discuss Yĩang Sữ, their earth god, without first situating him within the Bru pantheon, in particular without comparing him to another important figure: yĩang Kaneaq.[1] Let us first mention that the Bru divide the gods (yĩang) into two distinct groups: on the one hand, the yĩang tâng dống (“the household yĩang”), who frequent the spaces built or used by man; and, on the other hand, the yĩang tâng nsắk (“the brushwood yĩang), who live in the forest. While the first category has only five fixed divinities and a few other occasional ones, the number of forest deities is potentially infinite, although some recur more frequently than others in the rites. One can draw a parallel between certain entities from these two categories, and this is especially the case for Yĩang Sữ and Yĩang Kaneaq. In fact, as we shall see, Kaneaq is the equivalent among the household yĩang to what Sữ represents for the forest.

The Ancestral Divinity: Yĩang Kaneaq
Yĩang Kaneaq is, in fact, the yĩang of the patrilinear ancestors [2], and more precisely of the deceased who have been absorbed into the pool

_______________________ p 118.

of lineage divinities by virtue of their remote deaths. We should specify here that, according to the Bru way of thinking, when a person dies his “soul” (ruviyêi) leaves his body, but remains on the earth, staying close to his tomb and near the house-shaped altar (dống nsắk) that is built in the forest for the “recent” dead. [3] In this place, after the liminal phase of a year, and on the occasion of an annual sacrifice, it joins the group of recent dead. Furthermore, each decade these agnatic dead as a whole are the object of a second funeral feast, which is repeated for three generations. It is only at the end of this series of very complicated funeral rites, during which the memory of the deceased becomes slowly blurred, that the soul “rises” into an ill-defined “sky”, where it becomes a yĩang, which is to say a god. The definitive rite of burial, through which this celestial ascension takes place, is called rapữp pỡq dớp (“burial during which the soul rises”). It is later followed by a sacrifice performed to make the soul descend from the sky, so that it might gather around the ancestral altar and fuse with Kaneaq, the divinity personifying the different generations of patrilinear ancestors.

The path followed by the “soul” of the deceased is thus circular. First it withdraws from the world of man, then eventually becomes reintegrated into it at the end of the cycle, in the form of a collective yĩang – Kaneaq – composed of an amalgamation of anonymous ancestors from the descent group. The purpose of the funeral rites is to set this circular movement into motion, as well as to depersonalize the deceased in favor of a global ancestor. The role of this amalgamated ancestor in the creation of the unified group is fundamental, because the descent line is defined first and foremost in reference to a common Kaneaq and the group of “recent” dead who have not yet been integrated into it.

The altar of the common Kaneaq is set up in the house of the oldest member of the oldest patrilinear branch. It is at the foot of this altar that all the reunions or events concerning the fate of the group take place. Its placement in the space well reflects the superior status of Kaneaq with regard to the other domestic spirits, since his altar is placed right next to the sacred post of the house and because he is always first in a double horizontal and vertical hierarchy.

When, for marriages or other reasons, the members of the descent group leave their community, they leave behind their altar to Kaneaq, as well as the forest shelter (dống nsắk) of their not-yet-deified

_______________________ p 119.

dead. They continue, however, to be part of the group as long as they have relatives to make offerings to the dead and ancestors on their behalf. It is not until the ties with these relatives become too distant that there is a split in the descent group. This take place during a ceremony of second funeral. At this time, separate altars to Kaneaq and forest shelters are built in such a way as to “divide among themselves” (tampễh) both the deified ancestors and the deceased who have not yet become deified.

Every human being is related to Kaneaq. As a newborn, one becomes “introduced to Kaneaq” (amut tâng Kaneaq) so that the deity recognizes him as one of his own and takes care of him. Then, during marriage, according to the rules of patrilocal residence in effect among the Bru, when the bride leaves her group to join that of her mate, she is “given away” (kliyah) t07ena05 to annul her former attachment, and then “introduced” (amut) to the Kaneaq of the group she joins. In the case of divorce, the same procedure takes place but in reverse. Finally, at the moment of death, the deceased is shifted from the care of this god to that of another, Yĩang Sữ, about whom we shall speak later on. Everything that happens in the household or the community does so under Kaneaq’s attentive gaze, be it birth, marriage, death, the construction of a new house, the arrival of a guest, or any other important event. Kaneaq must be continuously informed of everything, and if he is not he inflicts illnesses and misfortunes on members of the descent group. Consequently, there are no ceremonies during which Kaneaq is not “invited” to receive a plate of offerings; and of all the divinities he is the one most often honored, even though rites devoted specifically to him are few. Yĩang Kaneaq is thus at the core of the patrilinear identity, as much as a synthetic figure of the different generations of ancestors who rules over the space inhabited or controlled by his descendants, as for his status as an omniscient and omnipotent god. At the same time he has the ability to multiply himself by virtue of the proliferation of descent groups.

The God of the Soil and of the Area: Yĩang Sữ
Let us now examine the yĩang of the forest, who are the main focus of this study, and in particular Yĩang Sữ, who rules them as yĩang of

_______________________ p 120.

the soil and master of the entire natural space controlled by the local community. We suggested above that Sữ is to the natural world what the Kaneaq of each descent group is to the village. This is certainly implied in the name he is often given – Kaneaq-Sữ – which is also confirmed by the people themselves when they assert that “Sữ is the Kaneaq of the forest”, or that “Sữ is the Kaneaq of the land [of the area]”.

In fact, these expressions refer to a fundamental quality shared by Kaneaq and Sữ: ancestrality. But whereas Kaneaq symbolizes the patrilinear ancestors, Sữ represents another method of organization, based on locality this time. In fact, man has not only ancestry and thus a particular temporal origin, but he also comes from a specific place, and Yĩang Sữ represents precisely this belonging to an area through ancestral right. Hence the simultaneous reference to both Kaneaq and the region. The central problematic of Yĩang Sữ involves the first occupants of an area and their rights to the earth.

Here we must return to the Bru patrilineal lineages (ntắng), to specify that they define themselves both in terms of descent and residence. In other words, these descent groups are localized. While in theory each village is composed of a single descent group commanding a single Kaneaq and a single forest sanctuary for the dead, in practice several descent groups usually live together. In spite of this, each lineage is part of a larger social structure – the clan (mu) [4]– which has its land “of origin” where, by virtue of the rights of the first occupants, it is considered “indigenous”.

The villages, having their own confines (kutễq = land, soil), are spread out over the clan’s territory known as the kuruang (“area” or “land”). Irrespective of the people belonging to other descent groups settled locally, the nominal ownership of the territory always belongs to the one belonging to the “indigenous” clan. They are the “masters of the land” (chao kuruang/kutễq) who “own” or “hold the land” (yông kutễq) and their members are the only ones with the power to address prayers and present communal sacrificial offerings to Yĩang Sữ [5]. In other words, its members see themselves as obligated mediators between the divinity and the people who settled in the area at a later date.

Yĩang Sữ is conceived of as the god of the natural site since the beginning of time. He is the lord of everything that lives on the

_______________________ p 121.

earth: mountains, rivers, animals, plants, etc. In certain ways his duties are similar to those of the “Lord of wild animals” as conceived of by the Siberian and North American peoples. But Yĩang Sữ is more than this since, aside from the animals who have their own master in the person of Yĩang Chíh Taranh, he encompasses all of nature, both organic and inorganic. When they came to the area, humans could do nothing more than make a pact with him. On the one hand the divinity took care of them like the other creatures of the place by assuring their health, good crops, a generous hunt, and the punishment of reprehensible acts. On the other hand, they recognised his authority and guaranteed his benevolence through sacrifices and the respect of certain rules of behavior.

In short, Yĩang Sữ is the god who, like Kaneaq in the home, “watches over” (chao) men, “recognizes” (sarkơal) them, and must be kept informed of everything that happens in the village and surrounding area. Consequently, there are no open-air ceremonies in which Sữ is not invited to accept sacrifices. Like Kaneaq on the domestic level, he is of all the gods of the brush the one that receives the most offerings, even though here again there are few rites organized specifically in his honor.

The members of foreign lineages who have settled in the village clear the land and enjoy the same rights as the “indigenous” villagers, except for the right to enter into direct contact with Yĩang Sữ. In all the important phases of the agrarian cycle, but also during all changes in the management of the space, they must invite the chief of the “indigenous” lineage (or his mandated substitute) so that he may present the sacrifice and say the prayers on behalf of them. Their foreign origin is never forgotten: they are considered to live within the [territory of] “others” (hếq ỡt tâng alới/alơâi) and if they contribute to the sacrifices, they can only “nourish” (sang) Yĩang Sữ, not watch over his sanctuary.

The privileged relationship between the first occupants and Yĩang Sữ is at the core of the office of “master of the soil” played by the heads of indigenous lineage during certain rites linked to the working of the earth. In fact, certain phases of the agrarian cycle cannot be undertaken unless the lineage head, who is master of the soil, has given the sign for the opening procedures. It is thus his duty to be the first to tear up the dry and overgrown rice straw from the previous year’s swidden. It is also he who is called

_______________________ p 122.

up first to winnow the grains. Finally, he introduces the spirit of the rice goddess (Yĩang Abôn) into the swidden (apắng saro/amut Abôn).

Above we mentioned the sanctuary (lape) devoted to Yĩang Sữ, but in fact the site of the worship of this divinity should be spoken of in the plural, because one must distinguish, in decreasing hierarchical order, between the clan’s sanctuary, that of the founding lineage of the village, and finally the sanctuary of the swidden plot. These different shrines are usually found in a sacred grove, on the outskirts of the village, most often in a picturesque site (near a waterfall, cliffs, large rocks, for example). Another common trait is that they all contain three or four bamboo altars (prông) that symbolize a celestial abode, and at the foot of which rocks are placed. Two of these altars are dedicated respectively to Yĩang Sữ and Yĩang Kuruang, whom we shall discuss shortly, while the third altar is dedicated to the divinity of infectious diseases, known as “influenza” (prơih). In the village sanctuary one often finds a fourth altar, called prông tễh rana (“the closing off [to illnesses] of the way [to the village]”).

It is at village sanctuaries such as those described above that all the ceremonies concerning the territory take place. They are also the site of the two great ceremonies of the agrarian cycle involving the entire village, as well as the site of the ceremony during which Yĩang Sữ is informed of a definitive arrival to or departure from the village. Just as one introduces the members of the descent group to Kaneaq, one “presents” all the village inhabitants to Sữ. The people who settle there cannot in fact clear their land until they have been “introduced” to the deity during a ceremony, which includes an animal sacrifice. In a similar fashion, as soon as someone leaves to live in another locality, he informs the Sữ of the village from which he departs as well as the Sữ of the village he joins. Dispensing with these notifications would certainly provoke Sữ’s wrath.

As one can see, just as the altar to Kaneaq is the symbol of the descent group, the sanctuary of Sữ is the symbol of the local community. While the former is the site at which the unity and at times the splitting up of the descent group take place, the latter is the site at which the wholeness or the division of the local community (through the departure of some of its members) is enacted.

_______________________ p 123.

Divine Land Organization and the Hypostasis of Yĩang Sữ
Let us now examine in greater detail the three types of sanctuaries to Yĩang Sữ mentioned above. It is clear that the two sanctuaries on the higher level are a projection of social organization onto the spatial plane, since the first of them is devoted to the clan’s territory and the second to that of the founding lineage of the local community. Since the clan is tied to a specific place through its myth of origin, the altar to Yĩang Sữ erected on this site bears witness to the clan’s territorial rights over the area. This sanctuary, called lape kuruang (“sanctuary of the land”) or lape put (“great sanctuary”), is used solely for the periodic ceremonies that take place but once in a decade or when a catastrophe affects the entire population of the territory (an assassination, war, epidemic, etc.). Thus, when the Bru of the area around Khe Sanh regained their place of residence at the end of the Vietnamese war, they “cleansed” the region of all the dead who had bloodied it over the years in a lape kuruang ceremony. They repeated the same rite in the middle of the 1980s, but this time to cleanse the region of the contamination brought about by a fisher who lost his hand by breaking the taboo of fishing with dynamite.

The sphere of Yĩang Sữ’s influence on the level of the village sanctuaries (lape vil) is naturally more restricted than that of the Yĩang Sữ who protects the clan’s territory, since it concerns only the boundaries of the village. These village sanctuaries are used twice a year (sometimes only once) for agrarian rites involving the local community as a whole: in the beginning of the cycle during which one “borrows Yĩang Sữ’s swidden plots” (lơah ranaq = “that the trail opens”), and then again after the sowing, when it is a matter of “making the rain come” (lơah dỡq = “that the rain comes”).

Thew sphere of influence of the third sanctuary, that of the clearing of the land (lape sarai), is smaller still: it covers merely the land cleared on the same side of a mountain. There are thus as many sanctuaries as there are groups of swidden plots. In these sites of worship, only one annual rite takes place (lang sarai) , after the rice shoots have sprouted from the earth.

At this point in our discussion it is important to note that Yĩang Sữ is given different names according to the levels upon which he

_______________________ p 124.

operates and the aspects of his power being emphasized. Like the Christian trinity, Yĩang Sữ encompasses several personalities. He is called Yĩang Sữ when one speaks of him as the earth god in general terms. In this case he is conceived of as a spiritual power immanent to all natural elements. He is considered to dwell in the sacred grove devoted to him by his cult, but he frequents big trees as well and can appear in any place. When, on the other hand, he is conceived of as the patron of a specific territory, he is known rather as Yĩang Kuruang (“yĩang of the area”) or as achuaih Diu (Diu’s grandfather). Based on these specific designations, some villagers go so far as to differentiate between Yĩang Sữ and Yĩang Kuruang, considering the former as the older brother of the latter, or seeing them as “cohabiting” (ỡt parnơi) the way the Bru and the Vietnamese do. The majority, however, think that Yĩang Kuruang is Yĩang Sữ in a different guise, that “they are identical, yet different” (muôi chống, ma miar). Yĩang Kuruang is the same as Yĩang Sữ, since like him he is within all things in nature and usually frequents big trees; but he is different from him in that he exercises his power over a circumscribed area and specifically punishes those who needlessly disturb the silence of the forest. In such cases he inflicts stomach aches or colic upon them. As yet another hypostasis of the earth god, we should mention Yĩang Sarai (yĩang of the swidden plots”), as Yĩang Sữ is called when he manifests himself to certain men, notably to punish them for a crime they have committed.

In a certain sense these three names, as inclusive categories, can be compared to the different levels of the social structure. Referring to the divinity as it is conceived in the most general and most abstract sense as the god of the earth, the notion of Yĩang Sữ is equivalent to the equally abstract and encompassing notion of the clan (mu). The much more concrete level of the village community and the lineages that compose it correspond to Yĩang Kuruang. And finally, with the notion of Yĩang Sarai, one finds the level of the familial swidden plots and the individuals who control them.

Rich in the variety of its hypostases, the Bru divinity of the soil is likewise rich by reason of his multiple yĩang. In fact, just as Kaneaq is the amalgamated product of a multitude of anonymous dead who have become ancestors, Sữ gathers a mass of yĩang associated with the two main elements of the landscape, mountains

_______________________ p 125.

and rivers, into a single figure. “In the person of Yĩang Sữ,” said one of people we spoke to, “many yĩang come together, and he is the chief of them all!” Indeed, these spirits are nothing more than those corresponding to the mountains of the area occupied by the local groups and the rivers that originate there.

The most remarkable elements of the Bru landscape, the mountains and rivers naturally occupy a prominent place in this population’s imagination. For the Bru people, there is no mountain that is not likewise the source of a stream, and the two elements are interconnected for them. Thus when I asked about the toponymy, I was informed that the terms “mountain” and “water” were synonymous. For the Bru, the mountain Ramai and the river Ramai are the same thing. Spatial orientation thus naturally occurs through references to mountains and rivers. The Bru use these two fundamental elements of their landscape to describe and catalogue the space they inhabit, for both practical and ritual purposes. Consequently, when someone invites Yĩang Sữ to partake of the offerings presented to him, he includes the names of all the mountains and rivers that make up the Sữ of the given area in his prayer, beginning with the yĩang of the place to which the myth of origin of the lineage’s masters of the soil refers. To quote one of our informants: “First one invites the ‘great Sữ’ (Sữ tơâr put), then his sons (Sữ kon-kon), then the yĩang of all the rivers and mountains”. Their enumeration also recalls the extent and limits of the region controlled by the local group.

To illustrate the procedure, let us take as an example the Bleng clan who were masters of the soil in Coc and Dong Cho villages where I stayed. Their “great Sữ”, which is to say their place of origin according to mythology, is a lake, the Talĩng Sung (“gun lake”), which is situated at the edge of Hoong village, a few kilometers from the villages just mentioned. In Hoong village lives the senior lineage of the Bleng clan, and the clan sanctuary of Yĩang Sữ is set up there. Yĩang Sữ is thus invited to come from Talĩng Sung to eat the offerings; then they invite the mountains located on the territory of “Bleng country” and the rivers that originate there: Ramai, Kũl, Coc, Plang, Asĩng, Khễl and Savĩng. On the other hand the great river Nghi that crosses the Bleng territory is not invited , because it originates in the mountain Dống Pua, which is located within the boundaries of another clan.

_______________________ p 126.

We can gather from this example and the ideas it illustrates that spatial reference plays a large role in the identity of the local group. To this unity of people corresponds in fact a unity of worship, and thus, consequently, the Yĩang Sữ of the Bru is a deity of both soil and area.

*****

We began our examination of Yĩang Sữ by suggesting that this deity was the equivalent in nature of that which Yĩang Kaneaq represents for the lineages making up Bru society. We should first recall that both yĩang personify gthe two modalities according to which Bru society is organized: the principle of ancestrality defined on a patrilineal way, on the one hand, and the idea of locality on the other, which also refers to ancestrality, though here it is in terms of the religious preeminence of the first occupants. Furthermore, the two yĩang are made up of many different elements, with Kaneaq including the entirety of the deified ancestors of the lineage, while Sữ synthesizes the yĩang of all the local mountains and rivers. Third, Yĩang Kaneaq is the supreme god of the inhabited space, the domestic sphere, while Yĩang Sữ rules over all that is the opposite: nature and the areas situated outside the permanent control of man. But aside from their complementary relationship, the two supernatural entities present themselves as absolute masters of their realms. They know everything, watch over everything that takes place, and protect all living beings from their birth up until their death or departure. In short, the two divinities play a crucial role in the process of segmentation that results from the demographic growth of lineages (the case of Kaneaq) or of the local community (the case of Sữ), since they give their assent to any separation. And while Kaneaq possesses the ability to multiply himself according to the scission of the descent groups, Sữ possesses the same ability according to that of the local communities. In spite of the fact that Kaneaq embodies the principle of descent while Sữ embodies that of locality, in the final analysis Sữ also symbolizes the descent group, the clan. Only the clan is a group where, due to the ancient and presumed nature of descent, this principle gives way to that of locality.

Notes

1 Yĩang in bru language means „spirit”, „divinity”, „genie”. The term is similar to notions of yang and yaang that are to be found in other Austro-Asiatic societies.

2 The main social unit in Bru society is the exogamous patrilineage (ntắng) which is forged essentially in the course of ritual activities. The residential pattern in this society is patrilocal.

3 The more recently deceased comprise three or four rising generations.

4 The clan is distinguished from the lineage in that the common origin is assumed but it cannot be demonstrated.

5 The sacrificial animals are ranked within a hierarchy that is related to their size. At the bottom one finds the chickens, then above them the pig and the goat, with the buffalo at the top of the hierarchy. The sacrifice in question here relates at least to a pig.