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COPYRIGHT 2001 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
In the sacred geography of pre-revolutionary Northern Vietnamese villages, the village communal house (dinh lang) was the most prominent architectural edifice.(1) As seat of the village administration, it was the place where the Council of Notables would meet to discuss and settle all village affairs (viec lang). Second, and most importantly, the dinh housed the altar of the village guardian deity (than thanh hoang or thanh hoang lang). This deity occupied a significant role in village life as popular belief held that its favours and blessings, and hence the fortunes of the village, ultimately depended on the correct conduct of a precise set of rituals for propitiating the deity. The cult of the guardian deity was expressly supported by the mandarinate and figured prominently in the construction of a public morality in accordance with Confucian ideals. In the course of history, the neo-Confucian state had more or less succeeded in creating a spiritual hierarchy presided over by the certified ancestral spirits of -- predominantly male -- moral exemplars in Confucian terms.(2) The protecting deity thus came to be a representation of official village identity, described as embodying "the history, customs, morality, the laws as well as the aspirations of the entire village; a supernatural power and an invisible link that unites the villagers to form a tightly organized community" (Dao Duy Anh [1938] 1992, p. 232; see also Giran in Nguyen Van Khoan 1930, p. 111).
In scholarly publications, the large structure of the dinh with its curved roof and massive wooden columns is often depicted as "home of the collective life of the community" (Nguyen Van Huyen 1995, p. 102; see also Nguyen Do Cung 1975 and Ha Van Tan and Nguyen Van Ku 1998, p. 80). In his treatment of the Vietnamese village communal house, Le Van Hao even comes to the conclusion "that the traditional civilization of Viet-Nam, the one in which the majority of people participates, is a civilization of celebrations in the dinh" (1962, p. 66). These idealized portrayals, however, ignore the fact that the dinh presented an important arena for the ritual enactment of male prestige and power. As such, the dinh not only received the larger share of scholarly attention (Malarney 1993, p. 197) but also became a major target of functional displacement during the revolutionary period. Communal house rituals were banned as manifestations of superstition, feudalism, and social inequality effectively employed by the ruling class to maintain and strengthen their power over the ignorant masses (Nhan Dan, 19 February 1963).
Yet after more than thirty years of restrictive controls enforced by the Communist Party, the past decade has seen a tremendous resurgence of ritual activity in Northern Vietnam. As party-state attitudes towards certain aspects of the "cultural heritage" gradually changed and became more favourable, the population embarked on a far-reaching restructuring of their ritual and religious life. As will be shown, present-day communal house ritual practice carries the deep imprint of the Communist Party's attempt to purge Vietnamese culture of its "feudal" and "backwards" characteristics. At the same time, certain aspects of ritual practice have been accommodated into the state's moral and symbolic order, thus corroborating Migdal's argument that the mutually transforming quality of state-society relations generates "the transformation of people as they adopt the symbols of the state and the transformation of the state as it incorporates symbols from society" (1994, p. 15).
In this paper, I shall explore the overall socio-political dynamics that have affected communal house ritual change in the bronze manufacturing village of Dai Bai, located in the Red River delta in Northern Vietnam. To provide some background for the understanding of the changes and continuities in dinh ritual practice, I will first take a look at some key features of pre-revolutionary village society and ritual organization. I will then focus on party-state policies towards Vietnamese "traditional culture" during the socialist period from 1954 until the late 1970s. In particular, I shall reflect on the dynamics between local cadres and the village community. Finally, I shall discuss the restructuring of communal house rituals since the beginning of the 1980s. Ritual restructuring processes, however, developed their own dynamics in different localities and brought about results which are in no way uniform. Dai Bai thus represents but one particular case of local dynamics. To illustrate some contrasting aspects of present-day communal house ritual practice, I shall refer to Giap Tu of Thinh Liet commune in the outskirts of Hanoi (Malarney 1996a; Malarney and Le Van Sinh 1998). By way of conclusion I will point out that the dinh has turned into an important arena of renegotiating ritual tradition and local identity within -- and beyond -- the confines of state control.
Before the Revolution
Village society in colonial Vietnam was fundamentally hierarchical. Social stratification generally distinguished the following broad categories: a rank of village notables and mandarins (hang chuc sac), a rank of village functionaries (hang chuc dich), a rank of literati (tu van), a rank of village elders (lao hang; subdivided into three different age groups), and a rank of "commoners" (bach dinh) subject to taxes and conscripted labour. While the latter always constituted the bottom layer of village society, the status ascribed to the other ranks varied according to local traditions. Villages following a tradition of venerating titles (trong tuoc) placed mandarins and scholars at the top, whereas in villages with a tradition of venerating age (trong xi), the village elders were most respected. (Ha Van Tan and Nguyen Van Ku 1998, p. 115).(3) Dai Bai followed the latter tradition. As stated in the 1941 village convention (huong uoc), the upper rank in village hierarchy was occupied by "those belonging to the age-group of over 50-year olds". The second rank consisted of the village notables (noc chuc sac ky muc) and officials (huong chuc), followed by the group of former ritual officiants (noc te dam). The fourth rank was held by Confucian literati (noc tu van) who actively participated in rituals. Each of the four ranks mentioned in the village convention was again subdivided according to age and titles.
Regardless of their titles and administrative functions within the village hierarchy, the male villagers divided themselves into a number of giap.(4) The activities of this organization focused primarily on ritual. Their main function was to organize funerals for deceased members and ceremonial banquets to which every member had to contribute money, sticky rice, and sacrificial pigs according to his position within the rank order of the giap. In contrast to the prevailing social stratification, this order was based solely on age and the order in which members' names had been registered. In principle, a male child was registered as soon as it was born and became an official member of the giap at the age of eighteen. From then on, he occupied increasingly important positions and functions within the organization until he "reached old age" (len lao) (usually at the age of forty-nine or fifty) and ascended into the ranks of village elders. Besides their obligation to contribute to every ceremonial occasion, giap members had to validate their promotions in the ranking order by holding a feast for the entire giap.
Feasting was, however, not confined to the giap alone. Generally, any promotion in rank had to be publicly marked and socially validated with a ceremonial banquet (le khao vong) to which virtually every male villager was invited. These feasts were held at the dinh and preceded by an elaborate offering to the guardian deity. The village convention of Dai Bai explicitly states the exact amount of fees and offerings required for the access to each rank. After the ritual presentation of sticky rice, pork, betel, and rice liquor to the guardian deity, these gifts had to be distributed among the village elders and notables. However, the convention leaves it to the individual to hold a banquet for the villagers, and adds that it should not be too lavish, as "this was not enforced by village custom". The jargon of the 1941 Dai Bai village convention reflects French-introduced reforms aimed at reducing the burden of feasting obligations in the villages, and the latter remark indicates that villagers' expectations most probably exceeded the "official" requirements. The symbolic value of the right to partake in dinh banquets is expressed in the proverb: "A morsel of meat in the village [that is, in the dinh] equals a basketful at the market". Moreover, the male villagers attached utmost importance to their place in the seating order. The "corner of the mat" (goc chieu), to which a male villager was entitled according to his social position, was a powerful symbol for his status in village hierarchy. Social status was further reflected in the allocation of prestigious food items during the banquet. According to Luong Van Hy, "any violation of the codified seating order or food distribution arrangements could lead to litigation" (1992, p. 70; see also Boudarel 1991, p. 111).
In village ritual life, the Confucian-inspired re-ritual in honour of the guardian deity formed the supreme act and was performed on various calendrical occasions, the most important being the annual village festival (hoi lang). The control over communal ritual was generally confined to the higher ranks in village hierarchy, as literacy was a prerequisite for handling ritual instructions and composing ritual invocations (van re) to the deity. The ranks from which the ritual officiants in charge of the re-ritual were chosen depended on the tradition of each village. In the village of Dac So, for
example, the chief ritual officiant (chu te) was recruited from the ranks of literati (tu van) and village officials (trung dinh), whereas in neighbouring Yen So this position was reserved for the highest-ranking mandarin (Nguyen Van Huyen 1939, p. 62). In many villages, however, the giap took turns in providing the ritual officiants in charge of propitiating the guardian deity.
This was also the case in Dai Bai. Every six months, the four different giap would appoint five men to assume the role of ong lang responsible for all rituals and feasts in the dinh. The ong lang were allocated a part of the communal land reserved for ritual purposes, whereby the chief ritual officiant obtained the biggest plot. The yield from these "fields of the deity" (ruong than) were used for covering ritual expenses. During the celebrations in the dinh, the five ong lang received support from the group of literati and guidance from their predecessors. When after six months their term of office was completed, the ong lang were entitled to enter the "first rank" (ban linh) within the giap. In principle, the position of ong lang was open to every giap member, which accounted for a relatively egalitarian ritual organization. Yet the obligation to mark this honour with a feast suggests that only well-to-do villagers could assume the prestigious office. A seventy-five-year-old informant recalled that members who could not afford a feast to mark their promotion in the age-defined ranks of the giap remained at the lower stratum of the giap hierarchy until they reached old age:
Poor villagers remained in ban nhi [lower rank within the giap] until they reached old age. The members of ban linh [upper rank within the giap] were addressed as ong cuu, whereas...
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