Culture and Customs of the Sán Dìu Ethnic Group
Ethnic minorities often reside in remote areas or high mountains, sustaining themselves through hunting or slash-and-burn agriculture. Introducing tourism to these communities can boost their income, mitigate environmental damage, and provide a refreshing climate for visitors. Let's join hands to protect our environment and make our Earth greener, cleaner, and more beautiful.
Main Characteristics
Cuisine: The Sán Dìu Ethnic Group eat plain rice mixed with sweet potatoes and cassava. After meals, they often have a bowl of thin porridge similar to the Nùng people.
Traditional Dress: Women's traditional attire includes a black scarf, a long tunic (single or double-layered; the inner one white, the outer one indigo and slightly longer), a red bib, a white, pink, or blue sash, and a skirt made of two separate indigo pieces just knee-length. They also wear indigo or white leggings. Jewelry includes silver necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and a silver belt chain. Men dress like the Vietnamese with their hair in a topknot, wearing a headscarf or turban, long dark tunics, and white trousers.
Housing: They live in the midland regions of Northern Vietnam, east of the Red River's left bank.
Marriage Customs: Sán Dìu wedding customs involve many rituals. The "khai hoa tửu" ceremony occurs at the bride's home before she joins the groom's family. This involves a wine jar and a plate with two paper flowers, a white one beneath a red one, and two boiled eggs tied with red threads and coins. After the ritual, the egg yolks are mixed with wine for guests to drink, celebrating the couple's happiness.
Worship: Their altars usually have three incense bowls for ancestors, a shaman, and the kitchen god. Households without a male head ordained in traditional rites only have two bowls. Recently deceased family members are also honored with a lower incense bowl. The Sán Dìu also worship earth gods at local shrines and village deities.
Festivals: They celebrate festivals like many other ethnic groups in the region, with the Winter Solstice Festival uniquely symbolizing a wish for many offspring. Couples who have been childless often return to the wife’s family after the New Year, and the husband’s matchmaker re-asks for her hand in a re-marriage ceremony.
Calendar: The Sán Dìu follow the lunar calendar.
Music and Dance: They have male-female courting songs called "soọng cô" (night singing).
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