The Featured Traditional Wedding Ceremony of Red Dao Ethnic in Tuyen Quang

The Dao ethnic is one of the 54 ethnic groups living in Vietnam. Currently, there are nearly 500,000 people of Dao ethnic, distributed mainly in the mountainous border provinces in northern Vietnam such as Tuyen Quang, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Lang Son.

Red Dao people in Tuyen Quang has a very rich culture carrying the national identity, reflects many aspects of life. One of the unique and interesting ceremony still preserved  to this day is the wedding ceremony of the Red Dao.

Dao-do-weding-2

Along with the development and intercultural communication process of the country, the cultural identity of many peoples have been lost gradually. Red Dao people in Tuyen Quang province is no an exception. Wedding ceremony of the Red Dao ethnic with identities and typical exquisite beauty is also in danger of disappearance.

In the Red Dao’s wedding, all the important ceremonies are held at the house of the bridegroom; the bride’s family, before escorting the bride to the groom’s house,  just practice a simple ritual and have a family meal. However, the preparations for the wedding take place before he event quite a long time because in order to sew a traditional outfit on the wedding day, the bride’s family has to prepare in 6 months.

Dao-do-weding-1

During the wedding ceremony, the bride is outstanding with the traditional costume including a hooded scarf or pinner decorated with flower buds, colorful stones and exquisite embroideries of  brocade pattern. On the way to the groom’s house, the bride has to cover her face because in the Red Dao conception, they avoid the bride from seeing the sun in fear of being “spiritless”, the bride will not be lucky in her life later.

During the meeting the bride and bringing her home ceremony, one of the highlights and also the differences of Dao people in Tuyen Quang is that the groom will not come to bride’s house to bring her home, but the bride and bride’s family will come to groom’s house. When they nearly reach groom’s house, they will stop to readjust their costumes and wait for the bride’s delegation to pick them up. At the selected lucky hour, the group of bride’s delegation consisting of the trumpet, drum, cymbal instrumentalists, the master of the ceremony and  the representative of the groom’s family will come and take the bride to her husband’s house.

Dao Ethenic

The bride and the groom on the wedding ceremony

One of the important and indispensable rituals in the Red Dao’s wedding ceremony is the  to grant the bride to be a member of the family and to name the groom when he comes home. This is an important and compulsory ritual because only after this ceremony is finished, the bride and groom can officially enter the house and the bride officially becomes a member in her husband’s family.

After the rituals, the groom’s family will invite relatives, friends, neighbors to share the joy, and in the evening, the introducing relatives ceremony will be taken place. Everyone sing Páo Dung, talk happily. In the next morning, the bride’s family will perform the  procedure to return the groom’s family’s favor and go home. When seeing the bride’s family, the instrumentalists  would go around the bride’s delegation three time following the clockwise “untie” for the bride’s family because in the day before, the musicians went counter-clockwise to tie them up. The bride’s relatives are about to set behind the mountains, but the sound of bells and whistles are still echoing. From this time, the girl officially becomes a member of the husband’s family.

The Featured Traditional Wedding Ceremony of Red Dao Ethnic in Tuyen Quang

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