The Thaan PERFORMER OF THE DAI AS FOLK SINGER AND SHAMAN

Many people try to learn how to sing and perform thaan but not every
learner becomes the thaan performer. Some performers are well known for
a certain time but then lose their popularity. They then perform a
ceremony in order to return to their masters and ask to train with them
again. Whenever the new performers become masters, they are surrounded
with con so or con huong or con hoa (young students). Con huong are sent
by their parents to study under the thaan masters' patronage. These
young students follow their masters to the ceremonies, help them to
prepare the offerings,and learn how to sin and perform a thaan ceremony.
Some of them sing for pleasure, but they stop accompanying their thaan
masters when they get married. The other ones are called by the thaan
ancestors to the vocation and can experience trance during the
performance. They separate from their masters when they are able to
master the teaditional performing techniques.Thaan masters have many
adopted children whose disease they heal or whom they save from bad
luck. On special occasions ,on the lau put rites and on New Year's day,
these children bring gifts to their masters as a sign of their
gratitude. For instance, put Dien, a female practitioner in the district
of Ha Quang provence of Cao Bang performed the ceremony for her 48th
adopted child, which I observed in summer of 1997 .There are many pople
who practice the thaan ritual. According to statistics kept by the
Culture and Information Department of the autonomous region of Viet Bac
before 1976, the a large number of thaan performers in a village is five
(Nong Van Hoan 1978 :13). The fact is that villagers choose one among a
large number of singers to practice thaan for them.The life and
prosperity of households are thought to depend on the reputation and
power of performers.Their voice and their behavior as individuals are
judged by the masses during performances and afterwards .During a
performance, if they lose their voice, forget the songs, cannot make the
tradition fit the real cermony , or cannot answer the audience's
questions, they will be judged inadequate and could lose their
reputation. As shamans, the thaan practitioners sometimes entertain
people (La Van Lo,Ha Van Thu 1984:30).Through them, their villagers want
to have contact with invesible spirits. They hold a khaai bjook
(selling of flowers)to tian (female charming spirits)so that the lay
people have a chance to meet the spirits, sing, and dance with them.
They also have the liinaan (playing with swallows)performance in which
swallows take the lay people's souls to visit paradise in the moon or
heaven. The other kind of the entertainment performances is dee lau
(offeing of wine),w here the deceased souls make offerings to the gd of
heaven after a trip of hardship through deep rives,high mountains,
places full of evels,and demons in order to reach heaven. Also,girls
who are not successful in love and marriage can make freds wuth heavenly
people,or even get married in heaven,and men can take time to spend with
tian for a while with the gelpof the thaan practitioners.

Thaan performing is a vocation given by spirits but it is also a job for
practictioners to earn a living by. People do not like the singers who
ask for too much money and offerings as payment for their performances.
They are more respected if they do not demand a fee and are satisfied
with any payment. However, households usually pay them according to the
common rate. Put Dien whom I met during my stay in Ha Quang was busy
with invitations because of her easy-going character, and was very happy
with what the households gave her just as a symbol of their gratitude to
her singing and practicing. By contrast, put Nau, who lives near put
Dien ,was rarely invited to perform because she demanded high payments.
Generally, households pay a part of the offerings, including one
chicken, one duck, a section of pork head, seven bowls of rice, and
from100,000 to120,000Vietnamese dong (arouvd 8-10US S ) in1997, and
treat the performers to several lavish meals during their performances.



In summary, the thaan performers are judged critically by the thaan's
ancestors as vocation's successors, talentsd folk singers and capable of
entering into trance to interact with inviseble spirits.They must be
creative enough to make the tradition fit the audience and to satisfy
their religious needs and their desire for pleasure.They sing the thaan
songs in rhymed verses in different moods depending on the purpose of
the ceremonies.The thaan singers must have good voice, play musical
instruments well, and have a mild mannered and easy-going character.



Note: Thaan = the spirit of shaman





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