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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 www.discoveryindochina.com -- Posted via http://britishexpats.com |
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