Hà Nội has artifacts dating from the Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age, including the period when the first two Việt states, together with the core Việt cultural identity, were born (c. 1000 BCE). After over a thousand years of Chinese domination (c. 200 BCE – 938 CE), the Việts defeated the Chinese and regained their independence. In the beginning of the eleventh century, the Việts established their capital at Thăng Long (City of the Soaring Dragon), which has since become Hà Nội.
The deepest aspirations and dilemmas of the Vietnamese people can be understood through our culture’s myths. Joseph Campbell, is correct to say, “Myths allow the spiritual potential of human life to be realized.”
The Lord of the Sacred Drum Finally Regains His Artefact
Vietnamese are proud of the famous Đông Sơn bronze drums that are vestiges of the culture of the same name, which defined the Việt from the millennium preceding the Christian era. I can never stop wondering how—3,000 years ago—our ancestors could craft such marvels, such objects with sensuous shapes and decorated with precise geometric lines and perfect human and animal figures reflecting a clear cosmology.
My admiration prompted me one fine spring day to make a pilgrimage to Đan Nê Hamlet in Yên Thọ Commune (Yên Định District, Thanh Hóa Province), which is two hundred kilometers south of Hà Nội. Đan Nê has a temple dedicated to the spirit, Đồng Cổ, (“đồng” = “bronze,” and “cổ” = “drum”). Legend has it that King Hùng, founder of the Việt nation, was on Mount Đan Nê during a military campaign and dreamed about a spirit, who promised him miraculous assistance. During the following day’s battle, thunderous rhythms resounded all around, filling the king’s army with irresistible strength. After the victory, the grateful king awarded his mysterious supporter the title, “Đồng Cổ Đại Vương”—“Great Lord of the Bronze Drum,” and made him guardian spirit of that locality.
Another Đồng Cổ Temple is in Bưởi, a community on the southwestern side of Hà Nội’s West Lake. According to legend, Prince Phật Mã from the eleventh-century Lý Dynasty prayed for assistance while billeting his troops at Bưởi during their southern advance to drive back a Chăm Pa invasion. The local spirit brought Prince Phật Mã victory and helped him foil a court plot. After his coronation as King Lý Thái Tông (life: 1000–1054; reign: 1028–1054), Phật Mã built a temple outside the royal citadel to honor his benefactor and ordered court officials to make annual pilgrimages to the temple and pledge loyalty to him as their monarch.
Village elders in Đan Nê confirm the existence in their village of an ancient bronze drum and say that the drum could have been donated by a cousin of Emperor Quang Trung (life: 1753–1792; reign: 1788–1792). French Governor-General Pierre Pasquier (governor-general: October 4, 1926 – May 16, 1927 and December 26, 1928 – January 15, 1934) visited the temple and contributed twenty-five piasters for its maintenance. The event was engraved in French on a marker. Unfortunately, the valuable drum disappeared around 1932. One person has reported seeing in a Paris museum a bronze drum with a placard citing Đan Nê as its origin.
To replace their irreparable loss, the villagers made do with a huge wood-and-buffalo-hide drum. Sensing their frustration, the Vietnam-Sweden Cultural Fund made a generous donation for a replica of an authentic Đông Sơn drum displayed at Việt Nam’s History Museum. Nguyễn Trọng Hạnh, a gifted artisan from a long line of bronze casters, crafted the substitution.
Perhaps Đồng Cổ, the Great Lord of the Bronze Drum, is pleased to have a replica of his drum return to his home village.
The Worship of Mother Goddesses
Việt Nam’s truly indigenous religious foundation is the worship of spirits, including mother goddesses (thờ mẫu). This belief based on animist religious practices dates back to prehistoric times. Mother goddesses deserve our attention as an example of religious syncretism involving the popular Vietnamese religious credo that survives despite numerous borrowings from other faiths. Among the religious borrowings, we can include the Buddhists’ merciful Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Quan Âm) as supreme sovereign as well as Taoist saints and spirits, particularly the Jade Emperor of the Sky (Ngọc Hoàng). We can also point to loans from Confucianism, with its teachings about good and evil and some of its sacrificial rites.
The worship of mother goddesses falls within traditional worship of female spirits in Việt Nam. Women have always dominated thánh mẫu, the original belief devoted to the mother goddesses. However, a later branch sanctified General Trần Hưng Đạo (1228–1300), the heroic victor over the Mongols.
Generally speaking, three factors contributed to the worship of mother goddesses: animism, respect for women, and rice cultivation. Later, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (which despised women) influenced the worship of mother goddesses. However, Vietnamese society is, at its base, a matriarchal system honoring women. The innate Vietnamese worship of mother goddesses is traditionally more important than imported beliefs because women’s work sowing, transplanting, and harvesting rice played a key role in Việt Nam’s wet-rice civilization. For this reason, ancient Vietnamese deified land, water, and sky—important factors in wet-rice cultivation—by referring to them as Mother Earth, Mother Water, and Mother Sky. Animist believers also raised women to goddesses because of women’s role in procreation.
Over the millennia, sporadic and local forms of worship became generalized and revealed a common denominator. A national belief was born—the worship of mother goddesses—which is also known as the worship of the Three Palaces (Tam Phủ) or the worship of the Four Palaces (Tứ Phủ). Divinities—all benevolent—among the mother goddesses in hierarchal order include:
• Mother Goddesses of the Three or Four Palaces (Tam Tòa Thánh Mẫu-Tam Phủ or Tứ Phủ)
• Mother Goddess of the Sky (Mẫu Thượng Thiên), whose sacred color is red. Her avatar, Liễu Hạnh, who is of human origin, is very popular.
• Mother Goddess of the Mountains and Forests, of the Dead and the Faithful (Mẫu Thượng Ngàn), whose sacred color is green
• Mother Goddess of Water (Mẫu Thoải), whose sacred color is white
• Mother Goddess of Earth (Mẫu Địa), whose sacred color is also white
• Five Royal Mandarins (Ngũ Vị Vương Quan), sons of the Spirit Dragon of the Eight Seas (Bát Hải Đại Vương). Their number may reach ten.
• Four Lady Saints (Chầu Bà or Thánh Bà), avatars of the Four Mother Goddesses. Their number may reach twelve.
• Ten Princes (Thập Ông Hoàng), sons of the Spirit of the Dragon of the Eight Seas (Bát Hải Đại Vương). They live in the Water Palace.
• Twelve Royal Maids (Thập Nhị Vương Cô), servants of the mother goddesses and the ladies
• Twelve Page Boys (Thập Nhị Cậu), avatars of children who died before age nine, retainers of the Princes
• Five Tiger Mandarins (Quan Ngũ Hổ)
• Sir Lốt, the Snake Spirit (Ông Lốt)
The worship of mother goddesses includes male divinities with their sacred color, indigo. They are integrated into the worship of the Three or Four Palaces under the Palace of the Trần Dynasty (Phủ Trần Triều). This belief is devoted to General Trần Hưng Đạo, his son (Trần Quốc Tảng, 1252–1313), his two daughters, and his first lieutenant (Phạm Ngũ Lão, 1255–1320).