Wedding daze

The Dzao Tien hill tribe from the northwest mountains of Vietnam knows how to throw a wedding party.
In the early hours of the morning, every one from Muong village in Moc Chau district, Son La province, is already up and bustling around. Down every path leading to the village, guests from other villages are arriving.
Everyone is in their best outfit, with black-and-indigo clothes embroidered with beautiful floral patterns and decorated with silver coins. Today, there’s going to be a wedding and the Dzao Tien (Dzao with coins) inhabitants are getting ready to party. Normally the village is a quiet and tranquil spot, especially at three in the morning, but now you can feel the excitement in the air.
The village shaman, Trieu Van Can, looks around and nods approvingly. “Today is a good day for meeting the bride and bringing her home.” Pigs squeal and cocks flap their wings as they are lined up and sacrificed as offerings to the village ancestors and gods.
The meat will also be offered to the bride’s family and laid out for the wedding banquet later in the day. The groom’s house is full of people. Old women clean the house and prepare food. The old men prepare offerings for the bride’s family: 400kg of pork is cut and placed into 12 bamboo basketswith 12 packets of salt wrapped in votive papers and placed around a jar containing silver, symbolizing the first 12 forefathers of the Dzao Tien tribe.
“In the early morning before the sun rises, it is the purest moment of day. We will bring good luck to the marriage, by visiting the bride early,” says the shaman. But according to Dzao Tien custom, the groom is not allowed to bring the bride home or to see her face before all rituals are performed. The bride and groom must follow these customs to ensure they will have 100 years of happiness. The groom’s mother will lead the bride’s family to the groom’s house.
If anyone is still asleep, they will be roused by a chorus of -pipes, cymbals, gongs and drums, which will accompany the delegation. This is an invitation to join the festivities. The delegation will then walk around the village to avoid ghosts. The bride will wear a headscarf covering her face. She will also wear up to 10 embroidered outfits made by her relatives.
The costume will weigh up to 10kg, and the bride can sometimes look like a big overweight doll. She can hardly move by herself and is assisted by several bridesmaids when walking. When she arrives at the gate of groom’s house, the bride will peel off her excess layers (symbolically, these are the ones her relatives made), before stepping into the husband’s house. She will then put on clothes made by her husband’s relatives.
A feast ensues at the groom’s house and after that the bride and groom will head back to the bride’s house for an even bigger party, where the groom is expected to drink literally litres of “Ruou Hoang”, a kind of milky liquor which is sweet and easy-to-drink, but quite strong. The best dish at the feast is a traditional kind of preserved bacon.
It’s hard to imagine that the dish is made with fresh pork mixed with salt, alcohol and sticky rice, then placed into a jar and buried in the ground for three to five years before being served! The dish is certainly a strong-smelling one, but tastes very good. The groom must kowtow to each member of the bride’s family and her close relatives, knocking back a bowl of liquor with each person.
Weddings are also a time for young single people to check out the talent and make a date. Young girls will wear their most beautiful outfits, which they will have spent a lot of time embroidering, in an attempt to attract the attentions of young bachelors. The Dzao Tien tribe is one of up to nine local sub-groups of the Dzao group in Vietnam.
Each tribe is distinguished by their costumes. It’s easy to spot Dzao Tien thanks to their sophisticated clothes. The Dzao Tien pay great attention to the combination of ornaments on their clothes. The blouses and headscarves are decorated with beeswax prints, beads and silver coins, while the colourful brocaded collars, fly front closings and sleeves are decorated with silver ornaments.
The Dzao Tien tribe lives mainly in Da Bac and Mai Chau districts of Hoa Binh province, Thanh Son district of Phu Tho province and Moc Chau district of Son La province. Although they stay in different areas, the community still keeps in close contact.