Performed in villages and closely attached to water rice agriculture, water puppetry is a unique performing art and is the intangible cultural heritage of the Viet people in the Northern Delta region of Vietnam. Created in the tenth century, the first historical record on water puppetry was inscribed in an ancient stele in 1121 called the Sung Dien Dien Linh in the Long Dọi Buddhist Temple of Ha Nam Province. The inscription reads that water puppetry was performed to entertain the king on the occasion of his longevity ceremony.

The Law on Cultural Heritage of Vietnam (adopted in 2001, revised in 2009) is the most important legal tool for safeguarding heritage, both natural and cultural, and tangible and intangible, in Vietnam. Compatible to UNESCO’s 2003 Convention on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, the Law on Cultural Heritage of Vietnam acknowledges and protects the cultural creations of the community produced out of their own needs, through their awareness and labour. Such cultures have a strong attachment to them from one generation to another and become the identity of the community or groups of people in society and their heritage and the heritage of the nation and humankind. Lên Đồng (mediumship) is a religious practice of the Viet/Kinh, the majority group in Vietnam. This ritual originated from the worship of the Mother Goddess. Lên Đồng possibly started in the 15th century and has existed continuously in the people’s life. Yet, in some periods of time, it was not recognized and thus was not practiced openly. Today, Lên Đồng and the worship of the Mother Goddess are open, common and developed in Vietnam. Their values and practice are being studied, clarified and acknowledged for their protection as a national heritage. This work has been carried out with good results thanks to the participation of many scholars, cultural policy makers and especially the self-awareness of identifying and introducing the values of this cultural heritage of the Mother Goddess Worship community. We’d like to express our thanks to ICHCAP and the authorities of Jindo City for inviting us to this Workshop “Safeguarding Shamanism Heritage in Asia”. My paper will present a case study entitled “Together with the community identifying the values, safeguarding Lên đồng mediumship, a Shamanism heritage in Vietnam”

I have a very fond memory of a 50 year-old man who worked in the kitchen of the hotel where we stayed for 20 days while participating in the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC. Whenever this member of staff had any free time, he came along to enjoy our performances, and was especially keen on our sessions of Don ca tai tu singing. His face, which often had a look of sadness that made him appear far older than his years, brightened into a broad smile as he listened, and there were times when his eyes filled with tears. It turned out that he was Vietnamese, one of the expatriates formerly referred to in the USA as 'boat people', and he came originally from Rach Gia district in the southern province of Kien Giang. He had left our homeland in 1975 and had never been able to return. I was deeply moved by this encounter and felt I was seeing the true power of culture to bring people together and show them how to share, to understand and to feel close to one another.

The hallowed musical art form known as Tuong or Boi—Vietnamese traditional opera—is one of Vietnam’s major classical performance genres. According to an important document from our early royal archive collection, while in battle with Mongol invasion forces in the thirteenth century, one of Vietnam’s greatest military heroes, Commander Tran Quoc Tuan of the Tran emperor’s army, captured a noted Chinese musical luminary named Ly Nguyen Cat. This artist was handed over General Tran Nhat Duat, and it is thanks to the general that the art of Tuong was introduced to Vietnam as a source of entertainment for the nation’s soldiers and officials.

In Vietnam, activities aimed at the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage date from a much more recent period than the protection of tangible cultural heritage. This delay of over half a century in the development of preservation policies for intangible cultural heritage has been a big loss, which in some cases cannot be redressed. Because of the limited awareness of the full value of intangible cultural heritage, many ordinary people and culture owners have ceased practicing and transmitting their traditions. This has meant that there have been no inheritors to many traditions. Many oral heritage elements have disappeared forever, even from popular memory. The rapid change of socio-economic conditions has led to many changes in the spiritual and cultural life of communities. In the past, some intangible cultural heritage elements were considered backward or superstitious or belonging to the culture of the feudal class. As a result, culture bearers disavowed their heritage or were compelled to renounce their traditions. There are some social customs, forms of folk knowledge and technical skill that have become altogether extinct without any possibility of restoration or revival.

We would like to address the issue of “Once cultural heritage of the community has suddenly become media news” There are a number of elements of intangible cultural heritage that have come to be thought of as problematic or 'bad customs' having a negative impact on contemporary social life. For example, the ritual of sacrificing animals as an offering to gods or spirits. The question is whether such things really should be understood as bad customs? Should we allow such practices to continue or either alter or abandon them? And who has the right to decide in such matters?

In just six years, an important element of intangible cultural heritage went from being an element in need of urgent safeguarding to being an active part of the lives of Vietnamese people. The Hat Xoan Phu Tho tradition, a distinctive call-and-response musical genre of Phu Tho Province in northern Vietnam, was inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011, and as a result it became the focus of an extensive revitalization program to ensure its survival. A unique blend of song and dance performance, xoan originated in the upland region of Viet Tri in Phu Tho for the people to express the richness of their community lives. Some of the performances are to venerate ancient kings while others are expressions of the people’s skills and artistry or their knowledge of farming, fishing, hunting, weaving, and other rural crafts. xoan is considered the core and essence of the social and cultural identity of the villages of Phu Duc, Kim Dai, Thet, and An Thai. Since 2011, the state and local communities have been supporting a project to revitalize xoan. A series of creative collaborations between knowledgeable elder practitioners and a nucleus of over sixty younger artists have committed themselves to xoan practice and dissemination and have subsequently secured xoan transmission to future generations. Training classes are held monthly and weekly within the communities. An active set of xoan guilds with as many as a hundred members of three or even four generations of practitioner families are successfully recruiting new adherents. To generate an audience for the genre, xoan has been introduced into the regional school curriculum as a reference point for teaching on issues of heritage and local history. Demonstration activities and social events outside the xoan communities, have attracted young people and increased their understanding and enjoyment of xoan. Within the xoan communities, many of the temples and shrines used for performances had deteriorated because of war and time, becoming unusable. The state, however, has allocated priority funding to restore these performance areas. Through the government-funded program, community members are fully involved in the restoration and have been empowered to manage their own cultural spaces. On 28 March 2017, the country’s largest site for xoan practice was inaugurated in Kim Duc, a commune of Viet Tri. Legend has it that this space, within the Lai Len temple in Kim Duc, was the first site of xoan performance in Vietnam. Through these unique programs, xoan communities have become vibrant places of practice and the transmission of xoan. Photo : In marked contrast to the traditional past, Xoan is now widely performed by young practitioners © Le Thi Minh Ly