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Precious Heritage Project

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In many areas of Vietnam, the cultural costumes that are unique to each ethnic minority tribe are no longer being made. The age-old traditions of harvesting hemp and hand-dying with indigo dye take time and patience and this type of craftsmanship is losing its place in our world. This is part of why I started The Precious Heritage Project ... to preserve a part of this beautiful culture for future generations

54 Hill Tribes of Vietnam

The Inspiration

On the artist’s first trip to Northern Vietnam, he witnessed the Dao ethnic group wearing their traditional costumes. The stunning colors and detailed embroidery were like nothing he’d ever seen before. He learned about the crafting techniques that had been passed down from generation to generation. These garments and the creation of them are an essential part of the ethnic group’s identity.

I started thinking deeply about the word ‘heritage’ after I became a father. Like all parents, I asked myself what my children would learn from me, what I could pass down to them.

dao ethnic vietnam rehahn

After this initial trip, Réhahn was surprised to learn that there are actually 54 distinct ethnic groups currently living in Vietnam!  Each group has different identifying traits such as their languages, craftsmanship, architectural styles and religious beliefs.

Little by little he traveled the country, meeting group after group. Eventually, he made it an official goal of the Precious Heritage Project to meet and photograph all 54 groups, no matter how long it took.

rehahn precious heritage collection in vietnam
rehahn precious heritage collection in vietnam
rehahn precious heritage collection in vietnam

The Mission

The Precious Heritage Project started as a way to connect to the people and cultures of Vietnam. Slowly he traveled to meet more groups, yet the desire to learn more remained strong within him. Over time it grew into a massive undertaking to meet, photograph and document the stories, music and traditional crafts and costumes of all 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in the country.

The project quickly became more than a personal project. As Réhahn traveled from village to village, tribal leaders entrusted him with examples of their traditional crafts and costumes. He decided that he needed a single location in which he could present the portraits of each tribe as well as these invaluable artifacts. The idea for the Precious Heritage Museum was born.

In 2017, The Precious Heritage Museum opened in Hoi An, Vietnam.

The collection consists of a collection of more than 200 photographs, 62 traditional wardrobe ensembles and spans 5 rooms and 500sqm. The museum is completely free to the public as a way to honor  the living history of the tribes that he has met.

From tales that are passed down through generations to handmade tribal costumes and traditional music, there is a rich, intangible cultural heritage present within Vietnam that Réhahn has had the privilege to witness, document and preserve through his lens and his cultural museums.

This mission to meet all 54 ethnic groups and to document them for the museum took Réhahn the better part of a decade to realize. He finally completed the project in 2020. 

Before coming to Vietnam, I couldn’t imagine a country where so many languages, traditions and separate cultural identities could exist side by side. I’m not an ethnologist, so I can’t comment on the complicated relationships that exist within different countries. But, personally, I do believe that there’s much to be learned from the indigenous groups around the world, and that these rich and ancient cultures certainly deserve respect or, at the very least, to be allowed to live peacefully in their own way.

rehahn precious heritage museum in hoi an vietnam
▲ In 2020, Réhahn was proud to announce the completion of the Precious Heritage Project. Now, stories, portraits, costumes and artifacts can be seen in the Museum from all 54 officially recognized ethnic groups and many subgroups. The exhibition is free to the public as a way to increase knowledge, understanding and pride in the ethnic diversity of Vietnam.

The Experience

The first trip to a remote village in Vietnam is always a moment of reflection for Réhahn. There are still areas of Vietnam that have very little contact with foreigners and it is not always possible to know how a stranger walking into the community will be received. Yet, again and again, Réhahn has been met with kind smiles and curiosity.

Children are usually the first to approach, bringing with them their natural irreverence and openness. They chatter at him, asking questions about who he is and what he’s doing. Their laughter as he attempts to communicate with them in Vietnamese brightens the atmosphere.

rehahn precious heritage museum in hoi an vietnam
▲ Hmong kids around Réhahn

In each community that he visits, Réhahn tries to seek out the elders because he knows that their stories will be the richest, the most captivating. It is also a way to show respect because in so many ways they are the “keepers of their culture.”

When the elders speak of their culture or put on their traditional dress, their eyes light up. Listening to their stories and capturing images of them in their environment has a profound effect on Réhahn. The precious stories they tell about their lives, their traditions … what has been lost, what has been gained … are the inspiration for what Réhahn attempts to capture— a glimpse of their distinctive spirits.

Ethnic Portraits by Rehahn at his museum in Vietnam Musée du Vietnam - Hoi An

In many areas of Vietnam, the cultural costumes that are unique to each ethnic minority tribe are either no longer being made or are being replaced by factory facsimiles or pre-made clothing. The age-old traditions of harvesting hemp and hand-dying the fibres with brilliant indigo dye take time and patience and this type of craftsmanship is losing its place in our world.

Réhahn’s mission when entering these areas of Vietnam is multi-dimensional. First, he speaks with the community, listens to their stories and their music and experiences their traditions firsthand. The photograph always comes second.

Everyone’s story is worth telling, and photographers have a unique medium with which to express that.

I met people from different cultures who expressed regrets that their children were no longer learning their ancestral languages or handicrafts. The more I discovered about these tribal groups, the more I realised how fleeting heritage can be. Unwritten languages cannot survive if no-one speaks them. Songs that are not sung are eventually forgotten. I realised how important it is to try to keep some of this precious heritage alive.

cham ethnic vietnam rehahn
▲ Cham ethnnic man in Phan Rang
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▲ Cao Lan ethnic man in Yen Bai

Sometimes the villagers will already be wearing their traditional costumes when the artist arrives and the colours, textures and details will naturally spark a photographic moment. Other times, the cultural dress that was so unique to each area will have been discarded in favor of pre-made clothing that is easier to attain and replace. In this case, Réhahn will ask the village chief to introduce him to families that may still have examples of the traditional costumes the tribe used to wear.

When he meets the village chief, Réhahn always explains his project: the photographs will be used in a museum to capture the tribe at this moment in history, their stories, music and traditional costumes will also be preserved and displayed in the museum in an effort to foster understanding and cultural exchange.

At times Réhahn’s subjects are shy to be photographed. They laugh and joke about being too old but when they are dressed in their traditional finery and the camera comes out a change often occurs. They have pride in their heritage and the beauty of their craftsmanship. They sometimes reveal to Réhahn that this heritage is something they wish to impart to the younger generations but they just don’t know how.

PRECIOUS-HERITAGE-MUSEUM-BY-REHAHN

The Reality

No one can deny that if there’s one characteristic of Vietnamese people that stands out, it’s that they are extremely resilient. They’ve managed to turn a largely traumatic history into a blossoming future.

However, adapting to the changing times has had an impact on the ethnic groups as well. Many young adults have left their villages to go and work in the major cities in search of a better future. While they end up creating new stories for themselves, there is also something left behind: their rich cultural heritage. Time never stands still and progress always comes with a price.

This knowledge of imminent change is part of what drove Réhahn to create the world’s first private museum dedicated to the Precious Heritage of the ethnic groups of Vietnam.

Within the ethnic groups, especially amongst the tribal elders, there is an urgency to try to retain some of their heritage. This heritage can include written and unwritten languages, music, spoken tales, crafting techniques and other traditions. Each distinct tribe or subgroup have distinct variations that make them unique within Vietnam.

Below are a few examples of tribes whose traditions (and in some cases populations) may be diminishing as you read this.

the brau ethnic in laos photo by rehahn
▲ Brau ethnic group in Laos
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▲ Brau costume left behind the house

The Second Smallest Ethnic Group In Vietnam

The Brau are an ethnic group living in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In Vietnam, the Brau live in the Dak Me village in Kon Tum province and they speak Brau, a Mon-Khmer language. In May 2016, Réhahn had the chance to meet them.

An interesting fact is that the Brau only have 2 family names: Thao (for males) and Nhang (for females). They have a “coming-of-age” custom of filing their four front teeth to be perfectly even. Women typically stretch their ears with heavy jewellery to create long, hanging earlobes. They also have their bodies tattooed; however, this is one of many dying customs.

There are only 397 Brau left in Vietnam (according to a 2009 census)! Dak Me is the last village in Vietnam where this ethnic group still lives. At the time that Réhahn visited nobody in the village was still able to make the traditional costumes.

Encountering the Brau is part of what planted the seed in Réhahn’s mind of turning the Precious Heritage Collection into a Museum.

O Du ethnic vietnam rehahn
▲ The O Du ethnic group

The O Du Ethnic Group

In July 2016, Réhahn had an opportunity to meet the O Du tribe, the smallest ethnic group in Vietnam. There are only about 500 O Du people worldwide. A little fewer than 200 have settled in Laos, while approximately 300 O Du live in Vietnam.

The O Du live in Tuong Dung district in Nghe An province. There’s virtually no information about this tribe available online, so Réhahn travelled to their tribal land with no idea about what to expect.

They used to live in 3 different locations but in 2006 they were moved to one small town, 2 hours from Vinh in the same province, close to Laos. They have 1 festival per year and only 5 original traditional costumes left.

One 78-year-old woman by the name of Vi Thi Dung is the last person able to make part of the O Du traditional costume in Vietnam, and she only has the techniques to make the skirt!

Despite the fact that the techniques for how to make the traditional costumes have largely been abandoned there is still a strong sense of cultural pride in evidence when interacting with the tribe.

According to Vi Thi Dung, the younger generations simply aren’t interested in learning how to make these costumes anymore. People have to cross the border into Laos if they want an original costume but they rarely do.

The O Du are influenced by the Thai and now speak fluent Viet and Thai. At the time of Réhahn’s visit, there were only 10 people left who could speak Phrom, the original O Du language, which is a branch of the Mon-Kho Me language. All 10 of these people were over the age of 70-years-old. No one is able to read or write it and there are absolutely no books left referencing it, making it almost impossible to learn the language anymore. This harsh reality means that this language’s time is running out fast. It could be wiped out in as little as 5 years.

chut ethnic vietnam rehahn
▲ The Chut ethnic group

The Chut Ethnic Group

The Final Tribe 

In 2019, Réhahn officially finished his original goal of meeting and documenting all 54 ethnic groups. The Precious Heritage Project started with the passion to learn more about Vietnam’s diverse cultures and ended up becoming a nearly decade-long exploration into the value of heritage and generational wisdom.

Each tribe and their numerous subgroups represent a special experience for the artist but meeting The Chut was an unforgettable encounter. Not only were they the group that definitively wrapped up the project, but their history is also unique.

The Chut are located in the Quang Binh province. The location in the center of Vietnam is highly restricted, so it took years for the artist to access this group. The Chut originally lived in a cave near the border of Laos. They were moved in 1959 to be closer to Vietnamese villages.

hmong ethnic vietnam rehahn

The Future Of The Project

These experiences, along with admiration and respect for the traditions of Vietnam’s diverse ethnic groups, spearheaded Réhahn’s feelings of necessity to continue his work on the Precious Heritage Collection and to share it with the world.

The nature of humanity is to keep progressing. But there comes a time in most people’s lives when we look back and want to know more about our heritage. What stories will be told about the incredible diversity of cultures present in Vietnam? Will it be tales of tall buildings and city life or will it be stories of green highlands, colourful traditions and a sense of cultural pride?

The Precious Heritage project will never really be over, there are many other subgroups not included in the list. And over the course of my travels, I’ve gained new friends and adopted family. I won’t stop seeing them simply because I’ve met my starting goal. I’ll continue to update their portraits, collect artefacts and costumes, and maintain my relationships and commitments to the people I’ve had the honour to meet over the last ten years.

Making this project would not have been possible without reading what ethnologists and explorers published in the last century. Here a non exhaustive list of his private collection:

* Auguste Pavie : Mission Pavie en Indochine, 1879–1895. 7 vols (1898)
* Henri Maitre: Les Régions Moï du Sud Indo-Chinois – Le Plateau du Darlac, (1909)
* Léopold Sabatier: La palabre du serment du Darlac, (1926)
* DAM BO (alias Jacques Dournes):  Les Populations montagnardes du Sud-Indochinois (Pémsiens) (1949)
* Jacques Dournes: En suivant piste des hommes hauts-plateaux Vietnam, (1955)
* George Condominas : Nous avons mangé la forêt de la Pierre-Génie Gôo, (1957)
* Georges Condominas: L’exotique est quotidien. Sar Luk, (1965)
* Jean Boulbet: Pays des Maa’ domaine des génies Essai d’ethno-hist. d’une population proto-indochinoise du Viet Nam, (1967)
* Gábor Vargyas: À la recherche des Brou perdus, population montagnarde du Centre indochinois, (2000)
* Michael C. Howard: Textiles of the Daic peoples of Vietnam (2002)
* Michael C. Howard: Textiles of the Central Highlands of Vietnam (2002)
* Michael C. Howard: Textiles of the Highland People of Northern Vietnam: Mon-khmer,Hmong & Tibeto Burman (2002)
* De Palmes et d’épines, Tome 1, Vers le Domaine des génies (Pays maa’, Sud Vietnam, 1947-1963), (2002)
* Mathieu Guérin, Andrew Hardy: DES MONTAGNARDS AUX MINORITÉS ETHNIQUES, (2003)
* Michael C. Howard: Patterns on Textiles and Other Objects of the Êdê and Mnông in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (2005)
* Michael C. Howard: Bark-cloth in Southeast Asia, (2006)
* Bertrand Goy, Jean Yves Coué:JARAÏ, Arts de guerre et de mort chez les montagnards d’indochine, (2006)
* Michael C. Howard: extiles and Clothing of Việt Nam: A History, (2016)

Come and visit us at The Precious Heritage Museum if you pass through Hoi An!

PRECIOUS HERITAGE MUSEUM
Add: 26 Phan Bội Châu, Hội An, Vietnam
Hours: Open 7days per week from 8 am to 8 pm

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