Enthralled by the Traditional Silver Carving Craft of the Nung People in Hoang Su Phi

Silver is considered a symbol of luck and peace by the Nung people. For generations, the traditional silver carving craft has been a source of pride and a distinctive cultural feature of the Nung people.

Recognition as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage

In Hoang Su Phi district (Ha Giang province), there is no shortage of silversmiths, however, the artisans who know how to create the ancient patterns on silver are now few and far between. In the life of the Nung people, silver is considered a symbol of luck and peace. The traditional silver carving craft has become a source of pride and a distinctive cultural trait of the Nung people.

On August 27, 2019, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism recognized the silver carving craft of the Nung people in the two communes of Po Ly Ngài and Nang Don (Hoang Su Phi) as a part of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

A Craft that Embodies the Nung People’s Soul

According to the Nung people, wealth is not measured by the number of cattle, buffaloes, or rice fields one possesses, but by the amount of silver one owns. Mr. Chang Thanh To, one of the few remaining traditional silver carving artisans in Po Ly Ngài commune, Hoang Su Phi district, learned the craft from his father. His father often told him, “Silver jewelry is our soul, our tradition. If we do not wear silver, we Nung people will not know our origins, our ancestors.”

Silver in Nung Traditions

That’s absolutely right, Silver is always present in the unique and important cultural aspects of the Nung people’s lives. For instance, during the Nung engagement and wedding ceremonies, the two families discuss the required gifts that the groom’s family must bring to the bride’s family on the wedding day. These mandatory gifts include: 1 pair of chickens, 1 pig weighing at least 35 kg, 15 bottles of rice wine, 15 tubes of glutinous rice, and 12 sticky rice cakes.

In addition, there must be jewelry for the bride, including a chain of silver beads, a pair of silver bracelets, 1 tael of silver beads, and 14 silver buttons. These are the jewelry and accessories that the bride uses to make her wedding clothes. According to Nung belief, silver brings luck and peace, so this jewelry has been associated with them for generations. The most beautiful and elaborate jewelry is always the wedding gift of the Nung people, an important dowry for the groom’s family to show their affluence to the bride’s family.

Silver jewelry is not only worn during special occasions but is also a part of everyday life for Nung women. In Hoang Su Phi, it is easy to recognize Nung women by their indigo-dyed cotton clothes and their exquisite silver jewelry.

The women’s shirts are made with tight sleeves and a short body. The most striking feature is the row of 15-20 silver buttons. Each silver button is further adorned with 6 small silver sausages, adding to the beauty of the Nung girl. The standing collar is square-shaped, embroidered with patterns using metallic thread, colored thread, and decorated with small silver mountain-shaped beads, and the collar edge has a silver sun-shaped clasp.

The wide-flared skirt flatters the graceful figure of the girl. The waistband is decorated with blue and red fabrics. From a distance, you can still recognize the diligent bearing of a Nung woman in the bustling market.

The Nung women in Hoang Su Phi wrap a round scarf around their heads. The inner scarf is decorated with tiny silver mountain-shaped beads. The outer scarf has a fish bone pattern embroidered at the two ends. On top of the head, a silver hairpin is worn.

If you have the chance to interact with Nung women, you will be greatly impressed by their traditional silver jewelry, including necklaces, delicate bird, fish, and crab-shaped pendants hung across the chest. The silver bracelets are gleaming. The white of the traditional silver necklaces, pendants, and chains makes the indigo traditional dresses look even more eye-catching, elegant, and beautiful.

The traditional silver jewelry set is also a dowry gift that the mother-in-law presents to the bride when she enters her new home. This is a reminder from the husband’s family to the new daughter-in-law, a story about the history of protecting the land and the village that the Nung descendants must never forget.

The cruel enemy troops captured the women, forcing them to wear heavy stone mortars on their backs, drive silver needles into their heads, bind them with iron chains around their necks, and shackle their wrists with iron bracelets. They then made the women do hard labor to torment them, hoping to force the Nung men to surrender. But the Nung people did not submit.

The Nung women remained steadfast, waiting for their husbands to come rescue them. Impressed, the Han emperor ordered his soldiers to remove the stone mortars and iron chains, replacing them with delicate silver necklaces, bracelets, and smaller rings for the women. He then withdrew his troops, ending the war with the Nung people.

With peace restored, the Nung women were reunited with their families. To commemorate those harrowing times of hardship, the Nung women started wearing dresses with large collars in the back, and adorning themselves with silver jewelry carved with images of mortars, chains, and stones. They continue this tradition to this day. This is why silver jewelry is so highly revered by the Nung people, as it carries the stories and history of their ethnic group.

The Skilled Craft

Mr. Cháng Thanh Tờ, like most Nùng people, does not know exactly how the silver carving craft of his ethnic group originated. They only know that this is a craft passed down from father to son. From a young age, many children in the communes of Pờ Ly Ngài and Nàng Đôn have grown accustomed to the heat of the charcoal fire that melts the silver, and the sound of the hammer and the knocking of their ancestors.

Mr. Cháng Thanh Tờ cannot recall exactly when he became drawn to the traditional craft of his family. He only knows that by the time he turned 20 years old, he was already able to skillfully craft the traditional Nùng silver jewelry.

It was also thanks to his father’s words of advice that Mr. Tờ has maintained the motivation and passion for this craft that demands such precision and meticulousness from his people. The artisan Cháng Thanh Tờ has diligently dedicated two-thirds of his life to creating the exquisite jewelry pieces that embody the layered culture of the Nùng people in the Tây Côn Lĩnh mountain range.

To create high-quality jewelry, the artisans must find and use materials such as filigree silver and ingot silver. With traditional handtools like scissors, pliers, hammers, wooden bases, melting pots, and precision scales, along with their skilled hands and creative minds, these artisans have crafted rings, bracelets, hair pins, and silver buttons with intricate patterns and designs that are closely tied to the lives of the people.

Before starting the crafting process, Mr. Tờ usually weighs the silver on a self-made scale to determine the value. Then, he uses a blowtorch to melt the silver. Mr. Tờ hammers the silver into thin sheets, almost as thin as paper, to craft the jewelry. To shape the silver products, Mr. Tờ uses a mixture of pine resin and buffalo hide that becomes soft when heated and hard as stone when cooled. The silver depictions of fish, birds, and crabs are beloved ornaments among the Nùng people in Hoàng Su Phì.

“Silver carving is a very demanding craft. One must be meticulous and patient to master it, as every step in creating these products requires great skill and perseverance to produce such intricate designs,” shared the artisan Cháng Thanh Tờ.

Although traditional silver jewelry plays an important role in the lives of the Nung people, these traditional crafts once faced the risk of being forgotten. According to Mr. Tờ, this was more than a decade ago, when beautiful metal jewelry flooded the stalls of the district markets.

At that time, young Nung people would say that making a traditional silver bracelet cost as much as a buffalo, but they could buy one at the district market for just a few hundred thousand. Meanwhile, the elderly sitting and sewing would click their tongues, knowing that the silver butterfly button was beautiful, their ancestors had made such things for generations, but it was too expensive – they had no money to attach it to their clothes, so they used aluminum buttons instead, knowing their ancestors understood their poverty.

During that time, due to this poverty, silversmiths like Mr. Cháng Thanh Tờ could do little else. Of the other smiths from that time, only a few were able to maintain the craft, while most had switched to other work to make a living. It was during this period that Mr. Tờ no longer saw Nung brides adorned in traditional silver jewelry on their wedding day.

This saddened Mr. Tờ and many others who love the ethnic culture, as who could change things when the living conditions of the people in the commune were still so difficult? When hunger still lurked, the beauty and rituals, even if traditional, would fade away.

When hunger was gradually driven away, and the Nung people in Hoàng Su Phì prospered by growing tea and medicinal herbs, people began to see the traditional values in each piece of silver jewelry that needed to be preserved. Many necklaces with carved floral, fish, bird and animal motifs, headdresses, bracelets, and buttons valued at over 50-60 million VND per set drew many customers to Mr. Cháng Thanh Tờ to place orders.

Even more joyfully, during a visit to the Ethnic Cultural Festival in Vinh Quang town, Hoàng Su Phì district in 2013, Mr. Tờ met artisan Ly Sào Tin from Thinh Rầy village, Nàng Đôn commune, who was also passionate about the Nung silver carving craft.

After meeting a kindred spirit, the two artisans exchanged experiences and trade secrets, and agreed that on the Vinh Quang market day (held every Sunday), they would have their own people bring down the silver jewelry to sell.

Thanks to this serendipitous encounter, at each Vinh Quang market, one could occasionally spot Nung women wandering around, adorned with various silver ornaments, trying to sell them to the locals. There were more spectators than buyers, but the two elderly artisans were still delighted, as Mr. Tờ believed that the mere presence of onlookers proved that the Nung people still cherished their ancestral culture.

However, according to Mr. Tờ, nowadays, very few people in the communes still know the secrets of crafting the silver jewelry worn by Nung women on their wedding day. In his own family, none of his descendants have shown any interest in this craft, so he worries that when he is gone, the family’s silver carving tradition may be in danger of being lost.

Despite this, nowadays, the silver carving craft has undergone many changes compared to the past, thanks to the assistance of tools such as electric silver smelting furnaces, rolling machines, and polishing machines, which allow for faster and more visually appealing product creation.

As the economy has developed further, the silver carving craft has also progressed, and the number of customers has steadily increased. Along with the trend of tourism development, in addition to preserving the traditional craft, silver carving is now being oriented towards producing souvenir products to serve the tourism industry.

Little-Known Facts About the Nung Ethnic Group in Vietnam

The Nung people in Vietnam are the 7th largest ethnic group, with over 1 million members, scattered across 63 provinces and cities. The Nung are concentrated mostly in the Northern and Northeast mountainous provinces such as Ha Giang, Lang Son, and Cao Bang. The Nung ethnic group has a long historical tradition of development and has maintained many unique cultural customs and practices, further enriching the cultural identity of Vietnamese ethnicities.

The Nung people are divided into different branches, including Nung Xuong, Nung Giang, Nung An, Nung Loi, Nung Phan Sinh, Nung Chao, Nung Inh, Nung Quy Rin, and Nung Din. The Nung typically live in villages and hamlets with 30-70 households.

The Nung used to use Chinese characters or the Nung Nom script (developed around the 17th century) to record their poetry and folk tales. In the past, most Nung people were illiterate, with only the wealthy able to attend school, learning either Chinese or French, to become priests or interpreters. Nowadays, the majority of Nung people do not know how to write in their own script, and they all learn the Vietnamese national language.

In 1924, the Nung language was first recorded using the Latin alphabet, thanks to the French priest François M. Savina. The Summer Institute of Linguistics also had a writing system for the Phan Slình Nung people in southern Vietnam before 1975. In northern Vietnam, there is an additional Tay-Nung script based on the Vietnamese national alphabet from 1961.

Like many other ethnic groups in Vietnam, the Nung people mainly live in traditional stilt houses and earthen houses, as well as a type of house that is half-stilt, half-earthen. Nung houses are usually quite large and spacious, with tiled roofs. The houses are divided into two parts by a wooden partition wall. The inner part contains the kitchen and is where the women of the household carry out their activities, while the outer part is for the men and houses the ancestral altar.

Unlike some other ethnic groups, the Nung people’s attire is quite simple. Their clothes are usually made from coarse, indigo-dyed fabric with little to no embroidery or decoration. Men wear stand-collar shirts with a front opening and buttons, often with four or two pockets. Women wear five-piece blouses that fasten on the side, with contrasting fabric accents on the cuffs and chest area.

In terms of economic activities, the Nung people rely primarily on rice cultivation as their main source of livelihood. However, the natural economy of gathering and foraging still has a strong presence in the Nung community. Women often go to the forests and uplands carrying small baskets to collect wild vegetables, mushrooms, wood ear fungus, and other forest products to supplement their daily meals.

In addition to agricultural production, the Nung people engage in a variety of handicrafts that mainly serve their daily needs. Women grow cotton, spin thread, weave cloth, and dye indigo. Men work as blacksmiths, casters, weavers, woodworkers, and makers of do paper and yin-yang tiles. The Nung people are known for their diligence, filial piety towards elderly parents, and abundant human kindness, which are cherished traditions in their family relationships.

The Nung ethnic community has many unique festivals, customs, and cultural practices. One of the most famous is the “Lung Tung” festival (also known as the “Going to the Fields” festival), which is held annually in the first lunar month. The Nung people also place great importance on the Tomb Sweeping Festival (Qingming Festival), known as the “Han Thuc” festival, which is celebrated on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month to honor their ancestors. The Nung people have a rich folk culture, including a variety of traditional folk songs that deeply reflect their ethnic identity.