Minorities People

Sán Chay Ethnic Group

Culture and Customs of the Sán Chay People

Main Characteristics: Religion and Beliefs: Sán Chay households often have multiple altars. In addition to ancestor worship, they also venerate the heavens, the earth, the god of land, female deities, agricultural deities, and shepherd deities. The altars of the Sán Chay people are quite simple, sometimes just consisting of a bamboo tube for burning incense. However, every year before the Lunar New Year, the altars are cleaned and adorned with red paper.

Housing: Traditional Sán Chay houses are often elevated or half-elevated structures. The living space in a stilt house is divided into various areas. The front half typically includes the daughter's chamber with stairs leading down to the ground floor, a central area for cooking and sleeping during cold seasons, and the daughter-in-law's chamber at the far end. The rear half, on the left side, is raised about 30cm above the common floor level and contains the ancestral altar and sleeping quarters for the elderly during hot seasons and accommodations for male guests. On the right side, at a lower level, is the area for entertaining guests, dining, and the nighttime sleeping area for young male family members. Beneath the stilted floor is the space for storing rice mortars, previously used for keeping livestock and poultry.

Clothing: Women wear chàm skirts and long or short áo dài shirts adorned with decorative patterns on the sleeves and the back. For everyday wear, they use a single chàm belt, but on festive occasions, rituals, or celebrations, women wear more elaborately decorated chàm attire with white and chàm-colored fabric patches on the front, red and white embroidered patterns on the back, and red and green belts. They also wear a square chàm headscarf in black. Men wear long or short chàm shirts with brown or white trousers.

Cuisine: Staple foods include glutinous rice and non-glutinous rice, along with corn, sweet potatoes, and cassava. These staples are prepared in various ways, such as boiling, grilling, steaming, grinding into flour for making cakes and noodles. Men often smoke tobacco pipes, while women chew betel.

Art: Notable cultural expressions include sentimental folk songs called "sình ca," duet singing by men and women, performed either in the village at night or while traveling or at the market during the day. Sán Chay dances are diverse, including drum dances, shrimp dances, bird dances, fish spearing dances, and lantern dances. Musical instruments include bamboo flutes, gongs, drums, bells, and reed mouth organs. Particularly unique are the pottery drums and the tube mouth organs.