The commune is home to 2,284 residents, of whom 98% are the Dao ethnic people. Though covering an area of 2,538ha, the commune has only 347ha of land can be used for farming. The lack of farming land is one of the reasons for the people in the commune to suffer from poverty previously.
However, one of the special things about the Dao ethnic people here is the strict preservation of their traditional cultural values. According to Lang Van Ha, Secretary of the commune Party Committee, the Dao people here own unique cultural features, such as writing letters, costumes, and festivals. At present, these features have still been fully preserved by the locals.
    |
 |
|
Dao ethnic people in Yen Son village |
People in Yen Son village, where the commune Party Committee and People’s Committee are building a village of trade and traditional culture, have been making herbal medicines for a long time now. Trieu Van Cao, Head of Yen Son village and also a well-known local “thay mo” (medicine-man), eagerly explained, “According to the custom and culture of the Dao people, “thay mo” is also the head of the village, whose duty is to take care of the cultural and spiritual life and to guide people of economic development and lifestyle. Therefore, “thay mo” are also the ones to keep a lot of traditional features and knowledge.”
“Thay mo” are now different from those in the past as they are the ones to spread traditional cultural features and values. In Yen Son village, a lot of people can read the Sino-Nom letters as they learned from the books of “thay mo” and the majority of them are very young. Head of village Trieu Van Cao’s family has more than a dozen of books with contents copied from ancient books, telling legends of the Dao people, stories about heaven and earth, nature, rituals, lifestyles, and notes on how to make herbal medicines from plants. The study of ancient books in Ba Vi commune has helped preserve the cultural knowledge handed down by the forefathers of the Dao ethnic people.
The herbal medicines of the Dao people in Yen Son village have become very famous. In the village now there are about 250 households owning different formulas of herbal medicines. How effective these medicines are thanks a lot to the practices of the Dao people in defining the doses of each herb; therefore, a person may learn the medicines from a book, but still fails to make the medicines effective. The difficulties in making herbal medicines make the medicines a specialty of the commune.
According to Secretary Lang Van Ha, over the past several years, a good number of households in Yen Son village have turned to making herbal medicines of the Dao ethnic group and some of them have become richer thanks to this traditional trade. We believe that with the guidance and encouragement of the authorities in combination with the determination to escape poverty of the locals, the traditional cultural values when combined with advanced knowledge will help the Dao ethnic people of Ba Vi commune build a more prosperous life.
Translated by Huu Duong