PART 1: THE ART OF THEN SINGING

In the spiritual life of the nothern mountainous region's ethnic

groups Ty, Nng, Thi, Then holds a special place. It is a form
of indigenous cultural and religious activity prevalent among
the people.
============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
To become a Then master, there are two important matters.
First of all, it is patrimonial and inherited from one's ancestor. One
must follow their predecessor, a Then master for some years to
learn the job. The second prequisite is one must have the
predestined disposition for Then, and experienced a sudden urge to do Then.

============================
Mr. NNG VNH TUN
Tu Ko village, Ngc ng commune, Qung Uyn district, Cao Bng
province
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After becoming a Then master, one has to follow a couple of basic
abstentions. For eating, you must avoid dog meat, beef and buffalo meat.
Moreover, when you are a Then master you are not allowed to carry coffins
during funerals. Also you must not take cattle's dungs to douse
vegetables with.

Before a ceremony, the Then master must first offer incense to

the altar at his home. His family members must keep the incense
on the altar from burning up during the whole ceremony.

============================
Researcher BI TRNG HIN
============================
Then is for the most part a tool helping the community to fulfill their
spiritual needs, to console their hearts, to be used for shamanic
healing, to pray for well-being, health, bountiful harvest, and
fertility. With those meaning, it is apparent that the social
praticality of this form of religion is to serve every needs in
the course of living of the people.

When coming to the host's house, the Then master has to perform a
rite before getting in

The Then master and the host preparing the altar and the
ceremonial offerings.

The Then master's Nm incantation is for reporting to the host's

lineage that he is requested to be here today.

Only after the underworld army is summoned, the ceremony could

offcially begin.

A Then ceremony's trip from the earth to the heavenly mng must
pass through entry points that the Then master has to utterly
adhere to like ``t ng'', which means the host's ancestors, to
qun (kitchen gods), th cng (god of the soil), i thn miu
mo (greater gods of shrines) etc...

============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
The most significant thing in a Then master's belief system is the
worshipping of one's parents, grandparents and ancestors.
Ancestry is the most important thing in the Then belief system of
Ty people. That is why in every Then ceremony, Ty people always
have to attend to their ancestors first, which is called "ng
t". Only past the ancestors' entry would there be your
ancestors going with you through every other entries: Jade
Emperor's entry, Southern Dipper Celestial God entry, Mother
Nuwa's entry, and all other entries, to plead for divine
blessing. So it is always like that, for the Ty people
worshipping their parents, grandparents and ancestors is the most
important.

============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
To become a Then master it is obligatory to perform the
Credential Granting Ceremony. In some region the ceremony is done
by senior masters to endorse junior masters, but there also are
region that require there to be a credential granting To
(shamanic sage). So opinions on credential granting vary.
The Credential Granting Ceremony is the grandest ceremony,
marking the Then practitioner's maturation milestone, where the
Jade Emperor assign to him an underworld army. Only after having been
assigned with ten thousands of underworld soldiers could one
begin to practise Then. That is why this granting ceremony is the
grandest. You only become a Then master after having completed
the ceremony.

During the ceremony, the chief Then master would establish the
craft's ancestor altar for the subject, and give him talisman cards,
seal, Then crown, Then string instrument, chime.

============================
Researcher BI TRNG HIN
============================
While the depicting the journey to the Heaven Realm, having to
pass through several mountains, forests, roads and gateways to
reach the Heavenly Palace to attend to the Jade Emperor, the Then
master alongside of employing musics and singing, he also has to
possess the skills of a dancer. That is why when watching Then,
people not only have to listen, but also to see. This illustrates
a whole world changing motion, a dream of humans to go to the
Heaven Realm to plead for the almighty to fulfill the spiritual
needs of the community. For that reason people could also say
this is an amalgamation of music, dancing and oratorio of
theatrical nature.

Dancing is usually present in the days of lu then grand

ceremony, with contents very familiar to the folk culture,
emulating the working and living activities in daily life. The
dancing instruments are all simple stuffs, like cloth, fan, or
the Then master could use his own musical instruments like the
string instrument and the chime set.

============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
The Then master occasionally enters a trance and perform an
oratorio for a very short while. And typically for possessing
stories, who would be the one to possess the medium? It's one's
ancestor. To ask for what? To ask if you are in good health, has your
husband who got sick last year got well. They ask about the
affairs closely relevant to normal life. They ask each other
the tale about the Then man getting into a trance, letting
ancestors possessed him, they even ask for the joyful and the funny
tales.

============================
Researcher BI TRNG HIN
============================
Aesthetically, it is apparent that a Then master is
simultaneously a musician playing an instrument, a singer, a
narrator. We know that the literature lore here is the tales
about the journey he went on to ascend to the Heaven Realm to
resolve the community's needs. A whole poem that long, a whole
epic that long, it's like a tale. And he adapts the literature
content to become the lyrics of a song. That means he improvised
on spot, basing off the already existing melodies of Then. There
aren't many Then melodies, but they are enough to convey all
those diverse and varied tales about that journey to the Heaven
Realm passing through many entries. So we can clearly see the
ability to improvise is essential to the art of Then singing,
because, all of those lyrics are very lengthy, and he must know
how to spontaneously improvise so that it works smoothly in the
whole process. At the same time, he must also be the shaman, the
chief beat keeper with the chime, while still play the
instrument, all of those roles concentrated in one single man.

============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
To be called Then means that it must always proceed with n
tnh (tnh instrument), chime set, and the vocal. Those are the three vital things
of the art of Then. Because of that they jave a tale about the
origin of n tnh. n tnh was born, and then there was Then.

============================
Craftman M O
Cao Bng city
============================
According to the folktale about how n tnh came to be, it was
invented by Mr. Trng Sinh. It once had 12 strings, but it was
too euphoric to listen to, all of the butterflies, bees and other
bugs forgot to work, and the fairies on Heaven were all ears
listening to it. The Jade Emperor then said: ``Not good, this is
not good at all!'' Thus, first the instrument's strings were cut
down to 9, then 7, and at last to only 2 or 3 depending on the
region. It's 3 here in Cao Bng.

============================
Researcher BI TRNG HIN
============================
Speaking of Vietnamese traditional practice of music, certainly
the ``tnh tu'' (n tnh) with its fretless neck and its structure made
itself a peculiar string instrument. Obviously, it's a
great contribution of Then. After many generations, Then
music also achieved a certain position in the public's heart. In
particular, everyone can see an obvious evidence that when the
Then religion is no longer practised in the community, a portion
of Then singing is exploited and used as a form of professional
stage music. The people think that in essence the art of Then
singing is really great! That's why they exploited the forms and
themes of Then singing, and lay new lyrics over them. From that
born a new genre of music in Vietnam, called Then singing, but
being seen as an its own form of music instead of a form of religious
art. People know of it as an art form, and forget it is
fundamentally a religion. In Vietnam we can very clearly observe
that Chu Vn and Then are two exemplary genres of religious
music, that were seperated from its religious context to become a
performing art form with a completely different content -
about the daily life, about love, about the homeland, completely
isolated from their original religious content.

============================
Musician NG HONH LOAN
============================
I think Then is an art of literature, of narration, of music, and
we should preserve Then and let it thrive in the community life.
Because we study stories and the methods to express those stories
through music and singing, we know that Then is a performing art.
Thus Then has a great cultural value. Its existence in the
community life is indisputable.