Young Chut break free from generations of marriage within the community

Editor’s note: Deep in the mountains of western Ha Tinh, the Chut community in Rao Tre once lived in isolation and extreme hardship. Long-standing practices, including giving birth beside streams and marriage between close relatives, along with outdated farming methods, persisted for generations, holding back the community’s development.

Over more than three decades, as the community gradually settled into a permanent way of life, Party and State policies for ethnic minorities have steadily taken root. The enduring support of Border Guard soldiers, local authorities, teachers and grassroots officials, combined with the Chut people’s own determination to build a better future, has brought visible change to Rao Tre.

VietNamNet presents the series “The Chut: From the shadow of old customs toward the light of modern life,” chronicling the transformation of a community through changing attitudes, education, livelihoods and aspirations for a new way of life.

The shaman who stopped healing through rituals and put his faith in doctors

At the foot of Ka Day Mountain today, Chut children in Rao Tre, Ha Tinh, attend school; people seek doctors when they fall ill, and women have access to safer medical care during childbirth. Yet just a few decades ago, this remained an isolated community where beliefs passed down over generations were deeply entrenched.

The Chut once believed illness came from “forest spirits” or was punishment from “Giang,” a spiritual deity. When someone fell ill, many families turned to a shaman rather than a hospital. For women giving birth deep in the mountains, every delivery meant leaving their fate largely to chance.

In 2003, when Ho Linh, born in 1973, went into labor, her family still invited Ho Puc, born in 1955, her husband’s younger brother and a respected shaman in the village, to perform a traditional ritual. Her condition subsequently deteriorated. Fortunately, Border Guard soldiers arrived in time and rushed her to hospital for emergency treatment.

Doctors discovered that the baby was in a breech position and intervened in time to save both mother and child. The baby girl was later named Ho Thi Lai by the Border Guard soldiers.

Lieutenant Colonel Duong Thanh Tinh, former head of the Border Guard team stationed in Rao Tre, still remembers Ho Linh’s delivery as one of the occasions when villagers witnessed firsthand the difference between traditional healing practices and modern medicine.

Yet for beliefs so deeply woven into the community’s way of life, witnessing a single case was not enough to overturn convictions held for decades. The turning point came from someone the villagers themselves had long trusted in spiritual matters: shaman Ho Puc.

Puc inherited the role of shaman from his father, performing rituals to worship Giang and pray for villagers’ health and safety. Whenever someone became ill, many families sought him out, believing his prayers could drive away sickness and misfortune. He himself once took pride in being skilled at healing through rituals.

His “career” as a ritual healer, however, came to an end when he contracted severe malaria 10 years ago. After every ritual he tried failed and his condition worsened, he had to rely on soldiers stationed in the village to take him to hospital for emergency treatment.

There, doctors saved the life of the shaman whom the entire village had once turned to in times of illness. “That was when I understood that illness has to be treated by doctors and medicine,” Ho Puc recalled.

After that brush with death, he stopped performing healing rituals and instead began encouraging villagers to visit health stations and hospitals whenever they became ill.

Having just returned from Huong Khe District Medical Center after treatment for age-related health problems, he sat in his home at the foot of Ka Day Mountain with a handful of medicine. “Things are different now! When we get sick, we go to the health station or hospital. I only perform rituals for village occasions such as weddings, funerals and ceremonies to pray for a good harvest,” Ho Puc said.

“You cannot change people’s thinking simply by talking to them. They need to see things with their own eyes, believe in them and then follow. When respected people in the village change the way they think, the rest of the community gradually changes as well,” Tinh said.

Marriage between close relatives was once one of the greatest barriers to the development of the Chut community in Rao Tre, even threatening the future of the community itself.

One story that particularly troubled those working to improve life in the community was that of Ho Van Kham, born in 1992, a young man once regarded as one of the village’s great hopes.

In 2005, musician An Thuyen helped Kham secure an opportunity to study at the Military University of Culture and Arts. During his studies, however, Kham developed a relationship with a younger cousin from his village and dropped out of university to return to Rao Tre and marry her.

The marriage between the young relatives did not end as they had hoped. The couple eventually separated, while Kham’s education was also left unfinished.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Duong Thanh Tinh, Ho Kham’s story at the time illustrated a vicious cycle. Raising awareness alone would not be enough to stop relatives from marrying each other; young people also needed opportunities to meet and interact with people from other communities.

Spaces were therefore created where young Chut people could meet and talk. They got to know one another through cultural performances and community activities.

At a time when roads to Chut villages in Quang Binh, now part of Quang Tri, remained difficult to navigate, Border Guard officers would ride motorcycles through the forests, taking young men from Rao Tre to meet potential partners. The soldiers in their distinctive green uniforms became the community’s special “matchmakers.”

After Kham’s first marriage ended, soldiers took him to Quang Binh to meet a Chut woman. When the two decided they liked each other, Border Guard officers continued working with both families and provided around $760 to help them hold a proper wedding.

Another milestone came in 2015, when Ho Thanh Mai, a Chut woman from Rao Tre, married Le Xuan Cong, an ethnic Kinh man and former Border Guard soldier. The two met during an evening cultural event in the former Huong Lien Commune before deciding to build a life together.

For the Chut community, it was a particularly significant moment: a woman from the village was marrying someone from outside the community. After their wedding, Mai and her husband left Rao Tre for Ho Chi Minh City, where they found factory jobs. Their two sons are both healthy, and the elder is now in sixth grade at a boarding school back in their hometown.

Major Nguyen Duc Long, a medical officer with the Border Guard team stationed in Rao Tre, said years of activities bringing young people together and connecting them with other communities have helped push back both consanguineous marriage and child marriage.

“The biggest change is not simply that new families have been formed, but that the overall health of the population has improved. Chut children are being born healthier and receiving better healthcare and nutrition,” Long said.

Since 2018, 14 young Chut couples have married. Of these, eight married ethnic Kinh partners, while six married Chut people from Quang Binh and several other localities.

“The biggest change is that young Chut people have stepped beyond the closed circle of their village. In the past, officials had to find ways to connect them so they could meet. Today, many are getting to know people on their own and making their own decisions about their future,” Nguyen Duc Long said.

Ho Thi Hien, born in 2005, is one example of how dramatically things have changed. After finishing school, Hien left Rao Tre to work at a factory in northern Vietnam. There, she met and chose to marry Cao Xuan Loc, born in 2003, an ethnic Kinh man from Phu Tho.

Hien and her husband have a two-year-old son. Their family life is stable, and whenever she has time off, Hien returns to Rao Tre to visit her parents.

“Working away from home has given me more opportunities to meet and get to know different people. Loc and I spent some time getting to know each other before deciding to marry. Young people in the village now also have more opportunities to meet others, build relationships and choose the person they love,” Hien said.