The traditional Central Highlands longhouse on edge of extinction

The traditional longhouses of the E De ethnic minority group are slowly disappearing as the cost of preserving becomes too much of a burden for their owners, but there are efforts underway to keep these cultural treasures around. Ngo Thu Phuong reports.

Visitors to Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) should never pass up a chance to stay overnight in a longhouse, built in the unique architectural style of the local E De ethnic minority people, as they may not be around for long.
From the outside, the timber-made house resembles a boat floating on a river.
Legends surrounding the houses say that the E De people constructed them in memory of their forefathers, who rowed boats across the ocean to seek new shelters.
Longhouses are built upon stilts for the practical purpose of protecting dwellers from floods and dangerous wild animals, but they are also the stuff of E De oral fables and fairy tales.
In the story of Dam San, a local hero, the longhouses are described to be longer than a resounding gong. When people sitting on the front stairs beat a gong, those sitting on stairs on the other end can’t even hear."
The houses have also been characterised as "so long birds can’t reach the other end without becoming too weary to fly."
According to the Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology in Ha Noi, E De houses measured 100m long last century, some even spanned over 200m, but today they have been shortened to 30-40m.

The head of the cultural management office under the Dac Lac Culture and Information Department, Truong Bi, said the houses were constructed from materials available in the forest, including timber for frame, bamboo for the floor and walls and reeds for the roof.
Each house has two doors and two stairs on either end. The front staircase, used by men only, often has seven steps and is made from precious timber. The top stair is decorated with a carved crescent moon and two breasts, symbols of matriarchal vitality and power.
The stairs on the other end, smaller and simpler, are used by women, who then can handle the housework in the backyard.

The length of the house indicates the wealth and power of its owners. The amount of rooms depend on the number of cohabiting extended family members. The more populous the family, the more rooms in the house.
Each couple and their small children live in a room called an ok, which is separated from the rest of the house. In a shared sitting room, called a gah, one to two thirds of the total surface area, the family places a k’pan bench, gong sets and holds annual family and community festivals.

As the E De people followed a matriarchal society, traditionally, the house accommodated the families of daughters and granddaughters, descendants of one mother. After marriage, a son will reside in his new wife’s house.
The whole family worked together and shared rice and other food, but everything was managed by the household’s most senior woman. Women’s important role in the family is a special feature of E De society.
The existence of longhouses reflects the ethnic group’s community spirit.

On the wane
"They (E De traditional houses) are at a risk of disappearing," cultural researcher Bi said with a sigh.
Sharing his feeling, an official from the Museum of Ethnology , Pham Van Loi lamented, "It’s extremely difficult to preserve the longhouses. There are not many left."
Though there aren’t any statistics on the number of remaining E De houses, Bi said most have been replaced by brick, tin or tile-roofed constructions, like those owned by the Kinh people.
A tour of the region can easily prove his words.
Bi said that out of the total 543 indigenous hamlets in Dac Lac, two thirds no longer have any traditional houses.

A resident in A Ko Dhong Hamlet in Buon Ma Thuot City, H’Man Arul, 42, said that since the houses were made with natural materials, they created a cool atmosphere for dwellers.
"But brick houses are more comfortable," said Arul, who lives with her family in a modern house, said. "But, I still have a small traditional one nearby."
Even her parent’s house, considered the longest in the hamlet, has only two households residing there now.
Her brother, Y Giack Arul, said that his 12 family members used to live together in the 40m-longhouse.
"As our sisters and brothers grew up and got married, they moved into separate houses," Y Giack, a well-known singer, said.
"But I love the crowd in the longhouse. The more crowded it is, the merrier and warmer the atmosphere. We never felt like we didn’t have any privacy."
Y Giack also said that the high cost of materials and lack of land area have resulted in the decreasing number of longhouses in his hometown.
"It’s too sad," he moaned.
The singer has an ambitious plan to make the country’s longest house, which could measure up to 130m.
But he said he worries he will not be able to find the right types of timber. Y Giack has therefore started collecting pillars and furniture from the old houses.
Loi isn’t surprised at the changes in E De architecture, though he doesn’t like it.
"It’s inevitable in the modern world that young couples want to live on their own. New houses are only for the nuclear family and therefore won’t be long," he said.

Furthermore, an official from the Dac Lac Culture and Information Depart-ment, Bui Minh Vu, explained the State’s prohibition of cutting down the forest has made wood and other materials rare and more costly than bricks and cement.
Researcher Bi fears the problems will result in the loss of their culture, including customs and rites that celebrate life cycles, farming life and important activities such as gong performances and drinking traditional wine from jars through straws.

Keeping it alive
Bi said efforts and investments are badly needed from the province and State to restore the longhouses as a way to preserve the cultural character of the E De group.
"If not, they won’t be found in several years to come," he added.
Bi suggested rebuilding traditional hamlets would be effective, such as the A Ko Dhong Hamlet’s head, A Ma Rin, has done to his local area, 3km from the city, where all the families in the hamlet, have maintained their traditional houses.
The hamlet, including 40 E De households, has become a tourist site. The province is also rebuilding a communal house for each hamlet. Cultural purists, however, aren’t satisfied with the longhouse-shaped constructions made of brick.
Loi said that encouraging well-off villagers to retain their traditional houses is another way, along with reconstructing longhouses in museums to pass down the E De culture to future generations.
One of the traditional houses on display at the Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology on Nguyen Van Huyen Street in Ha Noi was reconstructed in 2000 from the original owned by H’Dach Eban from Ky Hamlet in Buon Ma Thuot.
With a 23m-long base, plus materials bought from Dac Lac and work by many local residents, the house was enlarged to 43m long, 6m wide and 4.2m high, only minutely smaller than its original size.
Loi said restorers were able to retain the wood carvings on the pillars and the beautiful architecture.