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History
The word Viêt-Nam was first known only in the 19th century when Emperor Gia Long decided to rename the country from Nam-Viet. Marco Polo evoked it in the account of his voyage entitled The Book of Marvels under the name of Caugigui (Giao Chi? Qua'n). Viet-Nam's history can be summarized in a few words: struggle for independence, conquest of new land, and reunification of the country. The Vietnamese appear for the first time at the Bronze age ( Dô`ng-So*n civilization ). The Viet tribes who lived scattered south of China and north of Vietnam were undoubtedly wandering hunters kind of people who, because of hunting, liked to move constantly beyond the borders. The Chinese character "nam" (or "nan" in Mandarin), meaning "southern", was used to indicate these Viets of the South as to differentiate from the Viets of the North who remained in China. As for the word Viet (or Yuê in mandarin), it was used by the Zhou dynasty (1050-249 B.C) to indicate the territories located south of China. These Viets of the south, or Southern Viets had, by the end of the second millennium (two thousand years) formed kingdoms.
Do^`ng Son civilization
The Wise Confucius had already talked about
these Viets in his Book of Rites (Kinh Lê).
Thanks to the prehensile capability of their
well detached big toes from the others, these
Viets could cross rice fields and climb
mountains without ever being tired. The first
kingdoms of the legendary dynasties were
located north in Tonkin. By the 10th century
they had, as a name kingdom Van Lang, then
kingdom Âu Lac, started from the Red River
delta, the cradle of the Vietnamese nation, a
movement characterized as Nam Tie^'n
(Advancement toward the South).
This nation relentlessly pushed new cells in each parcel of land favorable to its mode of growth. It was based on a multitude of small, politically independent hearths consisted of soldier-peasant reinforced sometimes by troops from the central authority and behaved like a gigantic madrepore forming its atoll little by little, ending up with encircling and assimilating the new country and thus enlarge Viet-Nam. It had the advantage of a triple coherent national structure: a bureaucratic state built on the Confucian model around an imperial function having the mandate of Heaven, the family, and the village. This helped in preserving the country's civilization lived by each and every Vietnamese like a total attachment to the forces of the land and the ancestors.
In spite of a population made up of 90% of Vietnamese, Viet-Nam remains also the most complex microcosm of the world. It is a country with 54 ethnic groups. According to the most famous ethnologist G. Condominas, Viet-Nam offers the greatest richness and complexity from the ethnic point of view as well as linguistic one.
There cohabit five races ( Melanesians, Indonsians, Negritos, Australoids and Mongoloids) speaking the languages belonging to five distinct families. Fifty mountain peoples are found here (Rhade, Hmongs or Miao, Jorai, Raglai etc...). Their identity is affirmed not only through their costume but also through the distribution and the altitude of their habitat.
In North Viet-Nam, the Tha'i occupy the first slopes of the mountain zones, then on a higher floor, live the Ma?ng between 300 and 800 meters, and starting from 900 meters one finds the Me`o tribes. As for the ethnic groups of central Viet-Nam, they always occupy the high plateaus.
One can say that the Kinh (lowland people) and the ethnic minorities find a common cause for centuries. The products of the plain and the sea are essential to the mountain dwellers as wood and the other forest products for the people of the plain. If the mountains constitute not only the strategic cover of the country but also a refuge in the event of war, the plains provide on the other hand most of the forces for defense. Thus were formed the motherland little by little, then the Vietnamese nation with the Kinh and the 53 ethnic groups.
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