Tay ethnic group

Other name: Tho.

Population: 1,190,342 people.

Local groups: Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, and Pa Di.

Language: Tay language belongs to the Tay-Thai language group (Tai-Kadai language family).

History: The Tay have been present in Vietnam for millennia, perhaps as early as 500BC.

Production activities: The Tay are farmers who have a long tradition of wet rice cultivation. They have a long history of intensive cultivation and irrigation methods like digging canals, laying water pipes, etc. They also maintain the custom of harvesting the rice and thrashing of the grains out on wooden racks, which they call loong, while still in the fields, then carrying the threshed rice home in baskets. In addition to cultivating wet fields, the Tay also plant rice on terraced fields along with other crops and fruit trees. Cattle and poultry raising are fairly well-developed, but a freerange style of animal husbandry is still popular. Household crafts are worthy of note. The most famous Tay craft is weaving brocaded designs of beautiful and original patterns which are highly prized. The market is also an important economic activity.
Diet: In the past, in several places, the Tay ate mainly sticky rice, and every, almost every family used stew and steam pots for cooking. On festival occasions they make many kinds of cakes, such as square rice cake (bank chung), round rice cake (bank day), black rice sesame cake (bank gai), lime-water dumpling, fried rice cake, marble dumplings made of white rice flour with rock sugar fillings, patty make of mashed rice, etc. There are special cakes made from flour with an ant egg fillip, and corn, a young rice confection made from smoked sticky rice, roasted, and pounded.

Clothing: Tay traditional dress is made from homegrown cotton that is indigo dyed. There is usually not much embroidery or other decorations. Women wear skirts or trousers, with short shirts inside and long one worn on the outside. The Ngan group wears shorter shirts, the Phen group wears brown shirts, the Thu Lao group wears conical-shaped scarves on their heads, the Pa Di group wear hats that look like house roofs, and the Tho group tend to dress like the Thai in Mai Chau (Hoa Binh province).

Lifestyle: The Tay have settled in valleys in the Northeastern part of the country: Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, Lang Son, Cao Bang, Bac Can, Thai Nguyen, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai. Their villages are characteristically large and crowded, and there are villages with hundreds of houses.
The Tay's traditional house is built on stilts with a frame of rafted and 4, 5, 6 or 7 rows of columns. A house has from 2 to 4 roofs made from tiles, straw, or palm leaves. Wood or bamboo are used to make the walls.

Transportation: The Tay use shoulder poles and baskets to carry small, tidy bundles, or carry them over the shoulder, in cloth bags. Larger, bulkier items are carried by buffalo or with the, help of other people. Rafts and floats may also be used to transport items by water.

Social organization: The Tay's Quang regime is a form of social organization which resembles a feudal system that is aristocratic and hereditary. Within its ruled region, the Quang owns all lands, forests, rivers, etc. Hence, it has the right to control everyone who lives on that land and to exploit these people through forced labor, imposing duties on commodities, and enforcing the payment of tributes and offerings. The Quang regime appeared very early and persisted until the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century.