Black Eagle Flights: The official Page of Jim Goodman's Travel Writing: The Communal House of a Vietnamese Village

by Jim Goodman

From ancient times Vietnamese villages have always been semi-autonomous social units, with their own hierarchies, administrators, history and heritage, rites and customs, clubs, mutual aid groups, and local guardian spirits. When the Lý Dynasty set up its administration, organized the defense of the state, promulgated laws and the obligations and taxes required of its citizens, it opted to deal with the villages as individual units. The Court established the amount of taxes and the number of men required for military service or corvée labor and it was up to the villages themselves how they went about meeting those requirements.
Villages had a representative called lý trưởng who dealt with Court affairs, the one who received the government communications and orders and was held responsible if they were not implemented. The village chief (phố lý) was in charge of security and a Council of Notables ran village affairs. This entailed carrying out state directives, establishing village regulations, budgets, tax shares, law enforcement and the management of village funds and the periodic re-distribution of communal property.

Đình Sồ, west of Hanoi

The venue for deliberations was the đình, which translates as “communal house,” though the only actual resident here was the village tutelary deity, its guardian spirit, known as thành hoàng. The đình grew out of conditions in the waning decades of Chinese rule in Vietnam, when villages took advantage of the fading Chinese power structure to set up their own administrations. The Lý Dynasty formalized the institution by issuing an edict in the 11th century requiring every village to have one.
The đình was not the only public building in a village. It might also have a văn chi, a temple for the Confucian scholars, a võ chi, temple for the martial gods and heroes, a Buddhist or Taoist temple, and in more recent centuries a church. But the đình was the most important building in the village, serving as the office of village administration, the venue for the tribunals that adjudicated disputes between villagers and the site of the communal feasts. As it also housed the village thành hoàng, it was the main venue for the great festival and entertainment programs. Thus it was the most imposing building, for it was the village’s political, social and cultural center, the focal point of its identity.

the đình of Đình Bảng, Bắc Ninh province

The earliest đìnhs have all succumbed to the ravages of time and war. The basic architecture probably hasn’t changed much over the centuries, for surviving buildings from the 17th century on show a basic similarity. They were set a bit apart from the main residential area, preferably beside a pond with some greenery in the vicinity. Ideally, this should include acacia, palm, frangipani and jackfruit trees. Geomancers determined the exact spot on which to build. It was laid out like an inverted T, with the altar for the village deity to the rear of the building. It featured a heavy, wide, low-hanging, tiled roof with upturned corners, open sides and thick pillars, on a rectangular raised platform of brick or earth, appearing as if it were floating on its base.

terracotta plaque of farming life, Giá village đình wall

A long wall enclosed the đình and the open yard around it. Occasionally these walls, as at the đình in Giá village, west of Hanoi, sported decorative terracotta plaques of scenes from everyday life, like plowing with buffaloes or boating on the river. An ornamental gate marked the entry point, with tall columns topped by sculpted animals. Gates constructed in the Nguyễn Dynasty, like the one at Lệ Mật, near Hanoi, are more ornate, with several roofed tiers, similar to those of Buddhist temples.
In the 17th century, despite the demise and fall of the Mạc Dynasty and the restoration of a much weaker Lê Dynasty, the architecture of the đình continued to develop. Having established the basic shape, the architects now worked on embellishments, especially on the roof and the interior. They created a molded ridge along the roof sections, often latticed, and added ornamental elements at the apex and at the end of the roof slopes.

carvings beneath the apex of the roof

    These molded ridges generally end, at the upturned corners of the roof, in a stylized dragon or lion. The tail or mane is often curved into a coil. Depending upon the artist, this ornamental roof would end with a pair of lions or dragons, or perhaps one on top of the other. And another one might be mounted halfway up the ridge. Details like scales and whiskers are usually part of the sculpture as well.
    Artistic adornment was also a feature of the triangle beneath the apex. Either the head, and maybe the paws, of a mythical animal filled the space in a single, low-relief carved plaque, or a floral design, in open, lattice-work wood or mortar, hung from the top of the triangle, its pattern standing out against the shadowed background.
    Mythical dragons or lions, without the coiled tails, stood flanking the đình’s compound gates, as well as the three-step staircase at the entrance to the building itself. Sometimes the dragons are independent sculptures, which descend from the top of the staircase. Sometimes they are carved in low relief on stone plaques at the bottom of the steps. Because they are likely to be touched, stroked and sat upon by humans, these sculptures were made of hard stone instead of mortar.

mythical animals on the roof corner

    The coiled dragons arched near the upturned corners of the roof enhanced the building’s majestic silhouette. The guardian lions or dragons at the đình’s entrance added to its imposing appearance. It looked like the important building it was. Inside the building, đình artisans produced intricately carved altars, furniture, decorative brackets, plaques, column heads and statues, depicting subjects both religious and secular.
    The first visible examples of their work were the altars, incense tables, carved figures and statues, which stand right in the middle of the interior. The altar itself is basically a multi-level table, upon which rest the images of the guardian spirit or the ornate miniature thrones by which they are sometimes represented. The small incense table in front of it, standing closer to the worshiper, was something to which the đình artisans imparted the best of their skills, featuring panels of dragons, lions, phoenixes, floral vegetation, etc., while on the four corners stood openwork carvings.
    Mounted above the altar was the large, ornamental panel called cửa võng. These were done in a variety of shapes and styles, no two alike, employing an array of carving and chiseling methods and the most ornate designs.   They could take the shape of a three-sided canopy, as at Đồng Kỵ in Bắc Ninh, or a multi-paneled arrangement of carved elements on the frames and posts of a triple window, as in the cửa võng of Đình Diên Lộc in Gia Lương, Bắc Ninh. And above this the ceiling itself might be intricately decorated with red lacquered plaques, flanked by low-relief carvings, gilded so that they stand out.

the interior of Đình Văn Phuc, Hanoi

When a visitor enters the central compartment of a đình the eyes first behold the altar and its paraphernalia. Tall thin cranes perched on turtles flank the altar and in front of it stand the ceremonial protective weapons—lances, halberds, swords, etc.—and the ornate incense table. These are the familiar components of temples and evoke a religious atmosphere. But as the eyes move up to the elaborately crafted cửa võng and the ornamented ceiling, the effect is one of palatial splendor, enriching the setting and the luster of the community rituals performed beneath it.
Further examination of the interior, though, reveals how the đình artisans further enhanced the interior with the art of woodcarving. Their favorite motif seems to have been the dragon. It symbolized power, majesty and prosperity and was part of mythology and folklore. Its monstrous head, with flaring nostrils, bulging eyes and bared fangs, was inherently eye-catching. Its long, sinuous body lent itself to myriad styles of depiction. Dragon heads stuck out from the junctures of the posts with the horizontal crossbeams. They formed the ends of the roof beams. Long and winding dragons climbed up columns and sprawled across rafters.

dragons in the đình

    Sometimes carvers filled a large panel, door or plaque with intertwined dragons, with clouds, flames or plants in between, each spaced harmoniously apart. The work as a whole is an aggregate of curling and swerving lines. And on close inspection the details emerge. A dragon is dragging a baby lion by its tail. Two recumbent dragons face each other, both jaws locked on the same single pearl between them. A dragon’s whiskers turn into swirling flames that terminate in a straight sword. The mane and whiskers of dragons’ heads turn into bamboo shoots, atop which fairies dance.
    Carvers worked in teams and specialized in individual tasks. Some were dragon-carvers, while others only did dragon heads. Others did lions or phoenixes. Some took care of the arabesques or flaming swords.   Still others carved the clouds or ocean waves or the human figures.   Classical models existed for all the motifs. But these served as guidelines, not as exacting requirements.
    What makes the wood-carved artworks of the đìnhs particularly special is its deployment of both religious and secular themes. While the religious imagery had to follow more or less established standards, mostly imported, the secular imagery had no restrictions. Scenes of village life were part of the đình’s ornamentation and it was in this field that the carvers had the greatest liberty of expression. Today their extant works of art are a valuable source of insight into the daily life of times long past.

depiction of an elephant vs. a tiger

peasant life depicted in a đình carved panel

For those carvers assigned to the secular themes, though, no such classical models existed. No traditional aesthetic standards instructed them how to depict real animals and real people or what details to include in vignettes of everyday life, or even what those vignettes should portray. The artists simply made careful, attentive observations of the world around them and then re-created it in wood. They got the shapes of the animals right, the proportion of limbs and heads on the people correct and covered a huge range of activities. Far from being crude folk art, the carvings often reach a high level of execution. Even moods and facial expressions are discernible. Taken as a whole, the body of secular woodcarvings in the đìnhs is one of the most outstanding legacies of the indigenous imagination.
The most impressive of these carvings are the long friezes of processions of various people and animals. Sometimes they are peasants going to market, leading their animals or riding buffalo carts. Other times they are royal or military parades. Some of the officers ride horses or elephants, soldiers brandish weapons and trumpeters blow conch shells. And in the midst of such processions an irreverent detail might slip in, like in the frieze at Đình Đệ Tam Đông in Nam Định, where a mandarin fondles the breast of one of three naked bathing girls. She covers her lower parts with a lotus leaf, but she and the other girls, and the mandarin as well, are all smiling.

leisure time in old Vietnam

    Another saucy example is of flirting youths, in Đình Hưng Lộc, Nghĩa Hưng, Nam Định. A smiling boy sits with a scantily clad girl on his lap, she looking quite contented, while a third youth, grinning as well, tickles the boy’s face. The figures are in full relief and wedged into the open jaws of one of the dragons in a large portrait of an assembly of dragons and fairies.
    One of the most unusual friezes is the vibrant vignette in a rafter in Đình Liên Hiệp, Phúc Thọ, west of Hanoi. In a crowded scene one man rides a galloping horse through a gathering of peasants. In front of him a soldier points his rifle at a seated peasant, while another man holds up a pig by its hind legs. The carving has been given two names—“Officials Plundering Peasants’ Wealth,” which is certainly what it looks like, and the less seditious-sounding “A Hunting Party.”
    Artisans didn’t like to leave smooth, unadorned surfaces on any of the wooden components other than the big pillars. Besides the long horizontal friezes, they carved scenes from daily life on posts, beams, cabinets and wall plaques. The portraits could be realistic, like a woman carrying her children in baskets suspended from a pole, an acrobatic performance, two buffaloes locked in head-to-head

boating scene in Đình Tây Đằng

combat, a pair of wrestlers, a game of chess, etc. Or they could be a little fanciful, like an elephant plowing a field, two men playing badminton while a tiger watches their game, military commanders riding leopards, etc.

When a villager entered the đình, then, two sets of contrasting imagery caught the eye. The religious imagery was a reminder of the belief system that ordered life. The secular imagery was a reminder of the everyday reality in which those concepts operated. The Vietnamese saw no contradiction in including both kinds of imagery in a single building. What those images represented was all part of one system anyway—the indigenous way of life.