Presentation of Cham Ethnicity in An Giang Province

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Among the provinces in the Mekong Delta, An Giang is perhaps the province with the most ethnic groups, creating a unique culture for the ethnic groups in An Giang, including the Cham people. The Cham people of An Giang originated from the South Central region, belonging to the ancient Champa kingdom. Under the influence of many historical reasons, they left their homeland to Chenla (Cambodia), and then a part of these Cham people moved from Chenla down the Mekong River, migrating to live in An Giang.

In An Giang, the Cham people live in villages (palay) distributed along the Hau River, on the islands, running from Binh Di River (Khanh Binh Commune) and then gathering at the river junction in Chau Giang and flowing down to Khanh Hoa Commune, Chau Phu District. According to population statistics, the number of Cham people in An Giang is more than 11.000 people, accounting for 0.59% of the province's population (which is also the place with the highest number of pilgrimages to the holy land of La Mécca). 

Dear delegation!

Due to religious rituals and customs, the Cham people in An Giang province always maintain their own lifestyle, they live with the Kinh people but never mix with each other in terms of land use and cultural identity, it is these customs that make the life of the Cham community always "rich in national identity". Palay (village) is a residential unit, and at the same time the basic social organization of Cham society, each Palay usually has many hamlets (Puk), the Cham villages of An Giang facing rivers, canals or traffic roads.

Nowadays, Cham people's houses are built in the traditional stilt house style, with reinforced concrete or stone pillars, corrugated iron or wooden walls, and corrugated iron or tiled roofs. The base of the stilt houses is very high to prevent flooding. When the flood recedes, the floor is used as a place to place a weaving frame. The architecture is quite sophisticated, typical of Cham people's houses in the Southern river region. Like the temple, Cham people's houses do not worship anything. There are no tables and chairs in the house. Guests come to the house to sit on mats or carpets.

Cham ethnic costumes emphasize the discreet, elegant elements, harmonious and lively patterns and colors. Cham women's costumes are very skillfully full of elegance and splendor. Cham women wear traditional long dresses (tunic) that are longer than the knee, closed at the hem, when worn over the head, and a skirt (khôn) that covers the heels, sometimes stylized into a dress of the same color, very beautiful. In particular, the veil today has become a scarf (Pưm) worn over the hair, it enhances the graceful and charming beauty of Cham girls. Men wear karung (men's long dress), or high-necked shirts with standing knots, plaid sarongs, and white or colored round hats.

Dear delegation!

Like other ethnic groups, the Cham people make a living from many different occupations such as: fishing, animal husbandry and a little agricultural production, farming, trading, especially traditional hand-woven fabrics. 

The weaving profession of the Cham ethnic group was born very early, and is a unique cultural activity of the ethnic people in An Giang. The weaving products are imbued with the Cham cultural identity, soft, graceful, and sophisticated from the color combination to the weaving technique, creating patterns, requiring many stages and time. One of the places that still preserves and develops the traditional craft almost intact is Phum Soai hamlet, Chau Phong commune, Tan Chau town. In the weaving method of the Cham people, the outstanding technique is the technique of dyeing and tying Ikat to create patterns for brocade; and the weaving technique is divided into two types: sarong weaving and brocade weaving.

Dear delegation!

Marriage is always considered a major event in every person's life. However, each ethnic group and each region often has different customs and rituals. For the Cham ethnic group in An Giang in particular, and the Cham people in the Southern region in general, following Islam, wedding customs have many unique features.

The special feature of a Cham wedding is that the house is beautifully decorated, full of bright colors. The wedding room is located at the bride's house. Decorating the wedding room is also one of the traditional beauties that has been preserved for a long time by the Cham people who follow Islam. It is both a decorative activity that contributes to the happy day and also implies the family's blessing to the new couple through putting love into the decoration to make it beautiful and splendid.

The wedding ceremony will have an engagement ceremony and a wedding ceremony. The engagement ceremony is simple and the groom's family goes to the bride's house. The wedding ceremony will be held for 2 days and 1 night, including ceremonies such as: the marriage ceremony, the engagement ceremony, the daughter's night, and the groom's sending-off ceremony. The groom's family will take the groom to the bride's house to perform many ceremonies, then leave. After 3 days, relatives and the groom's parents will visit the new couple together, bringing all the necessary items for the family.

On the wedding day, the bride wore a red-purple velvet ao dai, knee-length, with no slits at the hips, and a white lace veil. Her hair and ears were adorned with flowers and hairpins, along with jewelry such as gold, necklaces, rings, etc.

The groom wears a traditional white dress like a Muslim, with a scarf wrapped around his head. Many grooms do not wear a scarf but wear a Capé hat, a round, brimless, beautifully decorated hat.

Traditional Cham cuisine is rich and diverse. Due to the influence of Indian culinary culture, many dishes of the Cham Islam people tend to be sweet, fatty, spicy, colorful and spicy such as curry. Ca pua, ni rice, tung lo mo (phu ku),... Cham Islam people do not eat pork, dog meat, amphibians, animals that fall to their deaths, animals killed by strangulation, head-banging, falling, being gored, or being torn apart by wild animals because these are prohibited in the Koran. In the case of killing cows, chickens, ducks... for food, they turn the animal's head toward the holy land of Mecca, recite the prayer from 3 to 7 times (confirming that God (Allah) allows cutting the animal's throat). The custom of eating with one's hands is still prevalent in the Cham Islam community because they are deeply influenced by Indian and Arabic culinary culture.

Music and dance play a very important role in the spiritual life of the Cham people. At traditional festivals and folk dance performances of the Cham people, musical instruments are indispensable, an element that creates a unique feature, imbued with the cultural colors of the Cham people. Cham musical instruments include the Ghinang drum, Paranung, Rappana...

Dear delegation!

Many people in the Cham Islam community in An Giang are buried in the mosque grounds after they die. The burial of the dead is quite simple and somewhat special: the dead are buried on the same day (no more than 24 hours after death); before burial, the corpse is washed and wrapped in three layers of white cloth (shrouding); the grave is dug in a North-South direction and a hole is dug at the bottom of the grave with a length equal to the length of the corpse (on the West side); the corpse is placed on its right side, with its face and chest facing the sunset (West, towards Mecca); the corpse is pressed into the dug hole, a board is used to block the outside of the corpse and then covered with soil; no clothes or other objects are buried with the deceased; the grave is not mounded but leveled flat; the grave is marked by erecting two steles or nailing two wooden bars at the head and foot of the grave; the name of the deceased, date of death, and date of death are written on the steles. After erecting the two steles, the burial is considered complete.

Dear delegation!

About Religious Beliefs:

The Cham people in An Giang follow orthodox Islam and have their own language and writing system, in which Arabic is one of the main subjects to help young people read the Quran.

Islam plays an important role in the material and spiritual life of the Cham people. The Islamic faith has deeply influenced all cultural, economic and social aspects of the followers. The Quran is absolutely believed in, there is only one God, Allah, the supreme being, the only one, Saint Mohamed is the last angel to whom Allah revealed the Holy Quran (Koran) to the world. Every day, Sambakyan must be performed five times at the mosque (or at home), at least three times, but when it comes to the noon mass on Friday every week, male followers are required to bathe, dress neatly and go to the mosque to perform Zamak, fast during the month of Ramadan, give alms, help the poor to create merit, if possible, at least once in their life, make a pilgrimage to the holy land of La Mecca.

The festivals of the Cham Islam people in An Giang are diverse, such as the thanksgiving ceremony (to commemorate the god who used wood to build a large raft to take people to safety during the great flood of ancient times), the peace-praying ceremony (to pray for national peace and prosperity, favorable weather, bountiful harvests, to dispel evil, to receive peace and luck, and for people to be warm, prosperous, and happy; to ask God to give people health to grow rice), and the birthday celebration of Mohammad (to learn about the origins and birth of Islam). There are two major festivals: Ramadan (in the 9th month of the Islamic calendar), in this festival the Cham people must fast continuously for a month (fasting during the day before sunrise, breaking the fast at night, until sunset (5:15 am, 6:15 pm), the last day of Ramadan, everyone gathers together to party, eat and visit each other. After Ramadan, the Cham Muslim community happily enters the Roya (Rona Pittak) festival, a national holiday, this is a particularly important festival of the Cham people, people who work far away also return to reunite, gather in the family, go to the mosque to pray, visit and congratulate, it is an opportunity for everyone to forgive each other, forget the bad things of the old year, to enter the new year full of new joys.

The Cham Islam people in An Giang do not build temples or towers like the Cham people in Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan, but each Cham village has a mosque. There are two types of mosques: the large mosque and the small mosque. The large mosque is where religious, cultural and social activities of the Cham Islam people take place. The small mosques are houses used as places for praying, meeting and eating of the community. Apart from My Phuoc Cham village (Long Xuyen city), the remaining Cham villages all have at least one mosque. The number of mosques in the village depends on the population density, the economic capacity of the people, the contributions of the Cham Islam community at home and abroad, and aid from many Muslim countries in the world. By 2018, there were a total of 13 mosques in An Giang.

 Mosques have quite similar architecture: Mosques have two main colors: white and blue. White and blue are commonly used in decorating national flags and mosques around the world. Blue symbolizes purity, elegance, and trust. These meanings are consistent with the main ideology in Islam. Moreover, the combination of white and blue also creates a cool, gentle, and luxurious feeling...

There are symbols of the sun and the crescent moon (the symbol of Islam), a high dome roof and roof, surrounded by corridors and many large windows. All the mosque's architecture is oriented west, towards the holy land of Mecca.

The mosque is the pride of the Cham ethnic community, the mosque plays an important role in the spiritual life of the Cham people, a place of spiritual belief, a sacred place of moral teachings, a place to conduct life-cycle rituals of believers, the communal rituals of Palay in general are all Islamic rituals held in the mosque. In particular, the inside of the mosque is always filled with light thanks to the wide corridors around, the high dome and many large windows... In particular, the interior of the mosque does not worship any statues or pictures (Muslims only absolutely respect Allah as the highest god), there are only symbols of the crescent moon and stars, so it looks very spacious and airy.

In general, through a long history, the Cham ethnic community has lived together in the community of other ethnic groups in An Giang, without ethnic or religious discrimination, united in social relations, preserved, conserved and promoted the national cultural identity, in harmony with progressive life, and rising up in the new century and new opportunities./.