LAT VILLAGES
The Làt people, from the Co Ho ethnic group, live in longhouses built on stilts to protect them from the rainy season.
Villages" are made up of several hamlets, but not all are inhabited by the Lat people. Relations between minorities and the majority Kinh are often tense. Differences in living standards are obvious, as is the folklorization of traditions encouraged by the authorities. The village is famous for the concrete statue of the "nine-limbed rooster" (8 tons, 3.20 m high). It evokes a local legend of a young girl who died in an unsuccessful quest to find a nine-degclawed rooster for her future husband's family.
The Lat people belong to the Co Ho ethnic group, who speak the Mon language. In the rainy season, they live in longhouses built on stilts. A single house is home to several families. In this matriarchal system, it is the woman who sets her sights on a potential husband. Lat women are very coquettish, wearing a multitude of necklaces. Traditional dress is the same for both men and women: a hand-woven sarong, a dark-colored ikat and, on top, a small Chinese-style shirt or jacket. The Lat people live by growing fruit and vegetables, cassava and raising livestock. This animist society worships the genies of the earth, the harvest, the sun and the seasons. A large proportion of them converted to Catholicism, but the Christian God was soon assimilated into their nature god. After intense demands, the Lat language is taught in schools alongside Vietnamese.
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