Vietnam TravelTravel Special FeaturesVietnam - The Craft VillagesThe Bronze wares

The Bronze wares

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The most famous bronze wares to have come out of Vietnam are the Dong Son drums, intricately patterned drums cast by people of the Dong Son civilization, which Vietnamese archeologists date from the seventh century B.C. to the first century A.D. The graves of ruling-class people from the Dong Son period also contain a wealth of bronze artifacts, including dagger blades, swords, axes, arrowheads and crossbow triggers.

While modern-day scholars still debate the function of the massive Dong Son drums, these drums may have evolved from the rice mortar. 'Pestle music' - that is the sound made when pounding rice - is mentioned in ancient Chinese texts as an important ritual element for southern peoples. Moreover, the tympanums of some Dong Son drums depict scenes of people pounding drum-like vessels that are similar to modern-day scenes of peasants pounding rice.

Moving into the Christian era, the best bronze casters in Vietnam were Buddhist monks. De Cau and Dong Mai, two villages in Bach Ninh province, both claim 11th century monks as the founders of their village's bronze craft. These monks, named Quoc Tai and Tran Lac, were said to be students of Vietnam's most famous bronze caster, a legendary figure named Khong Lo.

According to a Vietnamese folk tale, Khong Lo was a monk during the reign of King Ly in the 11th century. The King of Dai Viet - as Vietnam was then known - ordered Khong Lo to go to China to obtain some black bronze.

Upon reaching the Chinese court, Khong Lo asked the Chinese monarch for a bag of black bronze so that the king of Dai Viet might cast some statues as offerings to the Buddha. The King readily agreed, reasoning that, with his vast stores of bronze, he would never miss a single bag.

Upon seeing the solitary monk with his small sack, the Chinese king's storekeeper joked that perhaps Khong Lo would like to carry off a statue of a buffalo, made from solid gold. The monk replied that all be required was a sack of black bronze. But Khong Lo was actually carrying a magic sack, which, no matter how much was crammed inside, never became full. So it was that Khong Lo obtained a huge quantity of black bronze, which he carried back to Dai Viet.

Back home, Khong Lo divided the bronze into pour parts. With one part he cast the nine-tiered tower of Bao Thien; with another part he cast a massive Buddha statue; with the third part he cast a urn big enough to hide ten men; and with fourth part he cast a huge bronze bell. When this bell was finished, its peals could be beard as far away as the Chinese capital.

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