Visitors look at photos taken by Hungarian professor of socio-cultural anthropology Gabor Vargyas. (Photo vtv.vn) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – About 70 photos are on display at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology to show the lives of the Bru – Van Kieu ethnic people of central Vietnam. The photos are part of an exhibition entitled Divinities, Ancestors and Shamans: The Bru – Van Kieu in The Truong Son Range, and were taken by Hungarian professor of socio-cultural anthropology Gabor Vargyas in the 1980s. The exhibition will run until January 2019. Visitors will have a chance to learn about the life and religion of the Vietnamese Bru – Van Kieu ethnic group, who live primarily in the two central provinces of Quang Tri and Quang Binh. Between 1985 and 1989, Professor Vargyas spent one and a half years in the Central Highlands in a Bru – Van Kieu village in Huong Hoa, Khe Sanh in Quang Tri. He moved into a local home and was accepted as a member of the family. He lived, slept, ate and worked with the family, sharing their fate in good times and bad times. He learnt their language and spent all his time and energy on getting to know Bru – Van Kieu culture from the inside. “The circumstances were more than romantic,” said Vargyas. “To reach the village, one had to walk a whole day on forest paths and cross rivers on suspension bridges. There was no electricity, shops, radio, television, telephone, post office or medical station. If… [Read full story]
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