Legend of De Cho Gang village

From the village legend, we know that the small village of De Cho Gang was once a gathering place for Tay Son insurgents. The story goes that, during a farming season in which the year and month are unknown, a Kinh person suddenly came to the village. He said his name was Nhac (Nguyen Nhac). Seeing his age, everyone called him bok (uncle). Bok Nhac taught the De Cho Gang people to blacken their teeth and chew betel; then the villagers followed Bok Nhac to build walls and dig trenches to fight the cruel king in the lowlands... After Bok Nhac died, the villagers of De Cho Giang mourned and held a memorial service. The offerings were usually a pig, a jar of wine, rice paper, incense and lamps... just like the Kinh people.

Bok Nhac was gone, and the De Cho Gang people returned to their old lives… Many farming seasons passed, and no one remembered. Then one day, someone who was exchanging salt in An Khe came back in panic and said that the French had come!

De Cho Gang village today.

The French were not like the Bahnar or Kinh people, but they had blond hair, big bellies, blue eyes, and some had faces as black as burnt wood. It was said that they were Yang people. The French Yang lived in large numbers outside An Khe, forcing the Kinh and Bahnar people to build roads for the four-wheeled box to travel on…

The sky had been silent all this time, when suddenly a strange sound was heard. Looking up, I saw something very strange, with two wings, a black body, and smoke pouring out of its tail. It flew back and forth close to the treetops for a moment and then disappeared...

Since the time of our grandparents, has anyone seen anything strange? We asked the villages and they said it was a French kite. Who gave the French the kite? Probably only Yang. The Ko village was so scared that they stabbed a buffalo as an offering. Seeing that, many villages followed suit and offered sacrifices to Yang to tell him not to go down and catch pigs or chickens.

Only the De Cho Gang people did not make offerings. The village elder said they had to catch the kite and see if Yang had given it to the Dharma. But how would they catch it? They discussed weaving rattan into a net. If it flew close to the treetops and got its wings caught, they could catch it, just like a fish in the stream!

They discussed it and then did it. The whole village went into the forest to split rattan and weave nets. Every treetop had a net stretched up. Everyone was anxiously waiting for the French kite to arrive… The moon set and rose, and it really did come. But standing at the base of the tree watching… Oh Yang, it was still several howls away from the treetops, not flying so close as we saw from afar!

After the French kites flew, one village after another reported the French arrival. The French chose a person to be the village chief and forced the men to go fishing for 10 days every year. Those who went fishing had to bring rice and salt to eat, and were also beaten. It was so miserable that the De Krui village resisted. The French immediately sent kites to throw rocks to the ground that exploded louder than thunder. The houses in De Krui village burned down, and almost everyone died. Other villages saw this and had to obediently go fishing for the French. De Cho Gang was very worried, what should they do? Some people discussed hiding in the forest. But hiding in the forest was very miserable, what if the French kites saw and threw rocks like in De Krui village? Well, let's just go fishing and see how it goes, can we endure it?

Then the French came to arrest the villagers. The village had to send the strong people first. After they left, it was as if everyone had a funeral. They waited until the tenth day to go home, but everyone told stories of hardship. They had to roll rocks, chop trees, dig the ground all day long, and if they let go, they would be beaten. They couldn’t stand it anymore, so they had to think of a way!

“There is no other way, we have to accept the punishment or fight back the French. Even if the French are Yang people, I am not afraid!”, Mr. Ding said. Said and done, he invited some young men to follow him to practice with crossbows to shoot the French...

Not long after the first round of arrests, the French came again. Mr. Ding immediately called everyone to lie in wait. They hid carefully in the forest at the entrance of the village. As soon as the French arrived, everyone shot arrows. The French were surprised, but in just a few blinks of an eye, they shot back. The explosion was like thunder, no one could bear it and had to run. The villagers also had to run deep into the mountains. The French went from house to house, smashing gongs and jars, then setting fire to the village. Sitting on the mountain looking back, everyone could only cover their faces and cry. They could not fight back against the French. The French were Yang's men, and Yang had given them kites and things that could shoot fire. The only way was to hide deep into the mountains, hide very well, so that the French could not see them...

The village could not grow. Out of ten children, seven or eight died. Without 1945, all the De Cho Gang people would have died!

That year, the village of De Cho Gang heard so many strange stories: the French had kites flying in the sky, some of them shot fire, it was thought that no one could defeat the French. But the French had to lose to the Viet Minh. They thought the Viet Minh was a bigger Yang than the French, but it turned out that the Viet Minh was not Yang. The Viet Minh were just Kinh, Bahnar, Ede... ordinary people, only had a heart of compassion for their compatriots that made the French run away...

***

I chose to write down here a turning point in the long history of De Cho Gang village. This turning point explains why such a small village could not be subdued by the French or the Americans. De Cho Gang was like a spearhead in the enemy's armpit. Such a small village was so firmly integrated into the country. The ancient story I heard resonated with a very current sound. The philosophy of the survival of each community, each nation is like the fate of each chopstick and the bundle of chopsticks in a strangely simple fable...

And De Cho Gang village grew up, became a chopstick in a bundle of chopsticks with the community of Vietnamese ethnic groups like that!

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/du-lich/dak-lak-dat-va-nguoi/202508/huyen-su-lang-de-cho-gang-76b1087/