Văn Lang and the Hùng kings
Tradition holds that eighteen generations of Hùng kings ruled the first Vietnamese kingdom, Văn Lang, in the Red River valley; archaeology reveals the Bronze Age Đông Sơn culture there.
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
- Worship of Hùng Kings in Phú Thọ (Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity) — UNESCO, UNESCO (2012)
In the traditional account, Văn Lang was founded in 2879 BCE and ruled by eighteen Hùng kings. Its people grew wet rice, tattooed themselves against water dragons and chewed betel. One legend tells how Prince Lang Liêu won the throne by offering his father square and round rice cakes representing earth and sky, the origin of bánh chưng, still made for every Tết.
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
- Worship of Hùng Kings in Phú Thọ (Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity) — UNESCO, UNESCO (2012)
Tradition says the Hùng line ended when Thục Phán, An Dương Vương, founded the kingdom of Âu Lạc and built the spiral citadel of Cổ Loa near Hanoi, whose earthen ramparts still stand. In the famous legend, his daughter Mỵ Châu was tricked by her husband, the son of the Chinese general Zhao Tuo (Triệu Đà), into revealing the secret of a magic crossbow, and the kingdom fell around 179 BCE.
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
The archaeological record shows the Đông Sơn culture, named after a village in Thanh Hóa, producing magnificent bronze drums decorated with boats, birds and dancers, which were traded across South-East Asia. For Vietnamese the drums are a symbol of an ancient civilisation that was theirs before China arrived.
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
Lạc Long Quân, a dragon lord, and Âu Cơ, a fairy of the mountains, had a hundred sons. Half went with their father to the sea and half with their mother to the mountains; the eldest became the first Hùng king, whose line ruled Văn Lang for some 2,600 years until An Dương Vương founded Âu Lạc.
- Worship of Hùng Kings in Phú Thọ (Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity) — UNESCO, UNESCO (2012)
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
The Hùng king stories are recorded in texts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the dates are legendary. Archaeology shows a real, sophisticated Bronze Age society, the Đông Sơn culture, flourishing in the Red River region in the last centuries BCE, which the legends may remember in some form.
- The Birth of Vietnam — Keith Weller Taylor, University of California Press (1983)
- Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present — Ben Kiernan, Oxford University Press (2017)
Why it matters today
The Hùng kings give Vietnamese a founding story older than Chinese rule and a sense of being one family: "children of the dragon, grandchildren of the fairy". Their death anniversary, on the tenth day of the third lunar month, has been a national holiday since 2007, and tens of thousands of pilgrims climb to the Hùng Temple in Phú Thọ each spring.