B’lôn, 90, from the Stieng (Xtiêng) eth­nic group, sits in front of her small wood­en house, sur­round­ed by her fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. Her house is old and the whole thing is lean­ing at an angle. She smiles warm­ly when we approach her village.

B’lôn is from the Stieng (Xtiêng) eth­nic group and does­n’t speak Viet­namese. Her grand­daugh­ter tells us about her life.

“Her hus­band (my grand­fa­ther) passed away a long time ago. She used to help sol­diers to car­ry rice dur­ing the (Viet­nam-Amer­i­can) war.”

“She lives alone in this house. How­ev­er, her chil­dren and grand­kids take care of her and live close to her.”

“She has been wear­ing this sil­ver neck­lace since she was a kid. She has had these ivory ear­rings for a long time. Many peo­ple try to buy them from her, but she doesn’t want to sell them. She wants to keep them until she dies.”

B’lôn, 90 years old
Stieng (Xtiêng) Eth­nic Group
Bình Phước, Viet­nam
(South­ern Vietnam)

B’lôn, 90, sits in front of her small wood­en house, sur­round­ed by her fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. Her house is old and the whole thing is lean­ing at an angle. She smiles warm­ly when we approach her village.

“She has been wear­ing this sil­ver neck­lace since she was a kid. She has had these ivory ear­rings for a long time. Many peo­ple try to buy them from her, but she doesn’t want to sell them. She wants to keep them until she dies.”

Ivory and Stretching Earlobes in Vietnam

Of all of the eth­nic groups we’ve vis­it­ed across Viet­nam the Xtieng have the most, and youngest peo­ple with stretched ear­lobes and ivory ear­rings (the youngest we saw were women in their late 40s and 50s). Stretch­ing the ear­lobes and fil­ing the teeth are tra­di­tions that have been “forced into obliv­ion” (as doc­u­ment­ed by Viet­namese ethnologists) .

“Cul­tur­al exchange between dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the eth­nic major­i­ty Kinh, along  with the growth of mass media (in the form of news­pa­pers, books, radio and TV sta­tions) has exert­ed pres­sure on the ancient cus­toms, grad­u­al­ly forc­ing some into obliv­ion. These include:”

“The cus­tom of fil­ing teeth and stretch­ing the ear­lobes prac­ticed by many eth­nic groups along the Trường Sơn moun­tain range, in the Cen­tral High­lands, and in the south­east­ern region of the country.”

In the past, peo­ple used ivory, (or some­times bam­boo as a cheap­er alter­na­tive) in their stretched ear­lobes. Now, the ivory ear­rings are get­ting rar­er and rar­er as col­lec­tors in many cas­es have bought them from the peo­ple wear­ing them. In every case, where we have vis­it­ed an eth­nic vil­lage and old­er peo­ple have stretched ear­lobes but no ivory, it is because col­lec­tors have pur­chased them. We’ve wit­nessed the same thing with oth­er eth­nic jew­el­ry as well as with their tra­di­tion­al clothes in a few cas­es. It is a sad sit­u­a­tion and should def­i­nite­ly be dis­cour­aged. How­ev­er, in this Stieng vil­lage were quite hap­py to find more than a few peo­ple that still had their tra­di­tion­al ivory earrings.

As it is no longer prac­ticed, stretch­ing the ear­lobes and using ivory ear­rings is a cus­tom that will dis­ap­pear once the small num­ber of peo­ple that have it now pass on.

B’lôn does­n’t wear her ivory ear­rings every day. Her fam­i­ly stores them in a secure place as they are very valu­able. She refus­es to sell them and will wear them when she pass­es. Here, she sits in front of her house with only one ear­ring. Since she has­n’t worn them in a while her ear lobes need to adjust again. 

Stieng or Xtiêng?

As is the case in many of the eth­nic groups in Viet­nam, there are mul­ti­ple names and spellings. Most of the eth­nic groups in Viet­nam also exist in oth­er coun­tries whose names and spellings vary. In writ­ing, I have tried to use the most pop­u­lar names and also the “prop­er” names list­ed in Viet­namese.  For the Stieng eth­nic group “Stieng” is the typ­i­cal spelling in Eng­lish. In Viet­namese it is writ­ten as Xtiêng or Xtieng.

Xtieng Ethnic Group — Summary