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 the Tay Son insurgents. The story goes that, during a farming season, the name of the year and month is unknown, suddenly a Kinh person came to the village. He said his name was Nhac (Nguyen Nhac). Seeing his age, everyone called him bok (uncle). Bok Nhac taught the people of De Cho Gang 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… How many farming seasons had passed, no one remembered. Then one day, someone who was exchanging salt in An Khe ran back in panic and said that the French had come!

De Cho Gang village today.

The French are not like the Bahnar or Kinh people, but they have blond hair, big bellies, blue eyes, and some have faces as black as burnt wood. It is said that they are Yang people. The French Yang live in many places outside An Khe, forcing Kinh and Bahnar people to build roads for the four-wheeled box to travel on...

The sky had been silent until one day, 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, then disappeared...

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

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

They discussed it and then did it. The whole village went into the forest to split rattan and weave nets. Every tall tree had a net hung up. Everyone was anxiously waiting for the French kite to come… The moon set and rose, and it really did come. But standing under the tree watching… Oh Yang, it was still several whistles away from the treetops, not flying close like 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 digging for 10 days every year. They had to bring rice and salt to eat, and they were also beaten. It was so miserable that the De Krui village resisted. The French immediately sent kites to throw rocks on the ground that exploded louder than thunder. The houses in De Krui village burned down, and almost everyone died. Seeing this, the other villages had to obediently go digging 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 them and threw rocks like in the De Krui village? Well, let's just go and work 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, and 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 go deeper 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 crossbow shooting 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. They were surprised by the French, but after 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 the French. The French were Yang's men, and Yang gave 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 people of De Cho Gang 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 shooting fire, it was thought that no one could defeat the French. But the French had to lose to the Viet Minh. It was thought that the Viet Minh was a bigger Yang than the French, but it turned out that the Viet Minh was not a Yang. The Viet Minh were just Kinh, Bahnar, Ede... ordinary people, only having compassion for their compatriots that the French had to 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 conquered by the French or the Americans. De Cho Gang was like a spearhead on the enemy's side. 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 the fable, which is strangely simple...

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/