A đàn tính, the musicl instrument of Tày shamans, enable the performance of a Then. The author, a Tày native scholar, resaerched the history of the instrument in relation to the career of the shamans | La Công Ý Vietnam Museum of Ethnology Đàn tính The Marvelous and Sacred Musical Instrument of the Tày People A đàn tính, the musical instrument of Tày shamans, enables the performance of a Then (pronouned like the number “ten”) ritual; its music accompanies the journey of the Then spirit army, and spirits are resident inside the instru- ment itself. The author, a Tày native scholar, researched the history of the instrument in relation to the career of the shaman Mrs. Mõ Thị Kịt, the original owner of the đàn tính displayed in the exhibition, and interviewed shamans in several other Tày communities. The author also collected infor- mation from instrument makers and musicians who use the instrument in secular folk performances. His research distinguishes secular đàn tính from đàn tính that have been animated with spirits and describes the compromises that Tày shamans make when they perform sections of their rituals for secular audiences. keywords: Vietnam—museum—sacred—Tày ethnicity—material culture— musical instrument Asian Ethnology Volume 67, Number 2 • 2008, 271–286 © Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture n the second floor of the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (Vme), a man- Onequin stands frozen in a dancing posture in front of an elaborately deco- rated altar for a Then ritual of the Tày people while another mannequin strums a stringed instrument. Visitors are usually drawn to the accompanying video moni- tor where, in a video clip of this same ritual, the venerable Then, Mrs. Mõ Thị Kịt, strums her three-stringed đàn Her assistants shake their brass bells to an urgent crescendo and rise from the floor in a whirling dance. TheThen spirit army is on the march, going to rescue a client’s errant soul. Mrs. Kịt reports the adven- tures of their journey through her song. The liveliness of the music and the anima- tion of the Then women are in marked contrast to the muted three-dimensional exhibit tableau. Equivalent to the drum in many shamanic cultures, the
