Bao Luong and Slao Cai

Rain poured down on the old forest as if a river in the sky had burst its banks. Water ran white over the rocks, gathered into streams and rose around the roots of the great trees. Through that blinding rain, two figures were running. Two giant figures.

Their feet thudded on the ground, and each stride cleared a whole thicket, sending water splashing high. The young man was as tall as a thousand-year-old banyan, his arms as long as the branches of a silk-cotton tree. That day the two had met for the first time, in the middle of the forest, while searching for food near Pác Măn. The sky had been bright, then darkness came crashing down, and now they were both running the same way. Over there, at the foot of a mountain, the black mouth of a cave stood open.

That cave was called Ngườm Bốc. This is how the Tày people of Hòa An, in Cao Bằng, still tell it. The Tày are one of the peoples of northern Vietnam. In that faraway time, they say, only two human beings lived in all these wide mountains. The young man was named Báo Luông, which means the big young man. The young woman was named Slao Cải, which means the big young woman. She too was as tall as a candlenut tree, with arms as long as the branches of a canarium tree.

Inside, the cave was dry and warm. The cold wind could not get in. Toward the lower mouth of the cave, at the spot the Tày call Pác Ngườm, clear water flowed out, with fish and shrimp, and crabs crawling over the wet stones. On that first night, the two sat listening to the rain drumming outside, and neither had to huddle against the cold. It was the first shelter on earth. Many rainy seasons later, they became a family, and in time they had a great many children, as many as a hundred.

But in those days there was one thing no one in the world knew about yet. That thing was fire. A fish caught in the stream was eaten right away, cold and fishy. A root dug up in the forest was eaten right away, harsh and tough. No one could imagine a thing that was bright and hot and could also make food smell good.

Then one day, rain gathered again. The clouds pressed low onto the treetops. A sharp crack tore across the forest. A bolt of fire shot straight down from the sky, struck a fishtail palm on the far side of the clearing and split its trunk in two.

Only when the roar had died away did Báo Luông and Slao Cải step closer. The palm was still smoldering, and a long crack ran down its trunk. Inside that crack lay a gecko, roasted through by the fire from the sky. From it rose a strange smell, unlike anything else in the forest. It was a delicious smell.

The two looked at each other. Then they tasted it. The cooked meat was soft and sweet and still warm, different from everything they had eaten in all their lives. On this earth, it was the first cooked meal.

From that day on, the two kept watch over the flame. They learned to gather dry branches so the fire would not go out. They learned to bank the coals under a layer of ash, so that a glowing ember would still be there in the morning. They learned to carry fire into the cave for the winter nights.

And that night, for the first time, the stone walls of Ngườm Bốc glowed a warm orange. Two giant shadows stretched along the walls, swaying with the flames, while outside the rain kept falling. With fire, a grilled fish smelled wonderful, and roots buried in the ashes turned soft and sweet. The cave began to feel like a real home.

Then it was the turn of rice. Slao Cải often went down to the edge of the stream, and she noticed a kind of grass growing in the water, with small, plump grains at its tip. She heaped up mud and brought the grass back to plant in wet ground. She tended it until it grew green, then waited for it to ripen gold. The Tày call that plant co khẩu. It is the rice plant.

Once there was grain, she had to find a way to remove the husk. She hollowed a stone into a mortar, called a dộc, and cut a sturdy piece of wood into a pestle, called a sác. Then she pounded. At a spot called Nà Mỏ, she cooked the first pot of rice. The steam pushed up the lid, and inside the pot lay pure white grains, without a single scrap of husk. The smell of new rice spread through the cave. And the sound of pestles pounding rice has rung through the villages of the Tày ever since, morning and evening.

Báo Luông, for his part, looked out at the land. He made a plow and a harrow out of wood, then broke the soil and opened fields, one valley after another. The Tày still say that those two giants opened the broad fields of Hòa An and Nguyên Bình.

Nor did he leave the wild animals out in the far forest anymore. He coaxed them closer, penned them in, and gave them food and water, keeping them used to the smell of people. The first buffalo stood back warily, lifting its nose to sniff, before it finally stepped forward to eat a handful of grass from his hand. One by one, the others grew tame.

The land stretched on and on, and no place had a name yet. So the two named each spot after the animals kept there. The buffalo lived at Lùng Hoài, the valley of the buffalo. The horses lived at Khau Mạ, the mountain of the horses. The cattle lived at Lùng Mò, the valley of the cattle. The goats lived at Vỏ Bẻ, the hill of the goats. The pigs lived at Chông Mu, the place of the pigs. The ducks lived at Lậu Pất, the pen of the ducks. And the fish lived at Nà Pia, the field of the fish.

The two lived a very long time. Their descendants grew into villages and settlements, and every evening the smoke of cooking fires rose all along the hillsides. By the time their hair had turned white, no one called them Báo Luông and Slao Cải anymore. People called them by names of respect kept for grandparents: Pú Luông and Giả Cải.

Then, at a great age, the two passed away. Their descendants chose a mound beside the Tả Sẩy stream and built a shrine on it. It was to remember the two who had taught them to grow rice, to raise buffalo and ducks, and to light a fire in the cave in the middle of winter. They called it the Pú Lương Quân shrine, also known as the Thần Nông shrine. Thần Nông means the Divine Farmer, a god honored for teaching people to farm. The shrine is one of the oldest in Cao Bằng province. Later the descendants spread across the region. So today in Cao Bằng, some Tày families still count themselves descendants of the two giants. They are the families named Nông, Bế or Lương.

That is the old tale as the Tày tell it. This much, though, is fact. Inside the cave of Ngườm Bốc, archaeologists have found ancient layers of earth, traces of people who came to live here a very long time ago.

Today, on the roads of Hòa An, those same names are still heard as people talk to one another. Lùng Hoài. Khau Mạ. Nà Pia. Children here say the names of their home places every day, and each name still carries the story of the two giants.

And the cave is still there, at the foot of the mountain in Hòa An. Its mouth is still black and cool, just as it was the day the two giants ran inside to escape the rain. Outside, the Cao Bằng rain still turns the forest white every season. And early in the morning, beside the stream, someone still brings a stick of incense to the small shrine and lights it for the two who found the first fire in the middle of that rain.