Khanh Hoa Swiftlet Nests

On the wall of a rock cave out on an island, a swiftlet uses its beak to press thin white strands of saliva onto the stone. It does not carry home a single blade of straw. Each strand is laid over the one before, again and again. Little by little, the strands become a small nest shaped like a tiny cup. Most nests are white, though some are flushed with pink. In the waters of Khánh Hòa, a bird needs about 120 days to finish its first nest. That is about four months, long enough for the moon to grow full and wane again four times.

The story the people of Khánh Hòa tell about the nest trade begins with a storm. Legend has it that around the year 1328, a naval admiral of the Trần dynasty set off on a long voyage south on official business. His name was Lê Văn Đạt. On board were the admiral and the soldiers who traveled with him. Out at sea, the boat ran into a great storm. The wind lashed and the waves pounded. The boat did not sink. Wind and waves drove it on and on, until it washed up at the island of Hòn Tre.

As the story is handed down, once the sea grew calm, the admiral found islands in the waters of what is now Khánh Hòa, where swiftlets nested in caves. Together with his soldiers, he worked out how to take the nests from the cave walls. Then he posted people to stay behind and guard the islands, looking after this precious source of nests so it would not be lost. The nest gatherers here honor him as the founding ancestor of their trade.

On Hòn Tre, where the boat in the old tale washed ashore, there is an island village called Bích Đầm. The water around it stays as green as jade all year, and the village's name is linked to that water. At the Bích Đầm communal house, the villagers worship the admiral as a guardian god, a kindly spirit who shelters the whole village.

Early on the morning of the tenth day of the fifth lunar month, figures are already moving about on Hòn Nội. This island is known as the cradle of the Khánh Hòa nest trade. Veteran nest gatherers have arrived, along with those who took up the trade after them. Many generations come back to one island. They prepare offerings of incense and lamps, tea and fruit. Every year, on this very day, the island holds the nest trade's memorial rite for its ancestors.

By now, incense smoke is rising in front of the ancestral temple. The nest gatherers offer incense in memory of their founding ancestor. Then they offer incense to one more figure, the one the islanders revere as Đảo chủ Thánh Mẫu, the Holy Mother and Lady of the Island. Today, the rites will last all day.

Many of the people standing before the temple today have spent long years gathering nests. The rest of us know that work only from what they tell. In the old days, in the wider caves, the gatherers built a bamboo frame along the rock wall, like the scaffolding used to build a house. In some places, they used a straight bamboo pole that still kept the stubs of its branches. People in the trade call that pole a cây cội, and the work itself đi cội.

In sun or in wind and rain, the gatherers still go out to check the caves. They know by heart how many poles each cave needs and how long each pole must be, as surely as they know the way home. When it is time to harvest, they pick with great skill, so that each little white cup stays whole. In some families, this trade has passed through three or four generations.

Each year, the gatherers harvest nests only twice. The first harvest falls in the third and fourth lunar months, the second in the seventh and eighth. After the second harvest, they leave the flocks in peace to breed.

Many generations later, the nest islands still have their keepers. They live in houses built near the caves, watching over the caves and the birds day after day. Only one supply boat calls each week. On free afternoons, they play volleyball or chess, or strum a guitar. Now and then, they also help fishermen in trouble at sea. Some of them stay with the island year after year.

Before the ancestral temple on Hòn Nội, the nest gatherers give thanks to the ancestors of their trade and to the gods and spirits. They pray for a smooth harvest season and for safety for all who go to sea. The way Khánh Hòa nest gatherers harvest the nests and prepare them has now been recognized as national cultural heritage. So has today's festival on the island.

Swiftlet nests have been prized for a very long time. In old times, the tables of emperors and lords held eight rare delicacies, known together as bát trân. Swiftlet nest was one of those eight. It was also one of the important goods sold abroad from Đàng Trong, the southern realm then ruled by the Nguyễn lords.

Later generations tell of a woman from the time of the Tây Sơn, three brothers who led an uprising from 1771 and for a time ruled Vietnam. She was given the task of watching over and protecting the nest islands, and the whole Hòn Tre archipelago as well. Her name was Lê Thị Huyền Trâm, and she came from the Lê family line of the founding ancestor. She organized people to gather the nests and saw to selling them too, so that the Tây Sơn court would have more wealth.

The people revered her as Đảo chủ Thánh Mẫu. They built a shrine to her right on the nest island, and on Hòn Nội stands a statue of her. She is the one honored with the second stick of incense this morning. The tenth day of the fifth lunar month is her memorial day, and here it is also the day the nest trade honors its ancestors.

Today, descendants of the Lê family also come to the island for the rites, the way children and grandchildren come home on a grandparent's memorial day. They come from Vĩnh Nguyên and from Phước Hải.

Out on the water, the contest of spinning thúng chai begins. One adult sits in each round basket boat and rocks it until it whirls on the waves. The basket turns circle after circle. People on the shore stand and watch, their eyes turning with every spin.

All day, the swiftlets have been out feeding under the open sky. Only when evening falls and the light grows dim do they come back. One by one, they dart into the dark cave, fast and sure. Each flies straight to its own white nest on the rock wall. Not one bird goes to the wrong nest.