Barns where Ba Na ethnic people in An Toan Commune, central Binh Dinh province’s An Lao district, store their most important property – food and rice wine (photo: dantocmiennui.vn)Binh Dinh (VNA) – The Ba Na community in An Toan Commune, central Binh Dinh province’s An Lao district, still keep their tradition of storing their most important property – food and rice wine - at barns separate from their houses, without any worry of theft.
Located high on the mountain around 150km away from Quy Nhon city, An Toan Commune is home to Ba Na and Hre ethnic groups. Each Ba Na family here has at least one barn, where they keep rice, other food crops, wine and honey. Well-off families have two or three barns.
When a young Ba Na couple starts their own family, the next thing they do after building a stilt house is to construct a barn. Barns must be erected at least 100m away from the owner’s house and beside a road or a stream to make it easy to respond when a fire breaks out.
Dinh Van Trai, an elderly in Village 1 of An Toan Commune, said the practice stems from the fear that the daily use of fire inside the house for cooking can cause accidents and destroy the precious food.
According to the old man, Ba Na people are honest and never steal, so nobody is worried that their property in the barns will be stolen.
The Ba Na and their traditions are part of the unique beauty of the mountainous region in Binh Dinh.-VNA
