Ma Lieng is one of the smallest in population among 53 ethnic minority groups in Vietnam. Currently, the total population of the Ma Lieng in Vietnam is approximately 1,200 people. As the research of CIRD, the Malieng have historically lived along the Ka Tang River, near the Laos-Vietnam border, in the Lam Hoa and Thanh Hoa commune, Tuyen Hoa District, Quang Binh and Huong Lien commune, Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh. The livelihoods and cultural practices of the Ma Lieng are mainly rooted from forest and resources.

The Ma Lieng consider the Earth (Atat) as Mother, and the Sun (Ka gum) as Father. Father and Mother got marriage for delivering all foundation and creatures such as hills, rivers, forest, trees, herbs, and holy on watershed of the Ka Tang River. The Ma Lieng was born from those. 

Thanks to hills, forest, rivers, the Ma Lieng have been existing so far. Ceremony for land collection is a norm determining respect toward Mother, which is preserved by customary law of worshipping for the Earthen holy for successive generations.

Whenever to remove to new area or split up a household, this ceremony would be first practiced. The head of the household, as required procedure, apply the family needs to the head of clan. The head of the clan reports to the village elder. The village elder discusses with the spiritual leader. In few cases, the village elder also takes spiritual leader’s role. The spiritual leader will be the responsible person for this ceremony. 

The Ma Lieng prefer to select even lunar months and even days for this ceremony. Even figures relate to equal interaction of the world, between Yang (Solar) and Yin (Lunar), between left and right. The Ma Lieng especially prefer dates of 2, 12, 22 of the second, fourth, sixth, tenth lunar month and consider eighth, twelfth lunar month as taboos. After collection of good day, good month, good hour, all family members in beautiful cloth go to land area, where the spiritual leader practice the ceremony. The spiritual leader contacts (to mention in ceremony message) to Mother and Father (Earth and Sun) on behalf of the whole community. Then he contacts the holy of Khe Ne (Ne upstream), Khe Mo Ro (Mo Ro upstream), Chut cement (the highest rocky top mountain in the western Truong Son range), Rao Cai upstream of Ca Tang river. He contacts and invites those holies and holies from downstream of the Ca Tang River, Khe Rai (Rai stream) to enjoy this ceremony together with descendants.

The worshiping ornament include one handful of rice for worshiping four directions of the nature, one chicken, four bow of cooked rice, one handful of sticky rice and one incense carrier. After burning incense for sacrificing Mother, Father and Holy, the intellectual leader throws out two coins. If Farther, Mother and Holy are satisfied, the two coins will lay, one on its back and one in a prone position. This means they permit people to use that plot of land, and the ceremony of breaking ground will be able to practice. If two coins lay on its back, it is possible to continue another trial of asking for that land. Conversely two of them lay in a prone position, it is belief that unlucky things will happen, and then villagers should try another plot of land. 

Any community, clans or household cannot avoid this ceremony whenever they want to collect new land area. For a family’s house building, after this ceremony, they need one ceremony for beginning carpentry (Pago Phat moc) and one for house setting (Pa tang Ka no).

The ceremony for beginning carpentry is different from the ceremony for land collection. The spiritual leader names all species of trees, animals in the forest and whispers confidentially that, today is a good day in a good month, the family hold ceremony for beginning carpentry, to submit to Rivers and Hills ( Giang Son) Holy, especially Holy of Cay Si (Benjamin fig) to let us to access forest for sacred pillars peacefully. This ceremony’s worshiping procedure and ornaments are similar to ceremony of collecting land, the differences only attribute to worshiping message and the names of holy.

The next is ceremony of setting up house. For ornaments, a bottle of wine is additional to mention in those two ceremonies. After the spiritual leader’s worshiping, the husband and wife of the worshiping family have to sit ajacently to the fire place where the Holy of fire (Than Cho Cuu) situates. They should keep fire existing for five days, then the husband and wife will be entitled to go far away from the fire place. After five days of fire ceremony (Po ta), it is belief that the ancestors will come to the house for supporting descendants. Along with fire place, there is a sacred room (Puong kiin), which should consist sufficiently three one cross bow (Cai Na) for hunting; one pipe for keeping arrows made from palm branch (Ong Sa Gac) which are poisoned from Pii tree; and one pipe for keeping incense (Tuoi Khoong). The Ma Lieng considers those three essential things as the spiritual foundation of the Ma Lieng, then they have to bring with to wherever they allocate. After those mentioned ceremonies, the work for house setting will actually start.

Eight years ago, it was the first time I came to Ke village, after my stepping up the house, preparing for sitting down, the powerful prestigious elder Cao Than bowed his head in salutation, clasped his hands and made a kowtow three times. The whole my body trembled for fear that I might do something wrong to the family or the community. It took me a long time to recognize that symbolic action. It seemed that elder Cao Than wanted to tell “Please do not require us to leave from this place, my God”. I simply wanted to visit and learn from the Ma Lieng, but I had to observe such a Ma Lieng’s welcome at the first contact. Then since the coming Tet (New Year) festival, I was accepted and loved by the Ma Lieng so far. Time has helped me to recognize the Ma Lieng’s values that way.

Resettlement programmes unavoidably apparently fail if they want to remove people to other places in a irrespective consideration of their belief and creed, in ignorance of their unique differentiated values and community worshiping, ceremonies which integrate intellectual insight values of the community.

Each person keeps his or her own name, family name; the Ma Lieng also has their own distinct ancestor, language, customary laws. A recent research says that the Ma Lieng used to practice their own scripts by writing from their own blood. There is no explanation for the disappearance of the Ma Lieng scripts, then the Ma Lieng are still hoping that one day those scripts will be written on the Benjamin fig, which had saved the Ma Lieng in danger as described in a legend. Yet, the Ma Lieng.