In Huoi Vai village in Trang Dinh district’s Cao Minh commune, Loc Thi Ninh is selecting her best attire for the occasion.

The local genie here is believed to give strength and motivation to all the villagers by protecting their crops and homes from wild beasts and enemies.

The 16-year-old girl dresses in a traditional black shirt and trousers decorated with colourful hems and adorned with a silver necklace. Walking out of her stilted house which sits against a high green mountain, she stops to pick some leaves from an apricot tree, which she will use as a musical instrument at her village’s spring festival.

This is where the Na Mieo dwell, a lesser known hill tribe branch related to the H’Mong ethnic group. Cao Minh commune is home to 27 houses with some 70 people who live off planting rice and growing maize.

Ninh’s grandmother cannot remember when their apricot tree was planted but she says many generations of Ninh’s family have used its leaves to express their feelings and joy in the village’s festivals.

“The leaves can make interesting sounds and songs”, “for people to seek their lovers”, says Ninh. Ninh quotes the lyrics from a local ballad: “I grew an apricot tree by the stream. Its leaves helped me find you my love. On the first day of the lunar year, I fetch fresh water from the stream, while listening to the ballad of the wind. Then I think of you…”

Her suitor is a 19-year-old man from the next village. Unlike other ethnic minorities in which parents arrange marriages, young Na Mieo people are free to find their own path when it comes to love and marriage. Last year, Ninh Met her sweetheart at a festival with the help of their romantic melodies. It’s a family rite of passage. Her parents and grandparents also met in a similar situtation.

The engagement party will be organised in the second lunar month. There are three parts to a Na Mieo engagement ceremony and like everywhere else, ruou (rice and maize liquor) feature prominently and chicken is also an obligatory present.

“My boyfriend’s parents will bring nothing but a big pot of ruou and 15 chickens to my family home,” says Ninh. “Traditionally, they walk, no matter how far they have to show they are quite capable of overcoming difficulties in their marriage life.

The first visit is essentially an introduction as each family sounds the other out. The second meeting is simpler and livelier. At that time, only ruou must be carried to the bride’s home and plenty will get drunk!

On the third visit, the two families select a day for the wedding with the assistance of a local female fortuneteller. In the past, the man’s parents would bring three buffaloes, five pigs and jewelry as gifts but nowadays, only cash and jewelry are required.

“At least VND12-15 million is handed over. If your family is poor, you will have to get a loan. Otherwise, there will be no ceremony,” says Loc Thi Nhinh, Ninh’s 50-year-old aunt.

The wedding ceremony will be held one month later. Both families have to prepare many things as the whole village will attend the ceremony and it goes on for three days!

Ninh and her husband will exchange silver objects as wedding gifts. On the wedding day, the bridegroom, a best man, the bridegroom’s aunt and a child carrying a basket of cakes made from glutinous rice, will come to the bridal home along with three chickens and two large pots of ruou.

After traditional music is played and songs are sung, the gifts are placed on the home’s ancestral altar in the middle room and the ancestors are asked to accept the bride into their home.

The wedding procession must be followed by as many children as possible in the hope that the newlyweds will have many children. Once the bride is introduced in the wedding ceremony and walks over the threshold of her husband’s home, she becomes a member of his clan.

Then, the chinking party then starts in earnest. “Everyone likes to have a few too many and all wish for a happy life!” says Ninh.