The origin of betel, areca and slaked lime

Once upon a time, there was a man so tall and broad that he had once been summoned by Hùng King to the capital of Phong Châu, awarded goods and gold, and given the name Cao (1). From there on, his family took “Cao” as their name. The man had two sons, Tân and Lang, who resembled each other as though they were sculpted from the same mould. They were identical from countenance to stance, to the point that even their family mistook one for the other at times.

As they grew up, their parents passed away one by one. The brothers were very close, so attached they refused to leave one another’s side even by half a step. The father, before his demise, did entrust Tân to a Taoist master by the name of Lưu. But when Tân left to study, Lang could not bear to stay behind and alone; he begged to go with Tân, and that was how they came to live with the same master. The Lưu family had a daughter, who was about the brothers’ age.

To figure out who is the older brother and who is the younger, one day the Lưu girl came up with a little trick. While the brothers were hungry, she put out only one bowl of congee with one pair of chopsticks. Standing behind a crack in the walls, she watched them and saw one brother letting the other have the share of food.

She murmured, “Oh, so that funny one is the older brother!”

From there on, Tân and the girl began to see each other. Their love grew more and more ardent. Seeing as they had grown quite close, the Lưu master was content to marry his daughter to Tân. After their union, they moved to a new home, with Lang tagging along.

Ever since he got himself a wife, Tân - though still a doting older brother - no longer afforded his little brother the gentle caressing of their days past. Where Lang used to be taken care of by his brother, he now found himself bereft. Lang got the impression that Tân meant to avoid him sometimes. “That’s right, he’s busy fawning over his wife and has forgotten me,” he thought, sullen and resentful.

One day Lang and Tân went to work in the mountain field till the sky was black as pitch. Lang returned first. He’d only stepped past the threshold when Tân’s wife came running from the bedroom and embraced him. Lang cried out in surprise, just as uncomfortable and embarrassed as his sister-in-law was for her mistake. Right that moment, Tân walked in.

From there on, Lang discovered a new facet of his brother that he had never known. Tân was a jealous man; jealous of him. Jealousy made Tân even more aloof to him [1]. Lang was both angered and ashamed. He wanted to run away, just to show his brother that he could. So one day, at the crack of dawn, he left home. He followed the beaten tracks, he walked, and walked and walked, fueled by the bitterness and resentment in his heart. After a few days wandering, Lang came to a great river. The water foamed in a heavy, unrelenting flow, intimidating him. It was all desolate there; not even a single croon of the crow, a single bark of a dog could be heard. Lang crumbled there on the river bank, knees pulled to his chest. Head in his hands, he wept. He wept, and wept, and wept for so long that even the nightly birds heard his sobs. The next morning, all that was left of Lang was a soulless husk. He had turned into stone.

When Tân realized his brother had vanished, he didn’t pay it much mind in the beginning. After waiting for a good while, he began to worry and stumbled out into the neighborhood to look for his brother. Still he saw no hair nor hide of Lang. He knew that his little brother left out of anger towards him; he regretted his actions for this. Another day passed with Lang still gone, and Tân, deeply concerned, left his wife home in search of his brother. Several days later, his search was impeded by a large river that he couldn’t cross. He walked down along the river bank, and finally, came across his brother’s petrified body. Tân stood by the rock that was once his little brother, and cried, and cried until all one could hear was the sound of water rolling and splashing beneath. Tân passed away and turned into a ramrod straight tree pointing skyward, taking root right beside the rock.

Tân’s wife waited until she could not wait anymore. She left home to search as well, and came to a stop before the very same river. She found the spot where the two brothers had passed and marked the land, sat down beside the tree, and wept her eyes dry. She too passed, and turned into a vine-like plant, curling up the tree.

After the three had disappeared for a time, the Tao master and his wife grew worried and asked for people to help them search. They found the rock and the two unknown plants and, having little left they could do, built a shrine for the three young persons by the river. The people in the region called it the shrine of “harmonious brothers, devoted couple” [2].

Much later, one year, the region suffered from a terrible drought. All trees and plants withered and wilted, save for the smooth green tree and vine that grew by the rock before the shrine. Everybody believed it was a sort of occult miracle. One day, Hùng King (3) traveled to the land. When he passed by the shrine, he was bemused by the sight: “This shrine, which gods does it honor? What are these plants that I have never seen before?” The Chancellor (2) summoned the elders from nearby villages to seek the answer.

After listening to the tales as recounted by the elders, Hùng King could not help feeling profoundly touched. He touched the tree, the leaves of the vine, and climbed over the rock, taking a good look at everything. Then, he ordered for the tree’s nut to be picked. The taste was quite sour and slightly bitter, nothing out of the ordinary. But when the nut’s was chewed with the leaves of the vine, a new taste arose on the tip of his tongue: a faint sweetness, a fragrant hotness.

“Oh gods! Blood!” shrieked a servant. Everyone scattered in surprise. Turns out, when one chewed the nut and leaves and spat them on the rock - which was a limestone, - the chewed paste turned crimson as blood. The king ordered for servants to scrape quicklime from the rock to chew with the nut and leaves; suddenly, his body felt as though heated with liquor, his lips flushed a bright shade of red, his face sanguine with health. The king said:

“Truly an occult miracle! This must be the three unfortunate souls who had passed! Their love still blooms this deeply red, I see.

From there on, Hùng King ordered for these plants - the tree called areca and the vine called betel - to be planted all over the land. More notably, it was obligatory that when a man and a woman joined in marriage, they must absolutely gather three things: betel leaves, areca nut, and slaked lime; and everybody must chew these three together and spit out red, to remember a crimson love that never faded. From there came the Viet people’s tradition of chewing areca nuts with betel leaves and slaked lime (ăn trầu, lit. “to eat betel”).

VARIANTS AND VARIATION

1. In Lĩnh Nam chích quái as well as in several other folktale recollections, little was said about the consequences of the brothers being “identical as though sculpted from the same mould”. We believe it must have been a mistake of the writer; hence, we mentioned the consequences here based on Tình sử Việt Nam (Vietnam’s greatest love stories; by Trúc Khê). In fact, Lang ran away from home because of Tân’s jealous display, which in turn was triggered by an honest mistake caused by their identical appearances.

2. According to Lĩnh Nam chích quái, Lang died and turned into the areca tree, Tân into the limestone, and Tân’s wife into the betel plant. Here we followed the story as told in Sử Nam chí dị, in which Lang was the one who turned into the limestone. Tân turning into the areca tree for his wife the betel vines to curl around seemed to create a more apt analogy (on this point we agree with the opinions of Trần Thanh Mại in “Researching and analyzing VIetnamese folktales”).

Mỹ Ấm tuỳ bút also told the same story as Sử Nam chí dị, with the difference that the three main characters had to be buried before they could reincarnate into plants and stone. The version as told in Mỹ Ấm tuỳ bút also differed from ours in certain details, especially the ending. It was told as follows: 

The two brothers Tân and Lang resembled each other as two statues made by the same hands. They grew identical as they grew older, and they loved each other dearly, never wanting to part from one another even half a step. This had caused Tân’s wife - the Lưu woman - to mistake the younger brother for her husband a few times, which had embarrassed her greatly. Worried that it might cause a scandal, Lang asked his older brother if he may leave and settle elsewhere alone, but Tân didn’t allow it. One day Lang left home in secret and went to the mountain, intending to live there in solitude. However, he soon fell sick from vicious winds and cold rains and died by the forest. Local villagers, pitying him, gave him a burial. Missing his little brother, Tân left home in search. When Tân found the mountain settlements, villagers were frightened, thinking that the dead had come back, for he looked exactly like Lang. Then when Tân understood and realized that his brother had passed away, he fainted, and died as well. The villagers buried him next to Lang’s grave. Eventually the Lưu woman also left home to look for her husband and found the graves of her husband and brother-in-law. She sat there and wept until she too passed away, and was then buried alongside them.

Their actions touched the Skies (4). The Skies let the younger brother turn into the limestone (which was pale white, representing his innocence), the older brother into the areca tree (which was stood straight and tall, representing his honesty, independence and openness), the Lưu woman into the betel plant (deeply fragrant and warm to the taste, representing her virtuousness and devotion). The rest of the story involving Hùng King was similar to above. 

3. According to Trúc Khê, cited above, the three main characters’ shrine was the Tam Khương shrine at Nam Hoa village, Nam Đàn district, Nghệ An province. Feudal dynasties did regularly grant titles and official honors to this region.

Certain ethnic minorities in Nghệ An had their own tale regarding the origin of areca, betel and slaked lime, that completely differed from the above stories:

A person brought their nine daughters to clear out grass in their fields. At noon, exhausted, the sisters joked with one another: “If somebody helped us with our chore we’d marry him right away.” An ogre heard so and appeared, saying, “If so, close your eyes, I will clear all this grass for you.” As promised, when the girls opened their eyes, they found the field entirely cleaned of grass. The ogre lured the girls back home and devoured them one by one. When it ate to the eighth sister, the youngest girl called Khăm Xuân was so frightened that she managed to slip away. She came across a flock of junglefowls, who told her: “If you want to live, then climb down where the yam roots had been dug up.” She did as told, and the fowls covered her hiding spot with leaves so that the ogre wouldn’t find her. Once the ogre was gone, the fowls told her to climb up and just go on, and ask anybody she came across for directions, for they would help her.

A fairy appeared and told her to follow a vine trail all the way to the tip. When she reached the end, it turned out to be the underworld, where there were also houses, paddies and gardens to be found. A man called Chàng Ngược took her as wife. He was meant to bring rains to the living world, but ever since he got a wife he had slacked on his duties. For three months he did not leave his home, leaving all land cracking dry. The people lamented the draught, and at last he had to leave his wife home to fulfill his assigned tasks. He told her to always stay inside, and not to listen to anyone no matter how much they tried to sway her.

Khăm Xuân stayed home. The two ex-wives of Chàng Ngược came to coax her out.

“Do you want to go watch elephant fights?” 

“No.”

“Do you want to go watch the mirror-and-comb bearers fight?”

“No.”

“Do you want to meet your parents in law?”

“Ever since I was married into this household, I have never met them. Let me come with.”

When she arrived, all she saw was two gigantic dragons. Frightened, she ran home, eyes squeezed shut. When her husband returned home and realized what happened, he had to reluctantly return Khăm Xuân to the living world above. Even when they’d ascended to the world of the living, her eyes were still closed. He told her: “We have arrived, dear. This is farewell. But if you are ever in need, call for me, I will come.”

Khăm Xuân was walking along a river bank when she met Chàng Nước. Chàng Nước coaxed her home with him to become his wife. Their affair was peaceful and sweet, save for one difficulty: Chafng Nước’s father did not like his daughter-in-law. One day, the father told Khăm Xuân to go catch fish in the stream. Khăm Xuân didn’t manage to catch any, so she called upon Chàng Ngược for help. Chàng Ngược came up and told her, “If you want to catch river fish, then wake up in the morning to try it next time. But tell everyone that, if they see a strange log floating by, do not touch it.”

In the morning, they saw a very large log of wood laying horizontal in the river, acting as a dam and creating a rather shallow spot in the riverbed with an abundance of fish. Khăm Xuân and many villagers came out to catch them all. The father, curious, also came out to the river; when he saw the log, he stabbed it with his steel rod. Unbeknownst to him, the log was Chàng Ngược shapeshifted. Wounded, Chàng Ngược moved and floated out of his spot, no longer acting as a dam. The river flowed naturally once more, flooding the once-shallow spot; the majority of the people who came out to catch fish did not manage to leave the spot in time, and were carried away in the stream, eventually drowning. The father blamed Khăm Xuân for scheming to murder the villagers. Khăm Xuân sat crying alone on the river bank, then making a fire on the log of wood as the day became chilly. The fire burned for a while, before she realized that it wasn’t firewood in the flames.

It was Chàng Ngược, who had been burned to death.

So aggrieved by this was Khăm Xuân that she jumped into the fire to burn alongside him. When Chàng Nước came along and learned what had happened, he jumped into the flames to burn with them (a detail that is similar to the ending of The origin of the kitchen clay-heads). The father buried them each in their own graves next to one another. Later on, the log that was Chàng Nước turned into an areca tree; Khăm Xuân into betel vines wrapping around the tree; and Chàng Nước into the limestone by their side. The father took areca nut and betel leaf, chewed them together, and upon spitting onto the limestone and discovering the bright red colors, he made it a habit to chew areca with betel and slaked lime, as a way to pass time. It became a tradition [5].

4. The Ca-tu minorities (residing in the West of the provinces of Quảng Nam and Thừa Thiên) also had a story regarding the origin of areca, betel and slaked lime. Though it differed from our version here, the imagery in the ending is quite similar:

An old woman married one of her ten daughters to the Snake man out of gratitude for an old favor. With the Snake, the woman had one child. One day, because of her sisters’ vicious tauntings, she let herself be stabbed by the snake’s fang and died in a blink. Her casket drifted down the stream and was caught in old man Na’s fishnet. Old man Na resurrected the girl and took her as a wife; they had a child but had yet to hold a wedding. So on their wedding day, the Snake man came. A brutal battle broke out between the Snake and old man Na. The girl went into the forest to find medicinal herbs, ground them into paste which she then wrapped up into small packets, so that she could throw at both of them when they were wounded. But when a medicine packet hit the Snake, he turned into an areca tree. And when one hit old man Na, he turned into a limestone. The girl felt such grief that she stood on the rock and embraced the tree, until she turned into betel vines which grew from the rock and curled around the areca tree.

Additionally, when the two children, fathered by the Snake and old man Na respectively, came to pick up the third medicine packet, they turned into a mortar and a pestle, used to grind betel leaves. When the villagers came over to look, they too were turned into Chay trees (artocapus tonkinensis).

Sometime later, a cơ-rúa (gossiping, good-for-nothing woman) happened to pass by the site on her way to catching shrimps. Intrigued by the plants, she went to pluck out the betel leaves and the areca nuts, and chewed them together. When she spat it on the limestone, the white turned into red. She took areca nut, betel leaf and slaked lime to chew together, and suddenly she found her lips redder, her countenance more comely. The king heard of this, summoned her to court, and upon seeing her beauty, took her as queen. Heeding her words, he ordered soldiers to dig up areca trees and betel plants to bring back to the palace - but no matter how many of those they displace, more areca and betel grew up, and never went extinct [6].

The Thai minorities also had tales in which lovers turned into betel and areca, in which three childhood friends who studied under the same master, two boys and a girl disguised as a boy, turned into the three aforementioned items. However, the tropes in this story are completely different from the above tales.

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Author’s note (references)

[1] Trúc Khê, Tình sử Việt Nam.

[2] Sử Nam chí dị.

[3] Lĩnh Nam chích quái.

[4] From “Nông công thương” (1939).

[5] Based on Thanh Xuyên Ward’s reports.

[6] Based on Ca-tu folktales.

Translator’s note

(1) Cao means tall, high in Vietnamese.

(2) Lạc tướng in the original text.

(3) Hùng King (Hùng Vương): title given to ancient Vietnamese rulers of the Hồng Bàng period (c. 2879-258 BCE). More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B9ng_king

(4) The word was Trời in the original text. It means, literally, sky (and, on a related note, mặt trời (lit. face of the sky) means sun). Here, it refers to a sort of deity, in which case it would be the equivalent of the Jade Emperor in Chinese and Vietnamese mythology; or it could also represent more abstractly a force of nature or a principle of life, much like karma. The closest translation both in daily language and in literature for Trời would be God; however, I am averse to any Christian or monotheistic connotations, which would give an inaccurate impression.

Final note: The practice of chewing areca nut, betel leaves and slaked lime together is also called paan in some context. Despite being very common in Southeast Asia, in particular in Vietnam (just look at the sheer number of origin tales for it!), in the past, it is detrimental to your health, as several of these ingredients are carcinogenic. The practice has been deemed a public health hazard in Southeast Asia. As far as I’m personally aware, though, nowadays it is no longer common.