It is amazing that Mường people have a folk tale that is very similar to our most honored legend.

According to the legend of the Vietnamese people, Lạc Long Quân (another name is Sùng Lãm) was the son of Lộc Túc (Kinh Dương Vương - King of Kinh Dương --- Lộc Túc was the son of Thần Nông and a fairy) and Lord Động Đình's daughter (Động Đình is a lake, Lord of Động Đình is a dragon, his daughter married Lộc Túc and gave birth to Lạc Long Quân, therefore, Long Quân has dragon's blood).

(I'm skipping the part about Lạc Long Quân's early life and his people)

Lạc Long Quân then married a beautiful woman from the high land of the north whose name is Âu Cơ. Not long after, Âu Cơ was pregnant and gave birth to sack of 100 eggs. A few days latter, 100 eggs hatched into 100 sons. The wonderful thing about these 100 sons was that with little milk from the mother, they grew very fast, became smart and talented guys.
Long Quân belonged to the linage of dragons, and even though he loved his wife, he longed for the life at lower land (coastal plain? under sea? whatever you interpret it). He left his family to visit the sea for awhile. Âu Cơ stayed, raising her sons.
One day, missing her husband, she came to the sea and called "Long Quân, where are you? why did you leave me and our sons alone?" Long Quân heard her, came up. They meet each other at Tương land. Âu Cơ said, "I am a girl of northern high land, married the king (Long Quân) and gave birth to 100 sons, now the king leaves me, no one helps me raise our sons, what a pity for my life" (my translation of the quote is not good). Then Lạc Long Quân said "I belong to the linage of dragon, the head of the sea; you are a fairy, live in land and mountain. Although âm dương (yin yang) unite and gave birth to 100 sons, our linages are different, water and fire are inconsistent (water is long quân, fire is âu cơ), cannot live together for a long time. Now we have to separate. I will bring 50 sons to lower land, let each rule a region. Other 50 sons will follow you to higher land, split the country for each to rule. However, let's not forget each other. Tell each other of dangers, invasions, and when any of us needs help, others will help."

And so they splitted, 50 sons followed Âu Cơ to the moutain, 50 others followed Long Quân to the sea. They, and their descendants, lived in different areas, may develop different traditions, customs, but they all had the same blood, they all came from a hundred eggs of Mother Âu Cơ.

Vietnamese people today call each other ĐỒNG BÀO, which means the same sack of eggs, indicating that they all came from the same sack of egg of Âu Cơ.
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That is the Viet version of the legend, and it is interesting that Mường people also have a similar tale. Let's look at the Muong version of the legend.

Along time ago there was a princess named Ngu Kơ (Âu Cơ in Vietnamese? Âu Cơ and Ngu Cơ sound very similar, Ngu and Âu might have gone through the process Ngu <---> Wu <---> Âu; there's a great posibility that they are the same person), she was a deer in her previous life. She then married a Yịt king (Yịt = Việt?...southern Vietnamese: Yiệt...Cantonese Yuet...Mandarin Yue...so they basically say that she married a Việt king) named Lương Wong (Long Quân? --- Lạc Long Quân married Âu Cơ). Lương Wong had fish origin (my interpretation: he belonged to the sea linage, like Long Quân). Not long after, Ngu Kơ gave bith to 50 daughters and 50 sons (our legend says 100 sons). But their life together was not going well, so they seperated. Ngu Kơ led 50 children to the moutains, Lương Wong led 50 children to the sea. Ngu Kơ and her children formed a lineage of kings who wear black dress. Lương Wong and his children form a linage of kings who wear yellow dress.

The only things that are not mentioned in our legend are: Ngu Kơ (Âu Cơ) was a deer in her previous life, and that thing about black dress and yellow dress.
Another thing is that our legend focuses more on the life of Lạc Long Quân (Lương Wong) and their legend focuses more on the life of Ngu Kơ (Âu Cơ)

So what do you guys think?

Could it be that the Muong are also Vietnamese/Kinh who decided to stay in the mountain? Have they every done a genetic study of Muong and Kinh? Their genetic might be most similar to our genetic than any other ethnicities.

Well I don't know. maybe other ethnics have similar stories too but we don't know. We need to do more studies on culture of our minorities and minorities in China.

But one thing can be seen from this. The word Việt is NOT a Chinese word. Many people said that Yue (Việt) is a term that Hán people used to indicate people in the south of the Yangtzi River, that this is the name the Chinese gave us.

But the Mường people call Lương Wong (Long Quân) Yịt king. Yịt sounds very similar to Yiệt (southern Vietnamese pronunciation for Việt) and Yuet (Cantonese dialect). That means Yịt/Yiệt/Yuet/Yue is not the name that the Han gave us, but it was what we called ourselves. Otherwise, why the heck on earth would we give up our own name to adopt a name that some foreign people gave us?

Another thing is Long Quân was a Yịt (Yue), which means the term Yue existed even before Âu Cơ (Ngu Kơ) gave birth to the sons.
A hundred sons might then just take on the name of their father's Yiệt linage and become different Yịt/Yiệt's (A hundred Việt)

Edited

Lương in my post is just a pronounciation of a Mường word, i'm not sure whether it is related to vietnamese lương last name.

i dont think luong is common in china either.

there are several luong's in vietnamse history.

There has been alot of speculations that the Muong are the most 'pure' Vietnamese inhabitants because they are said to be the Kinh who were not in any way influenced by the Chinese, i.e. they have managed to preserve their original culture.





I think that if more research was heavily based on the Muong ethnic group, it could possibly lead to unlocking many discoveries of long lost Vietnamese culture.





Also interesting how the Muongs and Kinh share the bronze drum culture.

their folk tale said: a Mường princess married a Yịt king

which means Mường and Yịt were not the same originally.

I watched a game show on TVT4 broadcasting from Hanoi VIA KU band saterlite. In that show they invited a group of Muong artists and sang for the show. It was amazing how they sound just like Vietnamese. Very very closed. If you would listen to them singing far away..you might have thought they were singing in vietnamese.

I watched couple interviews with hostorian ang linguistist in Vietnam talk about Muong culture,...many of them mentioned Muong share the tradition of cooking Banh Tet for New Year and Cung Ong Ba.

I know they have many different ethic groups in Vietnam, like 54 of them right. But many times i heard these hostorians said about how pure viet words like Uong' , Nu*o*c' sounds exactly the same with vietnamese.

Oh well we need more evidences and extensive research to really prove. Everything up until now might have been some what true in institution and half dout that we dont have the evidence to back them up.
We will see when archelogist techniques improve and new discovers bright more details to light.

Some basic words of Muong and Vietnamese languages
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=69595