This paper analyses the textual-mythographical transformation of Viet origin myths from their transcription in the distant past through their exploitation for political purposes in the 1950s by scholarly elites. It attempts to demonstrate that, as early as the fifteenth century, stories about the Hung Kings were deliberately collected and codified by members of the Viet elite, who sought to exploit their potential as catalysts of identify-formation and unification under the leadership of the imperial state. However, as a result of the confluence of two currents, that of the monarchical state's mythographical construction and that of popular, village-based, animistic worship, the Hung Kings came to be venerated as ancestral founders of the Viet quoc in temples throughout the Red River Delta and beyond. During the French colonial and early national periods, the codified myths were the object of severe criticism and strident defence by both French and Viet scholars.
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