Viewing articles tagged 'mnong'

The tribes and their languages Around thirty peoples, in two language families that are not related to one another. The Chamic-speaking peoples, Jarai, Rhade, Raglai, Chu Ru and Haroi, are Austronesian, cousins of the Cham of the coast and, further out, of Malay and Indonesian. Most of the rest speak Bahnaric languages of the Austroasiatic family, related to Khmer; the Bru, K... Glossary 167 views Read More Language resources Our languages are the part of our inheritance most at risk and the easiest to lose without noticing. This page lists what exists to learn, teach and study them: the codes that libraries and software use to find them, how endangered each one is, the dictionaries and grammars that can be downloaded free today, the recordings of our elders’ speech... Reference 109 views Read More Kin across the border: Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri The border between Vietnam and Cambodia runs through the middle of our country. On the other side of it, in the Cambodian provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri, live Jarai, Bunong and other highland peoples who are our kin by language, by marriage and by history. It is where FULRO’s last fighters came out in 1992, where our refugees ran in 2001... Explainer 91 views Read More N’Trang Lơng and the Mnong resistance For twenty-one years, from the burning of a French post in May 1912 to the arrival of the army’s road in 1933, the Mnong of the Plateau des Herbes, the grass hills where Cambodia, Cochinchina and Annam met, held the French out of their country. Their leader was Pa Trang Loeung, whom the Vietnamese write N’Trang Lơng: a koragn, a village mediator... Explainer 82 views Read More Weaving and dress Before there was a flag, there was cloth. A Rhade skirt, a Jarai loincloth, a Maa blanket or a Bahnar skirt hung with seeds told anyone who knew how to read it which people the wearer belonged to. The cloth was woven by women on a loom tied to their own bodies, from cotton they grew and dyed themselves. In North Carolina it still is. Explainer 70 views Read More The elephants of Bản Đôn For more than a century the village of Ban Don, on the Srepok west of Buon Ma Thuot, was known across mainland Southeast Asia for one thing: the men there caught wild elephants and tamed them. The hunters were Mnong, Lao, Jarai and Rhade, and the most famous of them was given a title by the King of Siam. The hunting ended in the 1990s. In 1980 D... Explainer 89 views Read More Roads, taxes and forced labor, 1899–1945 In 1899 the tribute our villages had paid every three years in wax, horn and ivory was abolished and replaced by a tax in cash, on people who did not use cash. Three years later came the days: ten a year of unpaid work on the roads, rising to fifteen, and eight to ten more spent walking to the worksite and back. A man who could not find the mone... Explainer 74 views Read More The highland Catholic Church under the Socialist Republic On March 27, 1975, in a town that had fallen eleven days earlier, the French bishop of Kon Tum consecrated a Vietnamese successor so that the diocese would not be left headless when he was expelled. Within eighteen months the minor seminary, the major seminary and the school that had trained highland catechists since 1908 were all shut, and the... Explainer 88 views Read More The Mnong (Bunong) The Mnong hold the southern half of the plateau — Dak Nong, the Lak basin below Buon Ma Thuot, and Mondulkiri across the Cambodian line, where they call themselves Bunong and are the largest of Cambodia’s recognized indigenous peoples. They are the people of N’Trang Lơng, who kept the French out of his country for twenty-three years; of the elep... Explainer 88 views Read More Jars, rice wine and the buffalo feast A jar has a soul. The Êđê call it mngắt cheh, and if a jar stands empty for a while someone will put a handful of rice and an egg inside to feed it. A jar is also money: among the Êđê Bih a tang pôk jar was worth a buffalo and a tuk navi jar was worth an elephant. And a jar is law — when a man was killed, the killer set one jar at the feet of th... Explainer 91 views Read More The bracelet A ring of brass or copper on the wrist is one of the oldest bonds among our peoples. It settles an engagement and ends one; it pays the midwife and the broker; it is heated in coals and dropped into a jar of blood and rice beer so that men who should be enemies can drink and be bound. In 1964, on the morning of a mutiny, a Rhade shaman put three... Spotlight 76 views Read More