Knowledgebase

The Stieng (Xtiêng)

The Dega people Reference 12 views 2 min read Back

The Stieng live at the south-western edge of the highlands, where the plateau falls toward the plains north of Saigon, in today’s Bình Phước and across the border in Cambodia. Their red soils were taken for French rubber plantations, and they rose against both French and Vietnamese settlement repeatedly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Two Stieng men photographed in the nineteenth century, one standing and one seated — Stieng men, photographed in the 1860s or 1870s. Photo: Émile Gsell / Hippolyte Arnoux, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Names Stieng, Xtiêng, Budip

Language Stieng, South Bahnaric branch of Austroasiatic (ISO 639-3 sti; also stt)

Homeland Bình Phước (formerly Sông Bé) and neighboring provinces; Kratie and Mondulkiri, Cambodia

Language

Stieng is a South Bahnaric language, related to Mnong and Chrau. Linguists distinguish Bulo Stieng and Budeh Stieng; Hickey named the Budip and Bulach as subgroups. Glottolog lists Bulo Stieng as threatened.

How many

Figure	Year	Source
60,000	1951	estimate cited by Hickey (1964)
17,162	1960	South Vietnamese figure, cited by Hickey (1964)
50,194	1985	Vietnamese census, per the Encyclopedia of World Cultures
66,000	not stated	Human Rights Watch, Repression of Montagnards (2002)

Census figures after 1975 are the Vietnamese state’s own counts, which we reproduce only because no independent count exists; see How many Dega there are.

Society

The Encyclopedia of World Cultures describes the Stieng as lacking any tribal-level political organization, with each family the basic social and political unit; Hickey noted that the whole family was held responsible for the wrongs of any member. They farmed upland rice, hunted and fished. Their spirit world, Hickey wrote, was “large and complex,” and witchcraft was feared.

Resistance

1859 — The Stieng near Thủ Dầu Một revolt against the French, according to Hickey. The French explorer Henri Mouhot stays among the Stieng that year, as he recorded in his Travels (1864).
1910s–30s — French companies plant rubber on the red soils of Stieng country (see Rubber).
1933 — Auguste Morère, the French post chief among the Stieng, is killed near Núi Bà Rá.
1934–35 — Mnong and Stieng together attack Camp Rolland, a major French post, according to Hickey (see also N’Trang Lơng).

Sources

Gerald C. Hickey, The Major Ethnic Groups of the South Vietnamese Highlands, RAND RM-4041 (1964) — text copy
Encyclopedia of World Cultures, “Stieng”
Th. Gerber, “Coutumier Stieng,” BEFEO 45 (1951)
Glottolog, Bulo Stieng
Mathieu Guérin, Paysans de la forêt à l’époque coloniale (2008) — further reading on the Mnong and Stieng of Cambodia
Claude Morère (ed.), Le Dialogue interrompu: Journal d’Auguste Morère, chef de poste au milieu des rebelles Stieng

Compiled September 2026.

stieng xtieng binh phuoc song be cambodia kratie south bahnaric austroasiatic rubber mouhot peoples

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