Jarai people

The Sa Huỳnh culture was a culture in modern-day central and southern Vietnam and Philippines that flourished between 1000 BC and 200 AD.[8][9] Archaeological sites from the culture have been discovered from the Mekong Delta to Quang Binh province in central Vietnam. The Sa Huynh people were most likely the predecessors of the Cham people, an Austronesian-speaking people and the founders of the kingdom of Champa.[10]^:211–217

The term Champa refers to a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is today central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century through 19th century (1832), before being absorbed and annexed by the Vietnamese state.[11] The kingdom was known variously as nagara Campa (Sanskrit: नगरः कम्पः; Khmer: ចាម្ប៉ា) in the Chamic and Cambodian inscriptions, Chăm Pa in Vietnamese (Chiêm Thành in Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary) and 占城 (Zhànchéng) in Chinese records. The destruction of Champa caused the spread of different tribes in the regions of what is today Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia sharing the same linguistic root like the Jarai People.

Trades between highlanders and lowlanders living around the Gulf of Thailand happened around the 4th century A.C.,[12] but there were also raids led by Khmer, Lao and Thai slave traders.[13] The region where the Jarai people live today, was conquered by Lao rulers during the 18th century, then by Thai during the 19th. The region was incorporated to the French Indochina colony in 1893 and the slave trade was abolished,[14] but indigenous peoples were used for the huge rubber plantations.[15] The French contributed to the delimitation of territories inside their Indochina colonies of Cambodia, Vietnam and Lao. The Jarai people were mostly divided between Cambodia (a small part of their territory inside Ratanakiri) and Vietnam Central Highlands, although another theory said that Jarai people moved into the Cambodian territory during the colonial times, but it is probably that they have inhabited the whole territories for centuries.

The first Western report about the Jarai comes from Fr. Bouillevaux, a French missionary that made an incursion through the Mekong in 1850 and mentioned about certain "King of Fire", a man of respect belonging to a certain group of people called Jarai.[16]

The French rulers did not interfere too much with the highland indigenous groups, but considered them an excellent source of personnel for army outposts and recruited large number of Jarai, Khmer Loeu and Degar young men to French forces.

Two U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52D Stratofortress bombers over Cambodia, 1970 in the Operation Menu that affected many indigenous communities like the Jarai People.

After the Independence, Cambodian and Vietnamese governments led programs to teach indigenous peoples their respectively languages and assimilate them into their national societies, but such efforts were met with cultural resistance from most indigenous communities. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge guerrillas took advantage of that disaffection and recruited many Khmer Loeu in their ranks, while in Vietnam, the US army retook the French tradition to recruit them into military activities in which many Jarai youth participated. It made the Jarai and many other indigenous groups target of other enemies. In 1977 a number of 100 Jarai men were tortured and executed by Khmer Rouge cadres in Ratanakiri in a case filed at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.[17]

During the Vietnam War, Jarai villages suffered the struggle between US military and communist guerrilla. By October 31, 1970, US military ordered a massive resettlement of highlander villages saying that they were "insecure".[18] At the same time, US Evangelists entered in contact with Jarai people and published Bibles in their language (excluding the Khmer Jarai). The Jarai Bibles created some literacy to them, but after the Vietnamese reunification in 1975, most of the Jarai assistants of the US military, were evacuated from their land to United States. The Khmer Jarai suffered the intense US bombing of their territory in what was called Operation Menu (1969-1970) with the intention to destroy communist sanctuaries, but displacing hundreds of civilians and indigenous peoples that eventually joined the Khmer Rouge.[19]

The Khmer Rouge kept attempting to incorporate Khmer Loeu peoples in their fights against the Vietnamese and Cambodian central government after its defeat in 1979, but in 1984 there was a campaign to integrate indigenous peoples into the nation, promoting literacy and creating government structures similar to the rest of the country. In Vietnam, the Jarai people has suffered under restrictions of religious parties, making that some of them preferred to emigrate.

The 1950s and 1960s saw the Degar movement gain popularity among the Jarai and their Montagnard brethren (Degar is a Rhade word meaning "sons of the mountain"). The goal of the Degar was to create an independent state in the Vietnamese highlands, consisting entirely of indigenous people groups. As a result of the movement, the Vietnamese government has become increasingly suspicious of the Jarai. Human rights abuses on the part of the government have become frequent among all Montagnards.

In modern times, Jarai people suffered the problem of land eviction and land grabbing, especially in Cambodia under a big system of corruption and the deforestation to create huge rubber plantations. Although Cambodia has clear laws to respect and protect the indigenous territories, the law is not applied and powerful individuals and groups profit it to their benefit evicting the Jarai communities of their ancestral lands. In Vietnam, some Jarai persons seek for refuge in countries like United States crossing the Cambodian territory to escape restrictions to their own traditions and cultures.

Jarai people has several legends, all settled on the jungles, that are useful to understand their own culture and history. A recurrent element has to see with the stories about three kings: Fire, Water and Wind and a Sacred Sword that came down from heaven to give to the Jarai people great powers. The King of Fire, the first one, lives in Vietnam relying his power in religious rites. Jarai means "waterfall" and thus water makes a part of their relates. Some elders say that Jarai people were born at the Annamite Range and migrated to the south dividing in different groups.

Traditionally, the Jarai live in small villages numbering 50-500 in population. The villages are laid out in a square, with single occupancy dwellings or communal longhouses (roong) arranged around a village center. Often the village center boasts a communal house, well, volleyball net or rice mill.

Houses are made of bamboo, one meter up the ground. More durable wooden houses with steel roofs have gained popularity. They are oriented from north to south and built in a place acceptable to the local spirits. Houses are set up according to matrilineal clan. A daughter, when married, lives in the house of her mother with her husband and thus her own daughter. A house can be as long as 50 meters. Homes for just the nuclear family are also common in modern times.

Small generators are used widely in Jarai Ratanakiri villages where there is no electricity. Traditional furnishings include benches and kitchen objects crafted from wood and bamboo and modern additions are now found, including beds and TVs.

Jarai is a matrilineal culture tracing the descent through the female line and identifying each person with their matriline lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles. The mother is the one to take the initiative of the marriage of her daughters and the husband is expected to come to live in the house of his mother-in-law. The intermarriage with persons of other ethnic groups can be common, especially if there is a proximity of villages. In Ratanakiri Province, Jarai people intermarriage especially with the Tampuan people, an unrelated group of Mon-Khmer language family. With the access of many Jarai young people to education in bigger towns or cities like Phnom Penh or Ho Chi Minh City, intermarriage with other ethnic groups is increasing, creating multilingual families.

The traditional religion of Jarai is Animism. They believe that objects, places and creatures possess distinctive spiritual qualities.[20] The Jarai Animism has two main elements: the idea that the Jarai people received the Sacred Sword from Heaven that means wisdom and the spiritual figure of the King of Fire, King of Water and King of Wind. The kings do not represent political figures, but they are rather spiritual leaders with shamanic powers. The Jarai kings attract even persons from other ethnic groups that believe in their influences over the mysteries of the human nature and the souls of all living things. The Jarai Animism is strictly linked to the jungle and it includes animal sacrifices to appease the spirits.

As it happens with most Animist systems, other major religions look down to them, considering it a savage or primitive belief and encouraging the work of dedicated missionaries that spend time and resources to learn their language in order to convert them to their own beliefs and thus making a process of what they considered civilizing others.

The Vietnamese Reunification in 1975 under the Communist regime of Hanoi meant religious restrictions for many people in the country, affecting the ancestral religious traditions of the Vietnamese Jarai. Vietnam allows only six official religions to be practiced in the country and Jarai Animism is one of the excluded. It motivates many Jarai persons to seek for refuge in foreign countries under the religious persecution ground.

At the same time, the incursion of US Evangelists during the War of Vietnam, like the American missionaries under the Christian and Missionary Alliance, attracted many conversions to that religion. The publication of a Jarai Bible in Vietnam was a part of that process.

In Cambodia, Jarai People live together with the Khmer population that practice in its majority Theravada Buddhism. The fact that Buddhism does not lead movements of missionary conversions to other peoples and that Southeast Asian Buddhism has also a syncretic base of ancient Animism similar to the one of Jarai and Brahmanism, creates a more harmonic relation and interchange between two groups. Some Jarai people in Ratanakiri include Buddhist symbols in their rites and houses and participate in Buddhist ceremonies with their Khmer neighbors, although there are not Buddhist pagodas in Jarai villages.

Music and dance are very distinctive elements of the Jarai culture. The Jarai nights in the villages or inside the house clan are animated by their ancestral music performs with gongs, xylophones, zithers, and various other traditional instruments, many of them made of wood and bamboo. The Jarai Trova is a composition improvised by the musician in which he tells the challenges of the daily life of the Jarai people while the clan drinks the Srah Phien (jar liqueur) made of fermented rice. It is the moment where children learn ancient stories of the jungles and the ancestral values of the Jarai culture. The music and dance are monotonous and nostalgic, creating a close relation with the jungle, the natural environment of the people.

In 1996 Dock Rmah, a prominent Jarai musician living in the United States, received a Folk Heritage Award from the North Carolina Arts Council.

TV and offerings made to the spirit of the deceased in a small Jarai tomb in Kon Tum Province

Traditional Jarai tombs are little huts in which are placed the possessions of the deceased and some offerings. Around the tomb are placed wooden pillars which are topped by crude carvings, some of which represent spiritual guardians.

The burial ceremony is extremely expensive and usually entails the sacrifice of water buffaloes and cows. In Ratanakiri, Jarai people are replacing the sacrifice of large animals with large objects, such as motorcycles. Some deceased persons are buried with their motorbike. If the family of the deceased cannot afford the ceremony, it can be postponed for several years.

After a number of years, the tombs are abandoned. This final ceremony of the abandonment of the tomb marks the point where death becomes final and the deceased spirit is released, thus releasing a widow for remarriage for instance.