Dân tộc M’nông: Part 1
Version vietnamienne
In memory of the ethnologist Georges Condominas.
Condo, you are the last M’nông ethnic person. When you leave forever, our culture will also disappear. This is what the current village chief of Sar Luk said to Georges Condominas when he met him again during his return to the village in 2006. This shows the extent to which the M’nông people agree, seeing him not only as a member of their community but also as the last representative tirelessly protecting their culture and making the world aware of their way of life, which most people were once afraid of at a certain time. Are they really the « wild » people, the swidden farmers, the forest burners that we have continued to think of in the past? From here, they were given the new name « ethnic minority, » and they are one of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. These people are the subject of two specialized books by ethnologist Georges Condominas, « We Eat the Forest » and « The Strange is the Everyday. » Are they worthy of his attention and study when we know that at the age of 27, he paid with his health, trying to immerse himself in their environment, to gradually assimilate and learn their mother tongue to understand them better and describe them in his wonderful works with a clear and fluent writing style that earned him the reputation of being the Proust of ethnology?
Georges Condominas admitted that for the ancient Indochinese people, he had the essential need to learn how to be human. For him, ethnology is unusual in that it is both a way of life and a scientific discipline. According to Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Ngọc, known for his cultural studies, a researcher, regardless of their scientific field, can have two distinct ways of life: one dedicated to scientific research and another reserved for their private life. It is not necessary to link one with the other. This is not the case for an ethnologist like Georges Condominas. He had only one way of life corresponding to both his private life and his scientific field. Ethnology is a form of life in which he was completely assimilated where he lived and also the science to which he devoted his entire life.
Who are these M’nông ethnic people? They were very numerous at the beginning of the 20th century with an estimated population of about 1,200,000 (1), but they were massacred during the Indochina wars by a coercive policy that ethnologist Georges Condominas called « genocide. » According to statistics conducted in 1999, their population was about 120,000 people, with 20,000 in Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province, near the Vietnamese border in the provinces of Đắk Lak and Đắk Nông. The M’nông people live on both banks of the mighty Serepok River (or Daak Kroong in the M’nông language), which flows down from the Central Highlands of Vietnam towards the Mekong River. The M’nông belong to the Mon-Khmer group of the South Asian ethnological family. They often clear bushes by burning or « eat the forest » in their own way. They select a piece of land in the forest, then they clear and burn it before sowing rice through holes in the burnt plot, fertilized by the ashes. But this method does not allow them to harvest more than two years of rice. This is why they are forced to continuously change the location of their fields (miir) every two years to allow the forest to regenerate. They can reuse it only ten or twenty years later. Because of this cultivation method, they are compelled to frequently move their villages. It is precisely in this genuine territorial expansion that there are long houses, each usually housing many households.
Sometimes this movement caused by the epidemic leads to deaths in the village. The choice and rebuilding of a new village at another location (or rngool) often requires ritual ceremonies in which a large number of buffaloes must be sacrificed. In the case of an epidemic, the number of deaths corresponds to the number of buffaloes that must be sacrificed. However, the length of stay at the same location does not exceed seven consecutive years, the maximum period between two major Earth God worship festivals.
The place where they prefer to plant trees is the site of their old village. Here, we find not only food plants (millet, sesame, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava, etc.) but also non-food plants (tobacco, cotton, turmeric, etc.). Besides cultivation, gathering continues to hold an important position among the M’nông people. The forest provides them with wild medicinal plants, poisonous plants, edible fruits (bamboo shoots, rattan hearts, cinnamon, etc.), and building materials. The M’nông do not rely on the lunar calendar for land exploitation but remember each exploitation phase with very special vocabulary:
ntôih: clearing the land until burning.
miir: sowing the field until harvesting.
mpôh: miir abandoned in the first year.
mpôh laak: miir abandoned in the second year.
According to ethnologist G. Condominas, the M’nông people did not wait for Minkowski or Einstein to have a concept of space and time. By using a word related to space, they indicated time. This is what we see in their land cultivation with the vocabulary they use. They roughly estimate someone’s age in relation to a significant event.
Their village is a very small social space. The village chief (or rnut) is responsible for managing the village affairs. The size of the village usually has about one hundred people. When crossing the boundary of the village, a resident may become a stranger, an enemy, or a guest whom they commonly refer to as « nec. » Their houses, with thatched roofs low enough to often hide wooden walls, are long rectangular huts (mnong gar) or small ones (mnong rlam). These houses on clay floors belong to the Mnong Gar people, while the Mnong Rlam live in stilt houses. The main center of society is the family. The social organization is matrilineal and exogamous. Children are named after the mother’s clan. Property is passed down from mother to daughter. The husband comes to live with the wife’s parents. Traces of the custom of remarriage with the husband’s brothers or the wife’s sisters can still be seen. On the other hand, violating the exogamy rule is considered the most serious crime and there are also social sanctions. A young man needs to thoroughly learn about the girl’s clan before proceeding to marriage. Exogamy strengthens kinship ties and creates a network of alliances that allows the small social space of the village to breathe easier. This facilitates hospitality when someone leaves the village on trading trips.
villages participate. The concern for equality in trade is evident in the ceremony: the number of cattle sacrificed in one person’s village must equal the number that the other will give back when returning to their own village. Similarly, the gifts received must have equivalent value and be similar to the gifts that he will give back to the other. Even at the feast, the portions of pork provided by the host for the sacrifice must be the same size as the portions provided by his « partner host » during the first exchange ceremony held to honor him in the neighboring village. To reach this stage of relationship, the jooks must use a matchmaker.
In the concept of exchange, the M’nông people always need a matchmaker, whether the exchange is between men or between humans and deities. In this case, the matchmaker is none other than the shaman (or njau mhö). Sometimes a regular healer (njau) is needed for a minor illness.
For the M’nông, the word « exchange (or tam) » is widely used in their daily language. The word « tam » is always followed by another word to specify the type of exchange.
tam töor: exchange of love, being in love.
tam löh: exchange of strikes in combat.
tam boo, tam sae: exchange of spouses, marriage alliance, marriage.
tam boôh: exchange of fire sparks, an important sacrificial ceremony of the alliance.
tam toong: exchange of songs, and so on…
Exchange plays an important role in the daily life of the Mnong ethnic people. We observe that exchange occurs not only at the level of goods but also at the level of labor in the form of mutual support in construction work as well as in agricultural work (clearing, harvesting, etc.). There is always concern for equitable exchange. Each team must spend an equal amount of time working on the fields of each member of the group. If labor exchange is simplified to the same number of hours that each team must provide, it becomes more complicated when it comes to goods because the Mnong do not have a single standard like the euro or the dollar.
In evaluating the exchanged items, they have to use valuable standards commonly used in their society: small neckless jars (yang dam), old jars, suu sreny skirts, pigs, buffaloes, gongs, and so on. These are also means of exchange and payment for the goods obtained. People value the exchanged items based on an agreed price so that all the items received in the exchange also have equivalent value to this price. Sometimes, with an agreed value, we might end up with two medium-sized buffaloes, or one buffalo and an old jar, or even a large blanket and twelve small neckless jars, and so forth. This is very similar to the system we use to price goods with large banknotes or coins. Used as a standard of value and a means of payment, these goods are real currency that ethnologist G. Condominas designated under the name « multiple currencies. » Nevertheless, these assets continue to be used as they were originally intended before considering money. The jars are usually used to hold rice wine and are made and drunk during ceremonies, while gongs are musical instruments used for special occasions. Similarly, skirts, blankets, and metal pots are among the everyday items commonly used in daily life. Although exchanges take many forms, there is still a very clear distinction in the Mnong vocabulary between the concepts of buying (ruat) and selling (tec).
Once the exchange is concluded, there is a brokerage fee that the buyer (croo ruat) must pay to the intermediary. The seller (croo tec) does not give anything to the matchmaker (ndraany); sometimes they receive a modest gift from the seller simply out of kindness and gratitude. There are two jars involved in the brokerage fee: one jar is to pay the matchmaker, and the other, less valuable jar, is for safety during the road journey through a ritual. In the case of selling a set of gongs, the first jar (yang mei) will be large, and the second jar small without a neck. Additionally, the buyer must give a gift to the carrier (or companion) who transports the purchased goods home. There is also a ritual respected for signing the contract. This is demonstrated by sacrificing an animal that is consumed on the spot and immediately opening two jars of rice wine, one jar used to offset the items accounted for in the payment (through a game involving broken branches) and the remaining jar intended to prevent insult. The intermediary is responsible for the contract by receiving a copper bracelet wrapped around the wrist, which is a sign of a firm commitment. The intermediary acts as the broker, guarantor of the buyer, spokesperson for the seller, and witness to the transaction.
In a M’nong company, there are no written documents at all; the role of the intermediary is very important because, thanks to his words and commitment, it ensures the transparency of the contract just signed. All the additional costs mentioned above (two jars, an animal consumed on the spot, a gift for the carrier and the broker ndraany) are not included in the overall assessment of the value of the acquired property. In case of a dispute, each party has an ndraany who acts as a lawyer. In such a lawsuit, the ndraany of both sides need to talk to each other, discuss again, and clarify their words about justice. There is a specific case in which there is an absolute equivalent exchange (caan). The sacrifice of a buffalo is necessary in the dialogue between the shaman and the deity willing to give up the sick victim. Unfortunately, the patient’s family does not have money immediately to promptly honor this sacrifice. They have to buy a buffalo in the caan manner from a local person or from another village and return an animal of the same size within one or two years without any compensation. In this case, the exchange is considered a trade without profit.
(1): Source Encyclopédie Universalis.
(2): a rather ugly neologism used by G. Condominas to designate the Mnongs instead of the pejorative word “Mọi (or Savage)”.
