The Mnong: Part 2
When one decides to go abroad (i.e., to neighboring villages), one needs to be accompanied by a matchmaker preferably recruited from the kuang of the village. A kuang is actually a powerful and reputed man whose status is not measured by accumulated wealth but by the number of buffalo sacrifices he has organized and carried out. Thanks to the grand expenses he has undertaken in buffalo sacrifices for his relatives, his jôok guests, and his village, he has simultaneously acquired enormous prestige. This has allowed him to gradually expand his network of relationships, to have influence in village deliberations, and to become a rpuh kuang (or a male buffalo) in terms of sexual power.
Even the horns of his « buffalo soul (or hêeng rpuh) » raised by the spirits have lengthened according to the number of sacrifices accomplished. His coffin weighs all the heavier as these horns have reached an imposing size. A great kuang is one who dares to practice the strategy of indebtedness. The more he hoards to spend on buffalo sacrifices and purchases, the more his prestige increases. He always has some debt trailing behind him.
He does not wait to reimburse the full amount of his purchases to make others because this earns him admiration and renown. A Mnong villager becomes a kuang with the first buffalo sacrifice. He thus becomes the « indispensable » man on whom people rely to ensure not only road safety but also success in commercial transactions when traveling outside the village. It is with him that the itinerary will be planned. He is the one who will introduce, thanks to his network of connections, the local jôok of the recipient village who knows all the inhabitants and who knows among them who is interested in the objects involved in the transaction while providing guarantees of solvency.
That is why the call to the deities is not confined to a particular place but is scattered everywhere, whether in the village, in the woods, in the mountains, or in the waters. No corner is spared. It will either be collectively invoked or honored with a special cult in particular circumstances. This is the case of the rice spirit to whom a small altar is dedicated in the middle of the field. During the sowing season, the Mnong will come to place their offerings. The collective harvest cannot begin without a special rite known as « Muat Baa » or (tying of the paddy). Since the paddy has a soul, care must be taken not to anger it or make it flee by observing many precautions: avoiding whistling, crying, singing in the fields, quarreling there, eating cucumbers, pumpkins, eggs, slippery creatures, etc. A chicken will be sacrificed near the miniature hut of the rice soul perched on a bamboo, itself surrounded by bamboos bearing offering nests. To the rain spirit, the Mnong will offer eggs on a tiny platform. To calm the anger of the forest plant spirits before clearing a plot, great ritual care and prayers are performed. A long bamboo stake with a curved tip, from which a caught fish has been hung, is planted in the consecrated spot in the area to be burned for clearing.
Similar to the Bahnar, the Mnong are animists. They believe that everything has a soul, even in ritual utensils (beer jars, for example). The universe is inhabited by spirits (or yaang).
At the moment the fire begins to blaze, two « sacred men » (croo weer) implore the protection of the spirits while a third anoints the fish stake and calls the spirits. There are even deities believed to be the guardians of the individual’s soul. This soul consists of a material body and several souls (or heêng). These take multiple forms: a buffalo soul raised to a level of the heavens by the spirits, a spider soul in the individual’s head, a quartz soul located just behind the forehead. There is even the hawk soul (kuulêel) symbolized by a string made of red and white cotton strands stretched above the deceased’s body between two bamboos to distinguish the kuulêel from the ordinary hawk. This hawk soul takes flight at the death of the human being. Harm suffered by one of these souls affects the others. The spirits can make someone ill by attaching their buffalo soul to their celestial sacrifice pole. Turning to the shaman is essential because only he can establish dialogue with the spirits during the healing session (mhö). He attempts to bargain the price the spirits demand to free the patient’s buffalo soul; otherwise, the patient dies and one of their other souls joins the first level of the underworld. The soul disappears completely when it reaches the seventh underground level after the seventh death.
The afterlife is conceived as underground. The healing rite has no festive aspect. This involves little expense apart from the sacrificed buffalo and the fee paid (equivalent to the number of baskets of paddy) to the shaman, who also receives a thigh of the sacrificed animal. Among the Mnong, the notion of the immortality of the soul does not exist. However, the notion of reincarnation is part of the Mnong tradition. It can happen that the ancestor kept on the first underground level reincarnates in one of his descendants.
The men of the forest
Musée d’ethnologie du Vietnam (Hanoi)
In Mnong tradition, the buffalo is a sacred animal. The Mnong use the buffalo as a currency of valuation. It is also within the Mnong belief system that the buffalo is the equivalent of man, one of whose souls is the buffalo soul (hêeng rput), raised to the sky by the spirits at birth and having a predominant role over the other souls of the individual. Before being buried, the deceased is placed in a coffin roughly shaped like a buffalo. The Mnong do not hold funerals and abandon the tomb after one year of burial. Generally, the funeral house is built on a mound and is decorated with wooden carved figurines or various patterns painted in black, red, or white. The power of an individual is measured by the number of sacrificed sacred buffalo skulls stacked and supported by poles.
According to the Mnong myth, the buffalo replaced man in the sacrifice. That is why this sacrifice is seen as the ultimate culmination of all rites, distinguished by the ritual splendor animated by processions of gongs, drum plays, calls to the spirits, songs, etc., and accompanied by beer libations, making it a major and exceptional event in village life.
No one can escape this event. The village becomes a sacred area where people must have fun collectively, drink well, eat well, and avoid arguing because it could anger the spirits. The Mnong are divided into several sub-groups (Mnông Gar, Mnông Chil, Mnông Nông, Mnông Preh, Mnông Kuênh, Mnông Prâng, Mnông Rlam, Mnông Bu đâng, Mnông Bu Nor, Mnông Din Bri, Mnông Ðíp, Mnông Biat, Mnông Bu Ðêh, Mnông Si Tô, Mnông Káh, Mnông Phê Dâm). Each subgroup has a different dialect, but generally, the Mnong from these different groups manage to communicate with each other without any apparent difficulty.
Wearing a long indigo cotton loincloth whose fringed end of copper and red wool falls to mid-thigh like a small apron (suu troany tiek)(3), the Mnong often present themselves as proud men with long limbs and bare, muscular, tanned torsos despite the hardships of a precarious life. This belt-apron is used to carry all kinds of objects: the knife, the tobacco pouch, the dagger, and individual talismans (or spirit stones). They wear either a short or long jacket or a blanket as a coat during the cold season. On their heads, they wear a black or white turban or a bun in which a pocket knife with a curved handle is often stuck. They are accustomed to carrying an axe to fell tree trunks
The Mnong women with bare breasts wear a short skirt (suu rnoôk) wrapped around the lower abdomen. The Mnongs love adornments. They wear pectorals around their necks, iron necklaces or glass bead necklaces, or dog teeth from an exorcist rite that grant them protective properties.
Ivory coils threaded through the pierced lobes of their ears strike their jaws. Women particularly like glass bead necklaces. Their earlobes are often stretched by large white wooden discs. In most Mnong groups, the abrasion of the front teeth (of the upper jaw) is still found. Both men and women smoke tobacco and consume a lot of rice beer. This is not only an indispensable element in all celebrations and ritual ceremonies but also a drink of hospitality. In honor of their guest, a jar of rice beer is uncorked a few moments before being offered. Its consumption is done collectively using one or several bamboo straws planted in the jar. The number of measures is imposed on the drinker by the tradition of each ethnicity (2 among the Mnongs Gar, 1 among the Edê). To maintain the level of the jar, water must be poured into it, which gradually dilutes the alcohol in the rice beer and transforms it into a harmless drink.
Similar to the Bahnar, the Mnong (or the People of the Forest) are proud to be free people. This was observed by the famous ethnologist G. Condominas among the Mnong Gar. In the village of Sar Luk, where he spent a year in complete immersion with the Mong Gar, there was no village chief but a group of three or four sacred men who serve as ritual guides, especially in agricultural matters. The loss of their freedom can be the catastrophe that the Mnong fear. There are always two particularities in them that differentiate them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam: their spirit of selflessness and solidarity, and their absence of selfish enrichment.
Despite the hardships of their precarious life, the impoverished Mnong still know the concept of sharing that we, so-called civilized people, have long forgotten.