Mountain Mon-Khmer Groups

PRONUNCIATION : mountain MOHN kuh-MER groups
ALTERNATE NAMES : Hill tribespeople
LOCATION : Cambodia; Laos; Thailand; Vietnam
POPULATION : 210,000 (estimate)
LANGUAGE : Mon-Khmer; Austronesian
RELIGION :Traditional spirit-based beliefs

INTRODUCTION

As well as the ethnic Khmer, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other groups who live in Cambodia, there are the hill tribespeople who are not ethnic Khmer, as are the vast majority of Cambodians. Numbering less than 2% of the Cambodian population, they add a colorful and fascinating chapter to Cambodian life.

The tribespeople of Cambodia were originally called, by the Khmers, phnong or samre, meaning "savage." The Cambodian government began calling them Khmer Loeu ("Upper Khmer," or "Highland Khmer") in the 1960s, ostensibly to create unity among the highland tribal groups and the lowland Khmer. The French often referred to all the mountain people in Cambodia and Vietnam as montagnards ("men of the mountains"), and some Communist Cambodians called them the Khmers Daeum ("original Khmers") highlighting that they had been "un-tainted" by western civilization. While some hill groups speak languages related to Khmer, most come from a very different language and cultural background. Most have very different appearance, customs, survival strategies, and religion from lowland Cambodians.

Among the hill tribes of Cambodia are the Brao (or Lave, Love), who numbered about 18,000 in 1984. The Kui (Kuoy, Soai) number more than 100,000 in east-central Thailand, northeast Cambodia, and Laos. The Saoch numbered about 500 in 1981. These are located in southwest Cambodia and are closely related to the Pear and the Chong. The Pear numbered about 1,000 in 1981. Also known as the "Bahr" or "Pohr," they live in southwest Cambodia. The Krung and Kravet totaled about 12,000 in 1984. The Stieng of Cambodia number approximately 25,000, with about double that number in Vietnam. According to official Cambodian government figures for 2002, there were 211,851 hill tribespeople in the country.

The origins of the hill tribes are not clear. Some scholars think that the tribes who speak Mon-Khmer languages, such as the Kuy, Mnong, Stieng, Brao, and Pear, were originally part of the long-term migration of peoples from the northwest. The Austronesian-speaking groups of Rade and Jarai may have migrated first to coastal Vietnam and then west into the highlands of Cambodia. The Suoi may be the remnant of the population who lived in Cambodia before the Khmer. Some scholars think they could be the original Cambodians.

During the French Protectorate which started in 1863, the colonizing French recruited some tribesmen to serve as soldiers with the French army, mainly as trackers and to help locate Communist jungle hideouts. Some young men continued this tradition after independence in 1953 by joining the Royal Cambodian Army.

During the 1960s, the Cambodian government had the army take part in a broad-based civic action program among the hill tribes, which included teaching them the Khmer language and culture in an effort to eventually assimilate them into Cambodian society. Most of this involved making schooling compulsory for all children including those of the Khmer Loeu.

Many tribespeople resented these efforts, as they had resented lowland Khmer for many decades. In 1963 when he fled the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to go into the jungles and organize a Communist resistance group, Saloth Sar, later better-known as Pol Pot or "Brother Number One," found refuge in the tribal areas of the province of Ratanakiri. Three years later he had gained the trust and confidence of some of the hill tribespeople and established his office for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Ratanakiri. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Khmer Communists, or Khmer Rouge, were able to recruit a number of young tribes-men to their cause. The illiterate tribal youth, unfamiliar with any element of civilization, became the prototype of the Khmer Rouge army, first a target of ridicule and then an object of fear after the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in April 1975.

Although they had supported the Khmer Rouge, largely because of their marginalization during the Khmer Republic (1970–1975), many tribal groups suffered at the hands of Democratic Kampuchea, the government established by the Khmer Rouge. Like other Cambodians, tribespeople were forced to abandon their traditional religious rituals, customs, and activities which Communist rulers thought took tribal attention away from the revolution being conducted by Democratic Kampuchea.

In December 1978, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and by mid-January they controlled most of the country. The new Vietnamese-backed government of Cambodia then struggled through the 1980s to reestablish institutions and a society destroyed by the Khmer Rouge who mounted attacks at them from jungle strongholds.

The Khmer Rouge gradually regained control of much of northeastern Cambodia in the 1980s, and the Kuy in particular, helped protect Pol Pot's jungle base at Anlong Veng. In most areas, however, the tribespeople were allowed to live in their village societies, with the new pro-Vietnamese Communist government of Cambodia also eager to incorporate tribes into mainstream Cambodian life. An attempt is now being made to teach the Cambodian language and culture to the various tribespeople, although the government claims that tribal languages and customs will continue to be respected.

At the same time, both legal and illegal harvesting of timber in the forests of northeastern Cambodia have brought many tribespeople into Cambodian culture as they are deprived of the forest areas needed for agriculture. As their homeland rapidly shrinks, their way of life is changing also.

For centuries, tribal peoples have recognized the political superiority of the lowlanders surrounding them. Highlanders acknowledged the domination of the lowland people by rendering obeisance to the lowland political leaders in exchange for lowlanders' recognition of them being the descendants of the region's first residents. Between 1600 and 1860, this relationship was symbolized in a triennial exchange of gifts between lowlanders and highlanders, specifically the Cambodian king and Jarai sorcerers, called "Lords of Fire and Water."

More tangible relationships also existed between many highland tribes and lowland Cambodians. Highlanders traded products which they gathered from the forest to the lowlanders, such as wild animal skins, herbs, exotic flowers and feathers, beeswax, lac resin used for shellac, and tusks and horns used as medicine. In exchange, the hill groups received metal, pottery, salt, and bronze drums. Tribal peoples were also frequently used by the lowlanders as voluntary or involuntary laborers. Lowlanders raided the tribes themselves or pitted tribes against one another in a search for slaves.

In some areas and for much of the past, however, tribal peoples were able to live in isolation from lowlanders.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

In the late 1960s, the hill people were estimated to number between 70,000 and 100,000. Present-day estimates of their number are much higher, around 210,000. Population figures are difficult to determine because of the geographical roughness of the terrain and its isolation from lowland Cambodians.

The hill tribes live in remote highland areas in the plateaus and mountainous areas on the western, northern, and eastern periphery of Cambodia. Most highland people are located in the northeast provinces of Ratanakiri, Mondulkuri, Kratie, and Stung Trung. Indeed, most of the population of Ratankiri and Mondulkuri are still highland peoples.

The Khmer Loeu of Cambodia include 13 distinct minority groups. The major tribal groups are the Kuy, Mnong, Stieng, Brao, Pear, Jarai, and Rade. Each group resides not only in Cambodia but in a neighboring country, Laos, Vietnam, or Thailand. This is possible because of the isolation and ruggedness of the terrain, making political control of the plateaus and mountains difficult. Hill people down through the centuries have been able to avoid contact with lowlanders and to travel fairly freely across political boundaries.

Some 14,186 Kuy, according to the 1995 Census, live in north central Cambodia in the provinces of Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear, and Stung Trung and in neighboring Thailand. Maybe half that number live in Cambodia-proper.

The Brao tribes live in northeastern Cambodia and just across the border in Laos. The total Brao population is between 10,000 and 20,000, about evenly divided between Cambodia and Laos.

The Mnong live in eastern Cambodia along the border with Vietnam. They number between 20,000 and 25,000. The Stieng also number between 20,000 and 25,000 and live along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border.

The Pearic group is made of numerous smaller tribes totaling about 10,000 people. The Pear live in north central and Western Cambodia. The Chong live in the Cardamom Mountains in Battambang Province in northwest Cambodia and in neighboring Thailand. The Saoch live in southern Cambodia. The Samre live in northwestern Cambodia and the Suoi live in central Cambodia.

The Jarai people live in northeastern Cambodia and are related to even larger numbers of Jarai in central Vietnam. The 1995 Census identified 11,549 Jarai in Cambodia, while over 200,00 Jarai live in Vietnam. The Rade are closely related to the Jarai. Approximately 20,000 Rade live in Cambodia with more than 100,000 Rade living across the border in Vietnam.

The turmoil of the Vietnam War and rule by Democratic Kampuchean that followed has deeply affected the hill tribes of Cambodia. While some groups were recruited by the Khmer Rouge as soldiers, others fought to escape conscription and control by the Communists. Many tribal people escaped the war and horrors of Cambodia by slipping over the border into neighboring countries where they lived with fellow tribespeople with whom they shared culture, language, and often family ties. When conditions improved in Cambodia, they moved back across the border.

Some tribal people escaped to Thailand to live with fellow tribespeople or were placed in refugee camps and were then eventually resettled in the United States or other Western countries.

LANGUAGE

The hill tribes of Cambodia belong to two very different language groups. The Mon-Khmer speakers include the Mnong and Stieng. The Brao language is also a Mon-Khmer, Austroasiatic language, and is closely related to Krung and Kravet languages also spoken in Cambodia. The Chong, who numbered approximately 5,500 in 1984, are related to the Pear and Saoch, all three of whom speak Mon-Khmer languages.

Austronesian language speakers include the Rade, Jarai, both closely related to Cham. Each is spoken by the several thousand members of both tribes in northeastern Cambodia.

Names vary greatly from group to group. A person may carry an individual name, a nickname, and may change names frequently according to life situations and events. In some groups, people are called by the name of their father, mother, child, or spouse. Sometimes the name of a relative is added to the individual's name.

FOLKLORE

The heroes and myths of the hill tribes of Cambodia are religious and familial in nature. Heroes are actual or fictional ancestors whose deeds and characteristics are passed down from generation to generation. Many of these heroes are considered to have originated particular clans and are respected, even worshipped, by their descendants not only as great people but as the founders of their tribal or descent group.

The myths of particular groups relate largely to these founding ancestors. Other myths relate stories of the spirits, landscape, animals, and flora of a group's environment and explain their surroundings. The myths of the highland groups thus form part of their traditional religious beliefs.

RELIGION

The Mountain Mon-Khmers continue the traditional beliefs and practices of their ancestors. They believe that magical spirits live in the natural world, thus inhabiting rocks, mountains, rivers, and trees.

Most religious leaders are also spirit healers who lead ceremonies to cure illness and other physical and mental misfortunes. They do so by communicating with the spirits who have caused the difficulty or have allowed it to happen.

Among Pearic tribal groups, each village has two important sorcerers whose main duty is to control the weather. By so doing, they protect the community from natural calamities and aid in the timely development of the crops.

Sorcerers among the Jarai and Rade of northeast Cambodia in the past held extensive religious and political power. These became known as "kings of fire and water," and their power extended beyond an individual village and over numerous villagers. Stieng religious beliefs focus on spirits and are conducted at the family level.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

The holidays of the tribal groups of Cambodia are primarily religious celebrations. Festivals are held to propitiate the spirits and exorcise evil spirits. The beginning of the lunar New Year is always an important festival. Life-cycle events such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death are celebrated by families and villages. These are often major festivals involving multiple families and villages and considerable money and preparation.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Among most hill groups, infants and small children are greatly desired and are treated with great indulgence. Seldom reprimanded or hit, they are carried constantly by parents, siblings, or extended family members.

The children of most hill groups are socialized primarily by the immediate family, with assistance from extended family members and fellow villagers. By the time girls are five or six years of age, they are assisting their mother in the home and with younger siblings, and boys are assisting with garden duties and caring for the family's livestock. By the age of eight or nine, both boys and girls are helping in the fields.

Many youth marry while they are still teenagers. Among most groups, girls generally marry after puberty, when they reach 13 or 14. Boys marry a little later, at 16 or 17. This is the case because by the time most hill tribespeople have reached their early teens, they are fully socialized into adult life. By 13 and 14 years of age, boys and girls are acting as adults. After marriage, then, they have the skills to support their new family.

The lives of adult hill people center on family, making a living, and dealing with the spirits or gods who rule the earth.

At death, ceremonies are held to help the soul of the deceased as it makes its move to the afterlife. These consist, for most people, of prayers and ritual offerings made at regular intervals. For people who die unnatural deaths, special ceremonies must be conducted to exorcise their spirit and prevent it from doing similar harm to living relatives. Some tribal groups bury their dead, others cremate them. Among the Saoch of the Pearic group, the corpse of a dead person is buried and not cremated like among the neighboring majority Khmers who are Buddhist.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

For tribal people, like most traditional people living in small villages, interpersonal relations are based on fairly strict rules of etiquette. Since most villagers have known one another since birth and will continue living with one another for years to come, people treat one another as extended family and try to avoid conflict in their everyday relations.

Greetings are important, for they assist villagers in acknowledging one another, keeping harmony, and preventing conflict. With strangers, most tribespeople are usually modest and reserved. With family and fellow villagers, they are more demonstrative. Always, however, there is an emphasis on getting along with one another. Men and women, even closely related, seldom display affection openly. Women must be respectful and cautious, especially with strangers.

Visiting among hill peoples is a major activity and predominant form of entertainment. Visiting between families within a village appears casual, but is less so than it appears. While neighbors go to one another's homes often and apparently without announcement, they are careful to go only at acceptable times. Visiting between villages is even more formal. While relatives may visit from one village to another fairly casually, visits by larger groups of people for ceremonies or festivals are arranged ahead of time as to place, time, and the obligations of both hosts and guests.

Young people do not date as do youth in the West, or indeed in Phnom Penh. Courtship may be brief and involve little contact between the future bride and groom in some groups, with parents or matchmakers doing most of the visiting and arranging. In other tribes, courtship may occur over years and involve relatively frequent contact between the couple. Usually, contact between young men and women is careful, supervised, and understood to be leading to marriage.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Most hill groups live in regions remote from the lowland cities and towns and denser population areas of Cambodia. In Ratanakiri Province, for example, the only way into much of the province during the rainy season is by airplane and elephant: the airport transports travelers to a town, where travel is halted unless one can find elephants. In the elections from 1958 when Long Boret, then a novelist (and later prime minister), was campaigning for his seat in Sung Treng (the province which at that stage included Ratanakiri), he conducted much of his electioneering from an elephant. Motor vehicles are still virtually unusable for much of the year because the roads are too muddy or flooded. Even foot traffic is difficult.

The distance from the centers of Cambodian life and the difficulty in travel, especially at certain times of the year, have isolated many tribal groups also from governmental services, including health and education.

Health facilities remain much less available to hill tribes than to Cambodians of the central plains, and life expectancy is lower than among fellow countrymen. Most hill groups attribute illness and physical and mental misfortune to supernatural causes, especially spirits, and much health care is directed at preventing and curing spirit action. Most illness and accidents thus continue to be dealt with through local healers rather than medical clinics which operated well in towns in the 1960s, but were destroyed in the war and not rebuilt until the early 1990s.

In all tribes, most people have extensive knowledge of traditional medicinal plants and herbs which are grown in backyard gardens or gathered in the nearby forest. Among some groups, in addition, community specialists are available to treat serious illness.

The Khmer Loeu live in widely scattered villages near their fields. When they abandon their fields to seek new ones, they also abandon their village sites, sometimes returning a generation or two later when the nearby fields have regained their productivity.

Houses vary in size from huge dwellings in which many families live to small single-family structures. The multi-family longhouses generally are divided into sections, one per family, with each family also keeping its own hearth for cooking its own food. Houses may be built close to the ground or high on stilts.

The Brao, for example, live in a communal house in large villages. The Mnong live in villages, each of which contains several longhouses. Each longhouse is divided into compartments and each compartment is occupied by a nuclear family consisting of father, mother, and their children.

The Jarai and Rade in northeast Cambodia on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border live in longhouses, between 20 and 60 to a village. Each longhouse is divided into family compartments.

Most hill people have few consumer items and live much as their ancestors did without the electricity, running water, and appliances available to many Cambodians who live in the central plains, especially those in urban areas and people who live in industrialized countries.

The degree of contact with the ethnic Khmer of the plains determines the kind of transportation: the more contact, the greater the reliance of hill people on motor vehicles, motor scooters, and bicycles. For many groups still living in isolated villages, transportation is primarily by foot.

FAMILY LIFE

Hill tribespeople observe a strict division of labor. Women have the primary responsibility for domestic chores, child care, carrying water, and looking after the domestic animals. They also gather food and weave. In agricultural villages, they are also involved in some rice cultivation chores, such as transplantation, irrigating, weeding, harvesting, and husking. Men, on the other hand, do the hunting and the heavy agricultural tasks. They clear the ground, plow, and thresh. They also make and repair tools and build and repair houses.

Families tend to be large, for most hill people continue to rely on their children to assist with household and subsistence activities. As their contact with ethnic Khmer increases, along with the expense of educating their children and the availability of family planning and contraceptives, more tribal people are choosing to have smaller families.

Marriages tend to remain traditional. In many groups, for instance, the choice of a partner and wedding arrangements are made by parents, often before the youth reach puberty. The family of the groom gives large quantities of pork and alcohol and a few silver coins to the bride's family. Among the Mnong in eastern Cambodia, most marriages are monogamous.

Among the Jarai and Rade of northeast Cambodia, marriage is initiated by women, who also do the marriage negotiations. Residence is matrilocal, so the new couple goes to live with the parents of the wife.

Two of the Mnong subgroups also recognize matrilineal descent, with family recognition and property inheritance descending through females rather than males. Residence among the Mnong is predominantly matrilocal, with the young couple going to live with the wife's parents after marriage. The Jarai and Rade of northeast Cambodia also have matrilineal descent groups. These groups are exogamous, so they do not marry within the matrilineal group.

The Stieng, also straddling the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, differ from the Mnong in being patrilineal and patriarchal. Descent is recognized through males and property is inherited through the male line. After the bride-price has been paid to the family of the bride, the young couple then moves in with the husband's family. In contrast to both the groups above, the Brao have a bilateral kinship system.

The Pearic groups have totemic clans, which are kin groupings that trace their descent to a common ancestor generally believed to be a legendary figure with supernatural powers. Each clan is headed by a chief who receives his office through inheritance from his father. The Pearic tribes recognize patrilineal descent, so children belong to their father's clan and inherit through their father. Young married couples observe either matrilocal residence until the birth of the first child or patrilocal residence, as among the Saoch.

Villages among the hill groups of Cambodia traditionally have been the basic political unit of social life—thus autonomous and self-governing. Each Jarai and Rade village, for instance, is autonomous and is governed by its leading families. In some villages, the basic unit is even smaller than the village. Among the Stieng, for example, the family constitutes the basic social and political unit and there is no political organization at a higher level.

The Mnong along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border measure status by wealth, and wealth is measured by the number of buffalo a person sacrifices on funeral or other ceremonial occasions. The greater the number sacrificed, the greater that person's standing in his and neighboring communities. In the past, slavery existed among the Mnong; under certain conditions, a slave could gain his freedom.

Most tribespeople have little regard for pets although they keep domesticated animals, such as buffalo, pigs, and chicken, but these are kept to trade, eat, or sacrifice on special ritual occasions. Dogs are kept by some for protection both from other humans and from wild animals. Some families keep cats as a countermeasure to rats.

CLOTHING

Most Khmer Loeu continue to wear traditional clothing. Men wear a short loincloth and strings of beads, while women wear a variety of skirts.

The hill tribes of Cambodia weave their traditional colorful clothing on homemade looms. Each tribe has a different style of clothing and jewelry. Clothing is made of cloth which repeats thousands of tiny patterns, with decorations such as silver hoops added. Just one dress can take weeks to make. In addition to their colorful dress, some highland groups file their front teeth and also wear tattoos just as their ancestors did.

The decrease in isolation from ethnic Cambodians has resulted in the use of imported clothing, so that tribespeople increasingly wear a combination of traditional, Cambodian, and European clothing.

FOOD

The primary food of a group depends foremost on its major means of subsistence. Hill groups who are primarily rice cultivators have rice as their central food. Groups who raise root crops, such as cassava, taro, and yams, depend primarily on those crops as well as maize, eggplant, beans, sugar cane, bananas, and other fruits and vegetables.

Rice and vegetable crops are supplemented by greatly valued meat either from domestic animals, such as pigs and poultry, or game and birds from the neighboring forests. Additional valued foods include fish and eggs. Every group has a method for making beer or rice from the products close at home. Rice wine and cassava beer are common and are consumed primarily on ritual occasions.

Because modern appliances are few and packaged goods a rarity, much time and energy goes into the growing, preservation, and preparing of a family's daily meals. Women are primarily responsible for everyday food preparation, while men often bear the responsibility for making alcoholic beverages and cooking ritual foods.

The preparing of food is also important for ritual. Virtually every ceremony includes an offering of food and drink to the spirits and a communal feast by the participants. A sacrifice of a valued animal, such as a buffalo or pig, marks an important ceremony. Buffalo, in fact, are kept primarily for ritual sacrifices and become the central food at religious festivals.

Food taboos are common among all the tribal groups and vary considerably according to group, age, sex, and situation. Thus, pregnant women, women after childbirth, and hunters, to mention just a few, may be required to consume or refrain from consuming particular foods for specific periods of time.

EDUCATION

Formal schooling for the hill people started after independence in 1953 when King Norodom Sihanouk sought to make education compulsory and available to all the people in the country. These programs continued until 1970, but many school buildings were destroyed in the war and it was not until the 1990s—ironically when Sihanouk returned to rule the country—that new school buildings were erected. While schools and teachers from the lowlanders are increasingly available for highland children, most continue to be taught traditional skills in traditional ways by parents and relatives. The more contact a village has with Cambodians from the central plains, the more likely their exposure to schools and education in Cambodian subjects and language.

The hill groups were traditionally oral rather than literate societies, in which tradition and knowledge were passed on verbally rather than through writing. Recently, however, several of the hill languages have been put into romanized form: the Rade and Jarai are two of these. Several epic tales in the Rade language have been transcribed and published.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Music among hill people is played primarily in the service of religion, but also on ritual occasions such as marriage and funerals, and for popular entertainment.

Musical instruments include drums, flutes, gongs, xylo-phones, and horns of various kinds, traditionally made from wood or horn. More recently, instruments have been made of modern metals and some plastic ones are also used.

The literature of the hill tribes has traditionally been oral, consisting of the myths, legends, stories, and entire body of group knowledge passed on from generation to generation. In the absence of writing and modern entertainment, youth learned the beliefs and events of their past from their elders, in turn passing them on to their children.

WORK

The hill people of Cambodia are either sedentary or nomadic. Sedentary groups, which are more populous, are primarily wet rice cultivators. Some are engaged in growing industrial crops.

Nomadic groups, on the other hand, are swidden farmers growing their own crops. The system used for agriculture is also called slash-and-burn agriculture which is a better description of what happens. After finding a good garden area, the men cut the trees down or cut them severely enough so that they die. The large logs are often used to build houses. The rest of the fallen trees are then burned so that the bush cover is to ash. The ashes help enrich the soil in which sticky rice, root crops, and cash crops are then sown.

The hill men tend their crops and harvest them over the next two to four years using hand implements, for they have no plows or other modern tools. Over a few years, the soil loses its nutrients, and the group moves on to establish new garden areas, following the same slash-and-burn techniques. After a few decades, the original plot of soil has regained its nutrients and can again support crops.

Thus the hill people move through the forest over the years, stopping to build a village in which they live for several years, moving on when the soils are exhausted to reestablish a village some miles away near their new gardens. Some groups raise primarily rice, others primarily root crops. Groups who raise root crops, such as cassava, taro, and yams, also raise maize, eggplant, beans, sugar cane, bananas, and other fruit and vegetables.

The Brao on the Cambodia-Laos border, for instance, cultivate dry season rice, while the Mnong along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border practice dry season rice farming. The Mnong also cultivate a wide variety of vegetables, fruit, and other plants for use as food and in handicrafts. The Stieng, Pearic, Jarai, and Rade tribes are also swidden farmers, growing primarily rice. They also hunt, gather, fish, and grow secondary crops such as maize and root plants to supplement their diets.

In addition to horticulture, hill men also raise a few domestic animals, including pigs, poultry, and buffalo. Among the Lahu, for example, pigs are the most important domesticated animal, but chickens are everywhere. They also raise ducks and geese. The Mnong are noted for trading pigs and poultry for buffalo.

Men hunt game and birds in the surrounding forests, obtaining almost everything they need by their own hand. Muong men hunt with guns, crossbows, traps, snares, and nets. Men organize communal hunts on festival days. A successful hunt is seen as a good omen for the rice harvest. In addition, Muong men fish with scoop nets, lines, bows, and knives.

Women do most of the vegetable and herb gathering. Muong women collect edible tubers, leaves, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, vegetables, berries, and fruit. When food is scarce, they gather breadfruit and eat it as bread. They also collect wood for fuel, materials for building houses, medicinal plants, and other products such as feathers and skins for trade.

SPORTS

Tribal children spend much of their time assisting their parents in hunting, gathering, horticulture, and rice cultivation. Whatever ways of making a living are followed by their village and parents, those are their major activities. Boys learn from an early age to help their fathers, and their play centers on learning to do what their fathers do. Thus, boys practice with tiny bows, shooting small animals, trying to catch birds and fish, and in numerous ways imitating the activities of their elders. Girls, also, learn from their elders, assisting their mothers and other village women in caring for smaller children, looking after the house, and preparing food.

Children spend many nighttime hours listening to the stories and legends of their people. As they sit around their homes in the evening, they may listen to a story from a grandmother, an ancient tale from an older man, or hear the hunters relate their hunting experiences.

From the late 1950s, with the introduction of compulsory education, children at schools started learning to play soccer and also volleyball. Both sports, especially soccer, have continued to be popular, with boys from hill tribes in schools often playing against lowland Khmers, all participating barefoot.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Music is a major form of entertainment. The Kmhmu, for example, have a number of instruments on which they play any number of songs. Their instruments include flutes, mouth organs and harps, and percussion instruments, most made from bamboo. The bronze drum is not only a musical instrument but a symbol of wealth and status used in important communal ceremonies. Kmhmu songs are unique in featuring elaborate poetic verses with reverse parallelism.

Movies, television, videos, and other popular entertainment of Westernized countries—even radios—remain rare in much of highland Cambodia. Tribespeople rely on singing, dancing, and instrumentation for much of their entertainment.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

Hill women weave clothing such as skirts and blouses for themselves, loincloths for their men, and blankets. Using cruder materials, men weave mats and baskets. Embroidery and appliqúe work is also done. Hill tribespeople make a number of musical instruments which include gourd flutes, mouth harps, guitars, and banjos. Men make agricultural, hunting, and gathering tools. The Kuy of northern Cambodia have a reputation for being excellent blacksmiths, while the Brao are noted for their pottery-making skills.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

The hill tribes continue to struggle for more autonomy from the lowland Cambodians. They continue to be viewed by many ethnic Khmer as inferior, with strange customs that are best abolished. Their isolation has been lessened by the migration of lowland peoples into the highlands, but continues for many in slowing the spread of medical and educational facilities. The major threat to the culture and lifestyle of the hill tribes is, however, the logging which has reduced the jungles considerably.

Many Khmer Loeu and observers fear that within a few years, their cultures will have disappeared along with their environment. Many are gradually being incorporated into lowland Cambodian life. They have adopted many Khmer customs, clothing, and practices. Many of the youth are now being taught the Khmer language and are working on Cambodian farms.

Many tribal groups now practice wet rice cultivation rather than horticulture and frequently intermarry with Khmer. Most Chong and Pear, for example, are now assimilated into Cambodian society. Once hunters and gatherers, the Saoch are also now mostly assimilated into Cambodian society. Most Kuy living in Cambodia have been assimilated into Cambodian culture, as Kuy living in Thailand have been incorporated into Thai society. Most Kuy practice wet rice cultivation, have converted to Buddhism, and speak both the national language and their tribal language.

GENDER ISSUES

Generally in Mountain Khmer communities, women remained in the villages and were involved in traditional home-making. In recent years some have been involved in craft-work for sale in local towns.

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—revised by J. Corfield.