Vietic peoples

Last updated
Vietic
Total population
~90,000,000 [1] (~5,000,000 overseas )
Regions with significant populations
Laos, Vietnam, Thailand
Languages
Vietic languages
Religion
Buddhism, Vietnamese folk religion, Hoahaoism, Caodaism, Catholicism, Animism, Shamanism, Native Ancestral Worship
Related ethnic groups
Katuic peoples, Khmuic peoples, Mon–Khmer peoples and Munda peoples

Vietic peoples refers to a group of ethnic groups of Southeast Asia. [2]

Contents

Geographic distribution

The Vietic peoples are aboriginal to northern Vietnam, Laos and surrounding areas, mostly in northern Annamite mountains, although they can also be found in Thailand, Cambodia and China.[ citation needed ]

Origin

The proto-Vietic peoples are believed to have migrated by land from China to Laos and Vietnam through the Mekong, where they had settled for at least 4,500 years. Although there is no good estimate, paleolithic human sites around the modern Vietic villages in Laos and Nghe An are dated 2,500 to 2,000 BC, indicates that perhaps they were. [3] They were parts of the larger proto-Austroasiatic peoples, who inhabited widely on neolithic mainland Southeast Asia. A human fossil site of these hunter-gatherers excavated in a cave at Pha Phen, 12 kilometres south of Lak Sao, Bolikhamsai Province is dated to 6190 BP (4190 BC). [4] The Katuic people separated from Vieto-Katuic to be an independent group around 1,000 BC. [5]

Nghệ An is regarded in Vietnam as the "Vietic homeland" after the Austroasiatic exodus from Yunnan (also believed to be a tribute to North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh's birthplace). [6] Anthropologists however considered the large area along the Northern Annamites Mountains from Nghệ An to Quảng Bình Province in Vietnam, Bolikhamsai to Khammouane Province in Laos as the traditional Vietic homeland, due to high amount of diversity of archaic Vietic groups and languages present in the region. [7] not in the Red River Delta, which had been originally inhabited by Tai speakers [8] However, archaeogenetics demonstrated that before the Đông Sơn period, the Red River Delta's inhabitants were predominantly Austroasiatic: genetic data from Phùng Nguyên culture's Mán Bạc burial site (dated to 1,800 BCE, thus predating Proto-Vietic, which is dated to 1,000 BCE [9] ) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers; [10] [11] meanwhile, "mixed genetics" from Đông Sơn culture's Núi Nấp site showed affinity to "Dai from China, Tai-Kadai speakers from Thailand, and Austroasiatic speakers from Vietnam, including the Việt"; [12] Therefore, "[t]he likely spread of Vietic was southward from the [Red River Delta], not northward. Accounting for southern diversity will require alternative explanations." [13]

History

The Northern groups of the Vietics, residing in the norde-extremê Annamites (part of ancient Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen) and known as the Viet-Muong, had intensive contacts and interactions with the Tai people and Sinitic colonists from the north during the thousand years of Chinese rule. Based on linguistic evidence and historical records, anthropologists believe that the Viet-Muong eventually separated into two independent groups, Vietnamese and Muong, sometime between the seventh and tenth centuries (Tang dynasty). [14] [15]

Isolated tribes of Vietics on the Laotian side of the Annamite mountains remained intact with limited outside influence. These tribes stayed out of the regions politics despite numerous contests between the Khmer, the Vietnamese, and the Chinese over the region from the year 722 to the mid-twelfth century. [16] The Siamese launched several catastrophic raids onto Laotian Vietic areas between 1826 and 1860 as part of their punitive expeditions against the Vientiane Kingdom, greatly depopulating many Vietic villages. [17]

During the late nineteenth century, the Laotian Vietic homeland of Khammouane (now Khamkeut District, Bolikhamsai Province and Nakai-Nam Theun National Park) experienced the massive arrival of Tai-speaking and Hmong-speaking groups from Houaphanh and Nghệ An. These migrating populations included many former Zhuang warriors fleeing the Taiping rebellion in China, social upheavals and unrest in Vietnam, and Khmu Ho-Chueng war in Northern Laos. The new settlers immediately dominated the indigenous Vietic villagers, sometimes hiring them as labors. Some of Vietic groups were labeled as Puak to indicate their vassalage, or simply called "Kha" by the Tais. [16] Originally Laotian Vietic groups that now speak Tai and Lao languages, for example, the Bo, [18] [19] were perhaps results of the Taization process: the willingness of adoption of the language and culture of the dominant, outnumbering group by minority groups. As explained by a Tai Khang leader in Bolikhamsai: "We are Lao Loum; before we were Kha, but we decided to adopt Lao language and became Lao Loum, and now we have forgotten our Kha language." Anthropologists note that similar processes happened to many other Mon-Khmer speaking peoples in surrounding places. [20] [21]

The history of the Southeast Vietics (Chutic) is lesser known, especially the Ruc. They were encountered in 1959 by Vietnamese soldiers in Sơn Đoòng Cave, Quảng Bình Province as a hundred naked tribesmen dwelling in a cave. Since then, Chutic groups, including the Ruc, have been resettled by the North Vietnamese government in Cu Nhái, Quảng Bình. However, new reports say that one third of the Ruc population have returned to the forest, dwelling in valleys that stand 2,000 meters above the sea level, with many suffering from jungle malaria. [22]

Classification and language

Currently there exist 25 Vietic ethnic groups expressing diverse lifestyles ranging from integration into nation-states to living as nomadic foragers. Many subsist as rice-paddy cultivators, inhabiting the hilly, mountainous landmass stretching from Bolikhamsai Province to Khammouane Province in Laos and from Nghệ An to Quảng Bình Province in Vietnam, heavily concentrating in Khamkhuet and Nakai Valley. [23]

Their languages are classified to belong to the Vietic language family, which is a branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family.

Concerns on NT2 Project impact

Concerns on environmental and anthropological impacts that potential cause consequences to the Laotian Vietic peoples in the Nakai-Nam Theum 2 Watershed National Protected Area (NPA) and Peripheral Impact Zone (PIZ) began to grow when the permission of constructing the reservoir Nam Theun 2 Dam (NT2 Project) on the Nam Theun, Nam Noy and Nam Nyang Rivers, basically inside the Nakai-Nam Theun National Park and Nakai valley, areas where indigenous West and Southwest Vietic ethnic groups had been inhabiting for thousand years, was opened in 1997. The NT2 Project was a BOT dam which was mainly fundraised by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), they would be handed to the Laotian government. The project's mismanagement of indigenous resettling left a traumatic impact on the vulnerable Vietic villagers and they had to be relocated far away from their homeland. Most concerns raised on Vietic type I ethnic groups who themselves heavily rely on nomadic lifestyle in the forests, due to the hydroelectric project's deforestation, and many tribes do not wish to engage and practice permanent sedentary agriculture in new allocated settlements. [24] Plans to restore the livelihoods of villagers on the Nakai Plateau and along the Xe Bang Fai River have yet to be ratified. [25] According to a POE (International Panel of Environmental and Social Experts) report in 2015, the percentage of Vietic villagers among new settlements dropped from 67.4% to 35% within 8 years, while Tai-speaking groups practically and economically dominating them. [26] Other concerns such as government's integrated different Vietic groups with Tai and Hmong villages, and grouping smaller minorities, where Vietic labors were not only exploited by other groups in the villages but also discriminated in term of livelihood opportunities and healthcare. [27] [28] [29]

A safeguard recommendation to the WB in 2004 said: OD 4.20 [the WB safeguard on Indigenous Peoples] emphasizes participatory processes, requiring development of minority plans “based on consideration of the options preferred by the indigenous peoples affected by the project.” It also emphasizes the importance of “ensuring genuine representation” (ibid) among people whose “social and economic status restricts their capacity to assert their interests and rights” (Para. 2). To achieve policy objectives regarding the Vietic Type I people, special measures should be devised for their protection, and to ensure that they are afforded opportunities to participate in the process of devising culturally appropriate benefits... Specific arrangements for monitoring project-related impacts on Vietic Type I groups should be provided. Quote – Unquote (Gibson/WB BTOR 2004). The recommendation was unfortunately ignored. [30]

The population of many Vietic ethnic groups in the region has been drastically decreased in recent years. [31] The POE report found that four extreme vulnerable Vietic groups in the NPA and PIZ that are at risk of being extinct by the early twenty-first century: the Atel (16+), the Themarou (30+), the Mlengbrou (9), and the Ahoe. Among them, the Atel, the Themarou, and the Mlengbrou were previously nomadic hunter-gatherers, are not willing to adopt and practice the new sedentary lifestyle and intensive agriculture following government resettling program for ethnic minorities in the 1970s and the 1980s, and are still reliant much on the forest for accommodating much of their standard of living. Those tribes' populations have been plummeting from hundred people to just few individuals during recent decades, and could not survive as unique ethnic identities without intermarrying with other Vietic groups. It is highly likely that intermarriage between various Vietic tribes have been occurred throughout the last centuries. Special measures of the EMDP would be planning to address the Vietic groups which are most at risk. [32] As the future fate of the affected Vietic groups in Nakai Valley would be an inevitable extinction if no major action undertaken to protect and conserve, James R. Chamberlain, researcher and editor of Handbook of the Changing World Language Map, blames the government's incomprehensible action on indigenous Vietic peoples around the NT2 impacted areas that led to the trouble. Khamsone, the shaman of the Ahoe, called the NT2 project's promise a lie. The Ahoe believe that after death they will be reborn as squirrels, haunting the forests that surround the NT2 dam site, Ahoe spiritual territory. [33]

Society

The isolating Vietics in Laos (exclude the Vietnamese and the Muong) are generally divided by anthropologists into four categories per lifestyle:

Related Research Articles

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Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second or first language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is split into three main dialects, Northern (Hanoi), Central (Hue), and Southern.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnamese people</span> Southeast Asian ethnic group

The Vietnamese people or the Kinh people, also recognized as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day Northern Vietnam and Southern China. The native language is Vietnamese, the most widely spoken Austroasiatic language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muong people</span> Ethnic group in Northern Vietnam

The Mường are an ethnic group native to northern Vietnam. The Mường is the country's third largest of 53 minority groups, with an estimated population of 1.45 million. The Mường people inhabit a mountainous region of northern Vietnam centered in Hòa Bình Province where they are a majority and some districts of Phú Thọ province and Thanh Hóa Province. They speak a Vietic language related to the Vietnamese language and share ancient ethnic roots with the Vietnamese (Kinh) people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietic languages</span> Subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thổ people</span>

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The Kaleun people are an ethnic group of Thailand and Laos.

Nakai-Nam Theun National Park in Nakai District, Khammouane Province, Laos, is one of the last remaining wildernesses in Southeast Asia. Nakai-Nam Theun covers approximately 4,270 km2 of the Annamite Range and the adjacent Nakai Plateau in Khammouane and Bolikhamsai Provinces. It was designated a national park on 15 February 2019 by Prime Ministerial Decree No. 36, 15 February 2019. It is managed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF). It is adjacent to the Vu Quang National Park of Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nguồn language</span> Vietic language spoken in Southeast Asia

Nguồn is a Vietic language spoken by the Nguồn people in the Trường Sơn mountains in Vietnam's North Central Coast region as well as in nearby regions of Laos.

Maleng, also known as Pakatan and Bo, is a Vietic language of Laos and Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tai peoples</span> Descendants of speakers of a common Tai language

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Kri (Krìì) is a Vietic language spoken by the Kri people of Laos and Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tai Yo language</span> Kra–Dai language spoken in Vietnam

Tai Yo, also known as Tai Mène and Nyaw, is a Tai language of Southeast Asia. It is closely related to Tai Pao of Vietnam, where it may have originated. It was once written in a unique script, the Tai Yo script, but that is no longer in use. The language is known regionally in Laos and Thailand as Tai Mène and Tai Nyaw and, in Vietnam as Tai Do and Tai Quy Chau. Superficially, Tai Yo appears to be a Southwestern Tai language but this is only because of centuries of language contact and it is properly classified with the Northern Tai languages. The Nyaw/Nyo spoken in central Thailand and western Cambodia is not the same as Tai Yo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolikhamsai province</span> Province of Laos

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khammouane province</span> Province of Laos

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The Sách is a Vietic ethnic group of Vietnam, native people of the mountains of Central Vietnamese province of Quảng Bình. The exonym Sách might have originated during the 15th century from the Sino-Vietnamese name for "register," which pre-modern Vietnamese texts used the term to designate villages that inhabited by various Austronesian and Austroasiatic highlanders. On the other hand, according to Michel Ferlus, the name's meaning may have relation with uncertain ancient Chinese terminologies. In Vietnam, they are considered a sub-ethnic group of the Chứt.

Liha or Lyha is a Northwest Vietic language spoken in southwest of Nghe An province in Vietnam and a small trip of land in Bolikhamsai province, Laos, by a tribal group called Liha. Estimates in 1999 suggested that there were 300 Liha and unknown number of Liha speakers at the time.

The Thémarou is a tiny and little-known Vietic ethnic group of Laos, indigenous of the Nakai-Nam Theun National Park. Themarou people live in the upper Nam Theun River. Their current population is 47. Like many Vietic type I groups, the Themarou are in very endangered and critical livelihoods, caused by the effect of NT2 Project's relocation program for indigenous peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Yue language</span> Ancient language of China

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The Arem is a small, unreached, and endangered Vietic-speaking ethnic group of Vietnam and Lao PDR, native people of the mountains of Central Vietnamese province of Quảng Bình and neighboring Khammouan province of Laos. Their alternate autonyms are Umo, Chmbrau or Chmrau, which are Katuic expressions for "hunter-gatherers." In Vietnam, they are considered a sub-ethnic group of the Chứt.

The Bo are an ethnic group of Laos. The Bo population primarily spread throughout Bolikhamxai and Khammouane provinces, Central Laos.

References

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  2. ↑ Taylor, K. W. (2013-05-09). A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge University Press. p. 51. ISBN   978-0-521-87586-8.
  3. ↑ Chamberlain (2019), p. 1603.
  4. ↑ Robichaud (2018), p. 93.
  5. ↑ Kiernan (2019), p. 46.
  6. ↑ deBuys (2015), p. 286.
  7. ↑ Montgomery & Galbreath (2009), p. 239.
  8. ↑ Chamberlain, J.R. 1998, "The origin of Sek: implications for Tai and Vietnamese history", in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed. S. Burusphat, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 97-128. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
  9. ↑ "Historical Ethnolinguistic Notes on Proto-Austroasiatic and Proto-Vietic Vocabulary in Vietnamese" Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 13.2 (2020): xiii-xlv. University of Hawaiʼi Press. p.
  10. ↑ Lipson, Mark; Cheronet, Olivia; Mallick, Swapan; Rohland, Nadin; Oxenham, Marc; Pietrusewsky, Michael; Pryce, Thomas Oliver; Willis, Anna; Matsumura, Hirofumi; Buckley, Hallie; Domett, Kate; Hai, Nguyen Giang; Hiep, Trinh Hoang; Kyaw, Aung Aung; Win, Tin Tin; Pradier, Baptiste; Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen; Candilio, Francesca; Changmai, Piya; Fernandes, Daniel; Ferry, Matthew; Gamarra, Beatriz; Harney, Eadaoin; Kampuansai, Jatupol; Kutanan, Wibhu; Michel, Megan; Novak, Mario; Oppenheimer, Jonas; Sirak, Kendra; Stewardson, Kristin; Zhang, Zhao; Flegontov, Pavel; Pinhasi, Ron; Reich, David (2018-05-17). "Ancient genomes document multiple waves of migration in Southeast Asian prehistory". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 361 (6397): 92–95. Bibcode:2018Sci...361...92L. bioRxiv   10.1101/278374 . doi:10.1126/science.aat3188. ISSN   0036-8075. PMC   6476732 . PMID   29773666.
  11. ↑ Corny, Julien, et al. 2017. "Dental phenotypic shape variation supports a multiple dispersal model for anatomically modern humans in Southeast Asia." Journal of Human Evolution 112 (2017):41-56. cited in Alves, Mark (2019-05-10). "Data from Multiple Disciplines Connecting Vietic with the Dong Son Culture". Conference: "Contact Zones and Colonialism in Southeast Asia and China's South (~221 BCE - 1700 CE)"At: Pennsylvania State University
  12. ↑ McColl et al. 2018. "Ancient Genomics Reveals Four Prehistoric Migration Waves into Southeast Asia". Preprint. Published in Science. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/278374v1 cited in Alves, Mark (2019-05-10). "Data from Multiple Disciplines Connecting Vietic with the Dong Son Culture". Conference: "Contact Zones and Colonialism in Southeast Asia and China's South (~221 BCE - 1700 CE)"At: Pennsylvania State University
  13. ↑ Alves, Mark (2019-05-10). "Data from Multiple Disciplines Connecting Vietic with the Dong Son Culture". Conference: "Contact Zones and Colonialism in Southeast Asia and China's South (~221 BCE - 1700 CE)"At: Pennsylvania State University
  14. ↑ Robichaud (2018), p. 92.
  15. ↑ Chamberlain (2019), p. 1597.
  16. 1 2 Robichaud (2018), p. 97.
  17. ↑ Chamberlain (2018).
  18. ↑ Trankell & Summers (1998), pp. 50, 52.
  19. ↑ Schliesinger (2003b), p. 7.
  20. ↑ Trankell & Summers (1998), p. 52.
  21. ↑ Ovesen (2008), p. 215.
  22. ↑ Chamberlain (2019), p. 1600.
  23. ↑ Chamberlain (2019), pp. 1594–97.
  24. ↑ William Robichaud, Clive. W. Marsh, Sangthong Southammakoth and Sirivanh Khounthikoummane (June 2001). Review of the National Protected Area System in Lao PDR (Report). Lao-Swedish Forestry Programme, Lao PDR.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ↑ Robichaud (2018), p. 99.
  26. ↑ David McDowell, Thayer Scudder, Lee M. Talbot (October 23, 2015). Twenty-Forth Report of the International Environmental and Social Panel of Experts (PDF) (Report). Nam Theun 2 Multipurpose Project. Lao People's Democratic Republic Lao PDR.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. ↑ Leslie Johnston (2010). Trip Report: Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project - Laos (PDF) (Report). USAID.
  28. ↑ Scudder (2021), p. 136.
  29. ↑ Scudder (2021), p. 138.
  30. ↑ Robichaud (2018), p. 100.
  31. ↑ Chamberlain (2019), p. 1604.
  32. ↑ Nam Theum 2 Watershed Management and Protection Authority (2005). Operational Plan for the Environmental and Social Management of the Nakai-Nam Theun 2. Part 3, Ethnic Minorities Development Plan (PDF) (Report).{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  33. ↑ Robichaud (2018), p. 101.

Works cited

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