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ABSTRACT
This article presents an analysis of the traditional tombs of the Jarai ethnic group, an Austronesian language-speaking people inhabiting the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Tây Nguyên). These elaborate tombs are extensively decorated with statues, friezes and poles, which have specific meanings and functions in connection with the celebration of the tomb abandonment ritual. Following this final ceremony it is believed that the souls of the dead reach their final abode. The tomb will therefore no longer be visited by the living and it is left to decay naturally. Using data collected by other scholars and my own fieldwork, I provide a description of the traditional tombs built by all the Jarai ethnic subgroups (supplemented with a selection of photographs), as well as a short account of the tomb abandonment ritual, as performed by the Jarai Arap subgroup. In the conclusions, I analyse the meaning of this ceremony and the particular features of the tomb.
Acknowledgments
I especially wish to thank Ksor Thức, Ksor H’Hoanh, Ksor H’Alăp and Rahlan Ăk (+), Ksor Bip, Ksor Bing (+), Ksor Bik, Ksor Toi, Ksor Thưl, Ksor Nang, Siu Nui and their wives and families. I am also very grateful to Ksor Luet, Ksor Khang, Ksor Nam (+), Y Biem, Siu Hril and all the other amazing people who helped me with my research, all of whom it is unfortunately impossible to mention here.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The Central Highlands (Tây Nguyên) are a region of Vietnam bordering South-eastern Laos and North-eastern Cambodia (Michaud, 2006, p. 59). It includes the provinces of Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Đắk Lắk, Đắk Nông, and Lâm Đồng.
2. The indigenous ethnic groups of the Central Highlands of Vietnam were once known as the Montagnards (meaning ‘mountain people’ in French). See (Hickey 1982b, p. 3; Michaud 2006, pp. 169–171).
3. According to the national census of 2019, out of a total of 5,842,681 residents in the region of Tây Nguyên, the Kinh ethnic group amounted to a population of 3,642,726 (General Statistics Office, 2020, p. 53).
4. Đào Huy Quyền (2007, pp. 36–38) lists numerous types of tombs, the most important of which are the male tomb (bohxat to lo), the female tomb (bohxat ana), the larger tomb (bohxat giep), one that reproduces the form of the common house (bohxat rong), one that is decorated with kut poles (bohxat kut), and a more ordinary one, with no decorative elements. Văn Doanh (1995, pp. 322–333) states that the bơxát kut, with the kut poles, and the bơxát char of the northern lands inhabited by the Jarai are among the most magnificent, but he points out that the male tomb, or bơsat tơlo (also called bơsat jép), and the bơxát thi (also called bơxát lui) can be exceptionally large. Lưu Hùng (2006, p. 27) lists two types of tombs made by the Arap: the bxat char, more opulent and ornamented, and the bxat duech, which is without statues and decorations. Dournes (1975, p. 370) distinguishes between several types of tomb: jarai-čor (mound), jarai-trung (mound and circular pit), jarai-hyoan (double square), pơsat-tưng (rectangular), pơsat-jep (circular and surmounted by a pole), pơsat-mung (surmounted by a pole that supports the roof), and the rectangular pơsat-kok (called pơsat-jep by the M’thur and Hơdrung). The oldest description of a Jarai tomb is probably that of Maître (1912, pp. 225–229, 237, 244–245).
5. My description includes only those types of tombs that are associated with higher social classes, as they are more extensively decorated. The graves of people from lower social groups generally have only a few simple ornaments.
6. The Arap also include a human-like sculpture with long pointed ears, the identity of which remains uncertain (one is visible in ). According to Lưu Hùng (2006, p. 48), this statue might represent bram (a masked character associated with the tomb abandonment ritual) or the spirit of the earth and water, while Đào Huy Quyền (2007, p. 145) defines it as a ‘monster’. Its particular appearance is reminiscent of the psychopomp represented by the Bahnar people (see Guerlach, 1887, p. 503), with whom the Jarai had extensive cultural interactions (Thurgood, 1999, p. 10). This statue, as well as several other subjects belonging to the category of ‘everyday life activities’ elaborated by Đào Huy Quyền, could therefore be considered as pertaining to the final mortuary ritual. Although this has become increasingly rare, the Jarai also make articulated wooden marionettes engaged in various activities and carry them in procession during the tomb abandonment ritual (see for example Văn Doanh, 1991, p. 42).
7. Among the Arap and the Hơdrung the custom of erecting funerary poles is becoming increasingly obsolete and has been almost completely replaced by pictorial realisations. However, on the celebration of the tomb abandonment ritual, the Arap erect two or more high poles, on top of which traditional clothes are placed, to give them the appearance of a human being (visible in ).
8. Aymonier (1891, p. 62) reports that the Cham buried the urn containing the ashes of the deceased (klong) under a tombstone, called kout (kut). According to Mus (1933, pp. 395–399), the kut of the Cham is a ‘funerary doppelganger for the dead’, bearing an image of the deceased.
9. See (Maître 1912, p. 230; Kemlin 1917, p. 16).
10. The Jarai refer to the celebration of their rituals with terms relating to the consumption of food and drink (huă, ƀŏng: ‘eat’; mơñum: ‘drink’), probably because it is also an occasion for feasting lavishly. In both the northern and southern Jarai dialects, there are two ways of saying ‘to eat’: huă (literally: ‘to be hungry’), which only refers to eating rice (huă asơi), and ƀŏng, which is used for all other kinds of food.
11. The meaning of the term ning nông is not completely clear, although according to Dournes (1964, p. 644) it refers to the twelfth month of the lunar year. The Jarai year is divided into a series of lunar months, and blan means both ‘month’ and ‘the moon’. Blan ning nông falls between February and April.
12. The figure of bram has been interpreted in various different ways. Lưu Hùng (2006, p. 21) claims that its function is to frighten the souls of the dead, as well as to amuse them, so that they are no longer able to recognise their family members and therefore cannot follow them back into the world of the living. According to some of my interlocutors, the merriment associated with bram serves to keep evil spirits away from the celebration and to ensure that good spirits, as well as the guests, are entertained and kept cheerful. Others claimed that bram himself represents a soul of the dead (atâu) who is about to set out on his journey to the otherworldly village.
13. For other accounts of this ceremony see (Dournes 1975; Văn Doanh 1991).
14. The same opinion is shared Jouin (1949, p. 81).
15. See Della Ratta 2023.
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Vincenzo Della Ratta
Vincenzo Della Ratta, Ph.D., conducted fieldwork in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Tây Nguyên) and in Eastern Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan Timur), where he concentrated on the music and culture of the Jarai, Ede and Dayak Benuaq ethnic groups. He is Associate Member of the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE, EHESS; Paris, France) since 2016. Vincenzo studied and played gamelan music for over six years, in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and at the Embassy of Indonesia at the Holy See in Rome (Italy). Vincenzo has recently been awarded an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship and is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Georg-August University in Göttingen (Germany).