By To Dong Hai

With a population of some 95,000, the H’re minority people reside largely in the mountain areas of Quang Ngai province while a small number of them lives in Kon Plong district of Kon Tum province (Central Highlands) and Ninh Thuan province.

Till now, the original place of the H’re remains unknown. Some researchers held that the mountain region of Quang Ngai province has become the native place of the H’re because the names of Mum and Rin mounts had been mentioned time and again in various legends of this ethnic group whose language belongs to the Mon-Khmer family in northern region of the Central Highlands. Yet, some French scientists such as Mr. H. Haguet thought the H’re had moved from Malaysia to Quang Ngai from time immemorial.

The H’re people have practiced wet rice farming since very early in valleys between mountains, on riparian plains or terraced fields on hillsides. Besides, milpa cultivation has also been maintained by the H’re together with husbandry, weaving and carpentry.

People of this ethnic grouping live in “play” (hamlet) which are often built on hillsides near their fields or water sources. Each “play” is headed by a “Kra play” or “Kan play” who is an old, experienced and knowledgeable villager knowing well his people’s customs and practices and living a better-off live. He has the responsibility to organize the communal activities in the hamlet such as the dislocation of the hamlet, road construction, fencing off the hamlet, digging wells and building water gutters, holding rituals, deciding on forms of sanction against offenders of the community’s regulations according to its customary laws. He is elected by the people who respect his decisions.

Usually in each “play” there is a person charged with the duty to settle disputes and conflicts among members of the community. Being the conciliator, he firmly grasps the regulations on the code of conduct between members, between a member and the community, between his community and others. His scope of activities can be expanded to neighboring hamlets. With broad and profound knowledge, with his ability to convince others and particularly through his impartial and reasonable settlement of problems on the basis of customs and practices handed down from generation to generation, the conciliator often succeeds in solving disputes and conflicts between people and restoring and maintaining the unity of the community.

Like “Kra play” (hamlet chief), the conciliator has occupied an important position in the managerial skeleton of a traditional H’re hamlet.

The class differentiation was manifest in the H’re society with the rich called “prong” and the slavery called “pong” or “dik”. The rich people often occupied such important positions as the hamlet chief while the slaves who could not pay their debts had to work as servants for their creditors.

The form of private ownership of material wealth has been popular in the H’re society and protected by its customary laws. The people of this ethnic group respect the private ownership of land, gardens, houses, cattle, etc. The owners have been fully entitled to exchange, transfer, sell, bequeath their personal properties without being governed by anyone including relatives of higher ranks.

The H’re people have advocated paternalism but without any discrimina-tion between the maternal and paternal sides. People of the same lineage for five generations are not allowed to marry each other. Sons and daughters in the family are equal in their obligations and interests, being eligible for equal parts of inherited property, except for those, often the youngest in the family, who have to look after their old parents and shall be given a bigger share.

Incestion is strictly forbidden by the H’re customary law which, therefore, contains provisions that restrict the contacts between a daughter-in-law and her husband’s father and brothers as well as between a son-in-law and his wife’s mother and sisters. They are not allowed to sit together for their meals, to touch each other’s clothings or ornaments or to sit or lie in each other’s place.

In their marital relations, the H’re people have followed the principle of monogamy. However, some men, often rich men or people with few children, can marry a concubine, and the conventions also permit a man to marry a younger sister of his wife as concubine even when his wife is still alive. Marriage between cousins or between half brothers and sisters is strictly forbidden, being regarded as incestion and severely punished.

Under the H’re customary law, the newly wed couple may stay with the bride’s or the bridegroom’s family. The family where the couple stays shall have to organize a bigger wedding party to welcome the bride (or the bridegroom). A place with kitchen in the middle compartment of the house is prepared for the couple, where the bride and the bridegroom exchange quids of betel and areca-nut, bowls of liquor and bound together at their wrists by a threat as a token of their eternal bond.

When a newborn is one full month old, a name-giving ceremony shall be organized, making a new member’s official joining into the community. The child shall not be given any name of his/her relatives or ancestors. Letter “Y” is often put before the name of the child, regardless of sex. Formerly, the H’re had no family names; hence recently they have taken the family names and even the middle names of the Viet majority people to make their full names.

It is the H’re people’s belief that the souls of dead persons still exist, living in the “ghosts” hamlet. Having feared that such spirits would return to disturb the children’s life, they have usually held solemn funerals to signify a full break of the relations between the dead and the living.

The coffin shall be carried out of the house with the dead’s feets going out first, and his/her body is always placed opposite the direction back to the hamlet. Rich families have often built their graveyard houses with surrounding fences, where the dead person’s properties divided by his/her family have been placed. After the first new year festival from the funeral when the family of the dead person already organized a sticky rice cake offering ceremony for the dead, the H’re shall never visit the dead’s tomb, except when they are told by the local sorcerer that they had been reproved by the spirit of the dead. People who died “bad” (by accidents) must be buried in places far away from the hamlet.

Though having not specified the scale of the funeral which may be big or small depending on the economic conditions of each family, the H’re customary law has set strict regulations on ceremonies of profound significance for the dead’s world and contacts with the living. Any one who fails to abide by those regulations, thus causing any bad luck to the hamlet or his/her family, shall have to bear all the consequences.

Like the customs, practices and conventions of the other ethnic groups in Vietnam, those of the H’re have still governed the people’s life. All violations of the H’re customary laws, customs and practices shall be brought to trial by the hamlet chief and conciliator before the “customary law court”. The trial is held in a big house (possibly of the hamlet chief) where the offender must show up before all villagers, admitting or defending his/her acts.

After hearing the offender (or both the plaintiff and the defendant) presents the case, the conciliator shall base himself on the customary laws to make the accusation and the hamlet chief shall be the person who make the final decision on the settlement or forms of sanctions. Though the plaintiff and defendant can express their ideas on the punitive forms or ask for clemency with sentence reduction or exemption, the hamlet chief’s opinion shall be the final say which is respected and abided by the villagers.