Abstract
This chapter shows how dramatic changes in the highland forest environment have impacted on a mountain people whose existence since prehistoric times has been bound to the forest. It combines scarce textual sources on their culture and history with recent fieldwork in their lands. This is in order to explore the process by which climate and particularly environmental change have contributed to social stratification and generated new vulnerabilities. An ingrained antagonism between Co people and shifting lowland state formations, which have repeatedly submitted them to their rule, forms part of the region’s history. Yet the post-war changes in the forest environment, combined with government integration efforts, have been the most serious challenge to their traditional knowledge and way of life and have ultimately threatened their cultural survival. At the same time, the retreat of the natural forest has reshuffled resource entitlements in the highlands and exposed the group to renewed competition for land and resources.
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Notes
- 1.
The Co are also known as Cor, Col, Cùa, Trầu and Moi in Vietnamese sources and as Cua, Khua, Kor and Traw in Western sources. Early research by SIL suggests that among themselves they refer to those at higher elevations as Kor, Koh, Dot, and Yot, and those in the valleys as Traw and Dong (Hickey 1982a, p. 26). Thus, the Co hardly existed as a clearly discernible ‘tribe’ in the pre-modern era [tribes may in may in fact be a common fiction (e.g. Leach 1954, p. 290)], but rather as a collection of cultural groups and dialects with close association.
- 2.
In the 1960s, efforts were made by Jackie Maier and Eva Burton of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (a Christian missionary organization) to create a written Co language based on Latin script, but is has not been sustained after 1975.
- 3.
Apart from historical material, Hickey based his account on first-hand knowledge of two SIL researchers working with the Co language (see note 2) and interviews with Co people in Tra Bong in 1966.
- 4.
Quang Nam is the former name of a region in the Central Vietnam covering Da Nang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh and a part of Phu Yen today.
- 5.
The assimilation policy of president Ngo Dinh Diem’s (1955–1963) had a clear element of Vietnamese ethnic chauvinism and a wish to eliminate French influence in the highlands (Hickey 1982b, p. 9–11).
- 6.
The FULRO movement, led by Bham Enoul, had land rights as a central concern. It formed a provisional government in exile, attempted to form its own military force, and on several occasions made armed insurrections against the South Vietnamese army. It further made pledges for autonomy to the United Nations and appeals for support to the American embassy in Saigon.
- 7.
This source at the same time reflects conventional chauvinism in statements saying that the highlanders possess no common ideology or community spirit which could unite them into larger groups; that although their existence has lasted for a very long time, nothing remains as a proof of a cultural system; and that they live from a very primitive agriculture and mostly from resources found in the forest (Vinh 1965, p. 11).
- 8.
40,000 highland people later fought alongside American forces of which an unknown number were Co.
- 9.
Both camps were relatively short-lived. Tra Bong was turned over to South Vietnamese forces in 1963, but in 1965 a new US camp was established there (Hickey 1982b, p. 9). Tra My was opened in 1964.
- 10.
One of the most notorious was the Ban Me Thuot rebellion, in which highlanders massacred Vietnamese officers, raised a highland minority flag and used radio transmitters to clamor for independence.
- 11.
Le Van Phuc is actually his son’s name, used to avoid taboo. It is uncertain if this is actually a Co taboo or if it originates from Kinh people through Vietnamese soldiers. Some Kinh people in the North used to call people by their first child's name, while real names were only used when young or after death.
- 12.
The NFL, also called Vietcong (Vietnamese Communists), saw its formal appearance in 1960 and worked for unification with Communist North Vietnam.
- 13.
In May 1961, American President Kennedy sent 400 U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) troops into South Vietnam’s Central Highlands to train Montagnard tribesmen in counterinsurgency tactics, and in 1965 Hanoi began to deploy into the South increasing units of the regular soldiers from the People’s Army of Vietnam.
- 14.
Evidently some highland groups in the area relied on stone tools and simple, adapted technologies until recently (Danang Museum), while other groups had access to metal tools and weapons.
- 15.
A description of Co kinship terms and structure is provided by Hickey (Ethnographic notes).
- 16.
Modern medicine did not appear to reach the highlands in this period. French era medical programs were discontinued (Hickey 1982b, p. 57). Even though tribal representatives desired medical support and the Vietnamese government had a policy to that effect, as one source states, ‘active social work is hindered by a dispute concerning responsibility for administration’ (US Army 1966, p. 28).
- 17.
According to some sources, more minority people were killed in continued fighting after 1975 than during the war itself (e.g. Wiesner 1988).
- 18.
A famine developed in 1971, on top of which a government ban on the private sale, storage and transport of rice was introduced in 1973 to block the enemy’s access to food.
- 19.
Some sources suggest that the rate of barren lands expanded from 10 % of Vietnam’s land area in 1943 to 40 % in 1995 (Vien 2012: 2).
- 20.
Both statistics and estimates are unreliable. One source mentions that in 1995 merely 5.5 % of the remaining Vietnamese forests may be considered ‘rich forest’ (FAO 2001, p. 186).
- 21.
Deforestation will affect soil quality and can actually affect local weather significantly (e.g. Butler 2012).
- 22.
Phu Ninh Protected Area covers an area of 23,409 ha, of which 27.4 % are in Phu Ninh district and 72.6 % in Nui Thanh district. It was designated in 1986 as part of the Phu Ninh Lake project for irrigation of lowland areas, water supply for industry and domestic use in the Tam Ky area, and electricity generation.
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Thi, N.D., Bruun, O. (2013). Interacting Cultural and Environmental Change: The Co (Cua) Minority of Central Vietnam. In: Bruun, O., Casse, T. (eds) On the Frontiers of Climate and Environmental Change. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35804-3_12
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