Community

Jarai people

ចារ៉ាយ

Indigenous people of northeastern Cambodia

The Jarai people (ចារ៉ាយ) are an Indigenous people of northeastern Cambodia, with communities in Ratanakiri province.[1][2][3] The name is also written Jorai, Djarai and Gia Rai, and the Jarai language is spoken in Cambodia and Vietnam.[4] The Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Rural Development count the Jarai among the six Indigenous groups in Cambodia with more than 10,000 people each, in a report drawing on 2008 and 2013 data. The other five are the Tampuan, Pnong, Kreung, Kuy and Prev.[5]

History

Jefferson Fox, John B. Vogler and Mark Poffenberger, citing Lebar and colleagues (1964), list the Jarai among the ethnic communities of Ratanakiri, with the Brao, Kachah, Kraveth, Krung and Tampuen, as they spell the names.[2]

Human Rights Watch wrote that a crackdown by the Vietnamese government on Montagnards, Indigenous people of Vietnam's Central Highlands, sent a steady flow of refugees into Cambodia, and that a new wave of asylum seekers crossed the border in the months after protests in April 2004. It quoted a statement by a Jarai refugee, dated March 2001, who said he had fled his village after seeing police take a neighbor to jail.[6] Human Rights Watch wrote that in July 2004 United Nations convoys picked up several hundred Montagnard asylum seekers in Ratanakiri and took them to refugee shelters in Phnom Penh. It also wrote that in December 2004 Cambodian officials told the UN refugee agency to close its temporary camp in the province.[6]

Cambodia's 2001 land law recognizes Indigenous peoples as a legal entity, and a 2009 sub-decree set out how Indigenous communities may register communal land titles.[7][8] By 2022, 25 communities in Ratanakiri had received communal land titles,[8] while Eunbi Ko wrote in 2023 that 44 villages in the province had received them or were in the final stage.[7] On July 16, 2015, the Ministry of Rural Development recognized the Jarai community of Tang Se village, in Nhang commune of Andoung Meas district, as an Indigenous community.[9] Eunbi Ko writes that Tang Se has faced conflicts over land since the early 2000s, and that two economic land concessions and a mining concession claimed much of the land the village farmed and used. She writes that Tang Se registered more than 3,000 hectares as communal land.[7]

Life and culture

Jarai is a Chamic language of the Austronesian family.[10] Glottolog lists ten dialects, Sesan among them. It gives the language's status as not endangered, citing Ethnologue (2025).[10][4]

Cambodge Mag writes that the Jarai pass the family name and inheritance through women. It also writes that Jarai funeral ceremonies include building houses for the dead, decorated with wooden statues that have become rare. In Andoung Meas, the magazine writes, Jarai artisans work wood and textiles, and traditional dance and music set the rhythm of funeral ceremonies.[3]

Eunbi Ko describes a Jarai farmer of Tang Se who follows rotational swidden farming, growing upland rice and cashews on land he cleared himself. She writes that when the land grew less productive, the community moved to clear new ground on the decision of the village elders.[7] She lists burial forest and spiritual forest among the five categories of land in a communal title.[7]

Sounds of Angkor, a site by Patrick Kersalé, presents a Jarai set of gongs, drums and cymbals recorded in February 2010 in the village of Pok Thom in Ratanakiri. In the recording, the musicians and dancers move around the coffin in a counter-clockwise circle.[11]

In December 2013 more than 300 representatives of the Tampuan, Kreung, Jarai, Kavet, Kachok, Brao and Lun peoples met in Ou Chum district for the first combined assembly of Ratanakiri's Indigenous peoples. Following their traditional beliefs, they offered a buffalo to the spirits of the forest and mountains.[1]

The ministries' report found that among Cambodia's Indigenous peoples, births with traditional midwives are especially common among the Jarai, as among the Kreung, Tampuan, Kavet and Kuy.[5] By 2022 several programs in Cambodia were teaching young Jarai, Tampuan and other Indigenous people filmmaking, so they could record their own communities.[12]

Organizations and places

Jarai communities named in land records include Tang Se in Andoung Meas district,[9] Sala in Kak commune of Bor Keo district[13] and Pak Touch in Pak Prey commune of Ou Ya Dav district.[8] Sub-decree No. 204 reclassified about 331 hectares, counted as forest cover in 2002, as state land for the collective ownership of the Jarai community of Sala, 50 families on 38 parcels.[13] Sub-decree No. 134 reclassified about 1,007 hectares to grant communal ownership to the Jarai community of Pak Touch.[8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Radio Free Asia Khmer, Rodtha Visal, សមាជចម្រុះជនជាតិដើមភាគតិចប្រចាំឆ្នាំ២០១៣នៅខេត្តរតនគិរី (December 27, 2013)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Southeast Asian Studies, Jefferson Fox, John B. Vogler and Mark Poffenberger, Understanding Changes in Land and Forest Resource Management Systems: Ratanakiri, Cambodia (December 2009)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cambodge Mag, Ratanakiri: The Cambodia Time Has Not Yet Caught Up With (undated)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Glottolog, Jarai (undated)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ministry of Planning and Ministry of Rural Development, National Report on Demographic and Socio-economic Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Cambodia: Preface and Report Summary, English unofficial translation (2021)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Human Rights Watch, Photo Essay: Montagnard Refugees in Cambodia (undated)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Heinrich Böll Stiftung Southeast Asia, Eunbi Ko, Titling Land, Fragmenting Livelihoods: Indigenous Communal Land Titling in Cambodia (May 9, 2023)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Open Development Cambodia, Ethnic minorities and indigenous people (updated March 3, 2023)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Open Development Cambodia, Letter No. 1247 on the recognition of Jarai indigenous community identity in Tang Se village, Nhang commune, Andoung Meas district, Ratanak Kiri province (July 16, 2015)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Glottolog, Jarai, classification record (undated)
  11. ↑ Patrick Kersalé, Sounds of Angkor, Gong sets (undated)
  12. ↑ VOD English, Daniel Zak, After Two-Year Hiatus, Cambodian International Film Festival Kicks Off (June 29, 2022)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Open Development Cambodia, Sub-decree No. 204 on the clearing of 331 hectares, 75 acres and 39 centi-acres of land from forest cover 2002 and reclassifying as state private land for collective ownership to Jarai indigenous communities in Sala village (undated)


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This page was last edited on 18 October 2026, at 10:43.