Community

Stieng people

ស្ទៀង

Indigenous people of eastern Cambodia and southern Vietnam

The Stieng people (ស្ទៀង) are an Indigenous people of eastern Cambodia, including Kratie and Mondulkiri, and of southern Vietnam.[1][2][3][4] In Vietnam the name is written Xtieng, and also Xa Dieng.[3][4] The Stieng are one of the 22 Indigenous groups that Cambodia's 2008 census identified.[5][2] In the ministries' 2008 and 2013 data they are not among the six groups with more than 10,000 people each, which are the Tampuan, Pnong, Kreung, Kuy, Jarai and Prev.[6][1] A 2023 planning framework by two Cambodian ministries places the Stieng in Snuol district of Kratie and in southern Mondulkiri. It lists them among the groups with 1,000 or more people in Kratie and 100 or more in Mondulkiri.[1]

History

Bun Srun Theam wrote in 1981 that in the middle of the 19th century the most important highland peoples of Cambodia were the Stieng and the Phnong, in the eastern provinces. He placed the Kouy, of the Kompong Svay region, among them as well. In his account, an official of the royal court oversaw these communities.[7]

IntoCambodia.org writes that the name of Kratie may come from the Stieng language: it cites the Khmer dictionary of Chuon Nath, which gives Krâché as a Stieng word, linked to a ferry where buffalo crossed the river. It adds that elders of the province in the early 1900s recalled Stieng people coming to that crossing to trade goods.[8]

Mil and Thmar Hal Veal are two mostly Stieng villages in Snuol district. In 2004, 95 of the 147 households in Mil and 111 of the 119 in Thmar Hal Veal were Stieng. Villagers of both recalled that from 1960 to 1975 the forests were plentiful and land for rice was easy to clear. In Mil they remembered abundant timber, rattan, honey and medicinal plants, and tigers and elephants in the forests nearby. In Thmar Hal Veal they remembered plentiful forest foods, and rabbits, musk deer and large lizards roaming close to the village.[9]

Under the Khmer Rouge, the people of Mil were made to leave their village and work in another part of Khsim commune, and the people of Thmar Hal Veal were also moved. Families returned to both villages after 1979 and rebuilt their homes and fields. Under the Vietnamese-supported governments of the 1980s, logging controlled by the military and police brought a rapid decline in the forests around Mil, and around Thmar Hal Veal, villagers felled logs to sell to Vietnamese buyers. From 1993, through the 1990s and into 2004, a timber concession and illegal loggers carried out large-scale logging in the district, inside the sanctuary as well.[9]

A royal decree created the Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary on November 1, 1993, with Mil inside its bounds.[9][10] The sanctuary covered 68,575 hectares (169,450 acres) by a 2004 report on the two villages,[9] or 75,000 hectares (185,330 acres) by the record of the 2018 decree that revoked it.[10] Working with non-government organizations and the Ministry of Environment, Mil and two nearby villages set aside 2,459 hectares (6,076 acres) inside the sanctuary in March 2004 as a protected area run by the community. There villagers could cut timber for shared needs but could not clear new fields. Thmar Hal Veal lies close to the border with Vietnam. It had no such links, and illegal logging around it went on.[9] A royal decree of February 16, 2018, revoked the sanctuary.[10]

Language

Stieng is a language of the South Bahnaric branch of the Austroasiatic family, related to Bunong.[1][11] Glottolog lists two Stieng languages, both spoken in Cambodia and Vietnam. Bulo Stieng, also called Upper or Northern Stieng and Budíp, is rated as shifting, and Budeh Stieng, also called Lower or Southern Stieng, as moribund.[3][12]

Life and culture

Stieng society in Cambodia is patriarchal, and marriages are usually monogamous. Stieng people often marry Khmer people and members of other groups. Their belief is animist: spirits are believed to act in human life, and illnesses or natural disasters may be understood as the spirits' answer to wrongdoing. Families live by farming, which includes slashing (clearing forest plots to plant) and growing rice, by raising pigs and chickens, by gathering forest foods and by hunting and fishing.[1]

In Mil and Thmar Hal Veal in 2004, nearly every household grew crops, and most raised pigs and chickens. In Mil, liquid resin tapped from forest trees was an important source of income, and most families fished in the Prek Chlong, a river that flows into the Mekong. In Mil, paddy land, once cleared, was held on a lasting basis with the whole village's recognition, and the land of elderly parents normally passed to the youngest child. Cashew nuts were becoming a cash crop, particularly in Thmar Hal Veal.[9]

In Vietnam

In Vietnam most Xtieng live in the southeastern province of Binh Phuoc, with smaller communities in Dong Nai, Tay Ninh and Lam Dong.[4] Their number was about 50,000 in the 1989 census[13] and nearly 85,500 in a figure given in 2015.[4] The Xtieng have two main subgroups: the Bu Lo, who farm swidden fields in the uplands, and the Bu Dek, who grow wet rice in the lowlands. They regard a hero of legend named Dieng as their ancestor.[4][13]

Vietnam Law & Legal Forum wrote in 2015 that a Xtieng household traditionally lived in a long house on stilts or half on stilts. Usually three or four families shared each house, and a village chief was chosen from among the clan heads. The same magazine named three farming rites, one to choose the land, one to pray for a good harvest and one for the new rice, as well as a buffalo stabbing ceremony to give thanks to the deities. It named gong music, horns, flutes and drums among Xtieng traditions, along with legends and verses sung and recited in a form called tam-pot.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cambodia Water Security Improvement Project (P176615): Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework, draft for consultation (September 8, 2023)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Open Development Cambodia, Ethnic minorities and indigenous people, Khmer edition (updated March 3, 2023)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Glottolog, Bulo Stieng (undated)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Vietnam Law & Legal Forum, The Xtieng (August 20, 2015)
  5. ↑ Open Development Cambodia, Ethnic minorities and indigenous people (updated March 3, 2023)
  6. ↑ 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 (undated)
  7. ↑ Australian National University, Bun Srun Theam, Cambodia in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: A Quest for Survival, 1840-1863 (1981)
  8. ↑ IntoCambodia.org, Kratié Province (undated)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, Analyzing Development Issues, Indigenous Response to Depletion in Natural Resources: A Study of Two Stieng Villages in Snoul District, Kratie Province (September 2004)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Open Development Cambodia, Royal decree No. 176 on revocation of Snoul Wildlife Sanctuary in Kratie province and Roneam Daun Sam Wildlife Sanctuary in Battambang province (February 16, 2018)
  11. ↑ Glottolog, Bulo Stieng, classification record (undated)
  12. ↑ Glottolog, Budeh Stieng (undated)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Vietnam Law & Legal Forum, The Xtieng: Customs and Practices (February 25, 2011)


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This page was last edited on 12 October 2026, at 00:22.