The Xtieng People: Residence, Language, Worship Customs, and Main Festivals

Who are the Xtieng and where do they live?

The Xtieng are one of the 54 ethnic groups recognized in Vietnam, long settled in the Truong Son, Central Highlands, and eastern Nam Bo regions. They are also known as Xa Dieng or Xa Chieng. Geographically, they are concentrated in Binh Phuoc province, with some communities in Tay Ninh and Dong Nai. In earlier documents, the Xtieng's residence area was also recorded in Song Be, Lam Dong, and Dak Lak.

According to the Survey of 53 Ethnic Minorities dated April 1, 2019, the Xtieng population is 10,752. Earlier, the 2009 Population and Housing Census recorded 85,436. This gap reflects differences in scope and methodology between censuses, and shows that consulting ethnic population figures requires clearly cross-checking source and timing.

The Xtieng consist of three main local groups: Bu Lo, Bu Dek (Bu Deh), and Bu Biek. This distinction is not only a matter of naming but also reflects differences in residence area, farming methods, and some marriage customs. The Bu Lo group lives in higher, deeper areas and practices entirely swidden farming. The Bu Deh group lives in lower areas and has practiced wet-rice farming for about 100 years, in a manner similar to the local Vietnamese.

Which language family does Xtieng belong to?

Xtieng belongs to the Mon-Khmer language group of the Austroasiatic family, relatively close to Ma, Mnong, and Choro. This is one of the language groups present early in mainland Southeast Asia, distributed widely across the Truong Son, Central Highlands, and extending down to the Nam Bo plain.

Xtieng script was formed before 1975, based on the Latin alphabet. Recording Xtieng with Latin characters was an important step, allowing the language to be written down, transmitted, and taught in schools alongside oral transmission in the community. However, like many other ethnic minority languages, Xtieng is under pressure as its range of use narrows, with younger generations increasingly exposed to Vietnamese in daily life.

What is distinctive about traditional economic life and social organization?

The Xtieng's main food source is rice, about 80% of which comes from swidden fields. Swidden rice is grown by the slash-and-burn method, a farming practice heavily dependent on nature. Swidden tools mainly include axes and machetes for clearing forest; after burning, a bamboo rake with 5 teeth is used to clear and burn again; when sowing, pointed sticks are used, one in each hand, to poke holes and drop seeds; weeding is done with a small hoe, later replaced by the Vietnamese xa-bat; and rice is threshed by hand.

Besides cultivation, gathering, hunting, and fishing provide important resources. Common livestock include buffalo, cows, pigs, dogs, and some households raise elephants; poultry is mainly chickens. The Xtieng have weaving and basketry crafts. Trade was often by barter, now by money, with goods relations with the Vietnamese, Khmer, Mnong, Ma, and also across the Cambodian border.

In social organization, each married couple and their children form a "hearth" (nak). Many hearths combine into a "house" (yau). Each village formerly comprised only a few houses, and later the number of houses increased as households split off. Each person belongs not only to a hearth, a house, and a village but is also a member of a certain lineage, within other kinship relations. The village is the overarching and prominent unit in traditional social organization; the village elder and respected elders play a particularly important role in self-governance and community management.

How do Xtieng housing and clothing differ between regions?

Highland Xtieng often build ground-level houses with roofs sloping nearly to the ground, sometimes rounded at the two gable ends and one side. Lowland groups often build fairly spacious stilt houses, with walls slanting outward at the top. According to old custom, each village had only a few long houses, but now the short-house form of individual households is developing.

In clothing, men typically wear loincloths and go bare-chested; women wear blouses and wrap skirts. Previously, poor women in many places also wore loincloths. The Xtieng like to wear much jewelry, often metal rings and bead strings, even wearing over 20 aluminum rings on one arm, now silver, including tube rings wound from long copper wire around the calves and forearms. Large ivory earrings are favored. Now men dress like the Vietnamese, women often wear blouses and shirts; in areas near the Khmer, Xtieng women are also often seen wearing Khmer-style wrap skirts.

How are Xtieng worship customs understood?

The Xtieng believe that humans, animals, plants, and all things have a supernatural essence, like a "soul." The pantheon is very rich: thunder god, sun god, mountain god, rice god. Among them, the rice god is imagined as a young and beautiful woman, holding an important place in agricultural religious life.

In worship ceremonies, deities or supernatural beings in general are invoked to pray, give thanks, or announce something. Offerings are wine, chicken, pig, buffalo, cow; the greater the number and the larger the animal, the bigger the ceremony and the more powerful and important the deity. This is a way of ranking rituals based on the scale of sacrifice, reflecting the community's conception of the relationship between offerings and the status of the deity worshipped.

One notable detail is the childbirth custom related to the rice god. Women observe careful taboos from pregnancy. In the past, women managed childbirth alone in the forest. Now many people in areas with the custom of building a rice granary inside the house still give birth in a small house built near the main house, because they believe giving birth in the house would offend the rice god, and after birth they must sacrifice a pig to the rice god. This custom shows a clear distinction between the sacred space of the rice god and everyday living space.

When is the buffalo sacrifice festival and other major rituals held?

The buffalo sacrifice festival is the largest festival of the Xtieng, usually held to celebrate a big harvest, victory over enemies, prosperous business, or children growing up. A family is considered to have a big harvest when they harvest 100 large baskets of rice or more, the basket type called Sah cach. Along with the buffalo sacrifice, cows and pigs are also often offered.

The ritual pole in the buffalo sacrifice has its own rules. If one buffalo is sacrificed, the pole for tying the buffalo is simple, just a section of the cotton tree trunk. If many buffaloes are sacrificed, the first time the host makes a simple pole called gang srung; subsequent times they erect a gang rai pole with many decorative patterns, made more elaborately. This is the top part of the gang rai buffalo sacrifice pole. Thus, the degree of decoration of the ritual pole increases with the number of buffaloes sacrificed and the number of times held, forming a hierarchy of rituals in the community.

Besides the buffalo sacrifice festival, the Xtieng also have a Tet called the "straw worship ceremony," held after threshing the swidden rice, before burning the next season's field. The Tet ritual includes thanking the rice god after a season. This is a ritual closely tied to the swidden farming cycle, marking the transition between two crops.

What notable rules apply to funerals and marriage?

Regarding funerals, the Xtieng coffin is a single-piece log carved from a forest tree. For normal deaths, they bury in the village cemetery. In the coffin, along with the body, a little rice and tobacco are placed. Jars, pots, and tools "divided" for the dead are placed on and around the grave. The Xtieng do not have the custom of visiting graves. When someone has just died, the whole village does not play gongs and does not celebrate for about 10 days. Cases of abnormal death require more costly rituals, more taboos, ceremonies held outside the village residential area, and burial not in the village cemetery.

Regarding marriage, normally if the groom's family has enough wealth for the bride price, the bride goes to live with the husband's family, but in reality most must live with the wife's family because they do not yet have enough wedding gifts required by the bride's family, including precious jars, gongs, and buffaloes. In the Binh Long area, the groom always has to live in the wife's house. Marriage customs differ between places and groups. The Bu Dek group allows a maternal uncle's son and a paternal aunt's daughter, as well as a maternal uncle's daughter and a paternal aunt's daughter, to marry. The Bu Lo group only allows a paternal aunt's son to marry a maternal uncle's daughter on the condition that the uncle is the aunt's older brother, and also only one such marriage is accepted per family. This is an example showing that Xtieng local groups do not apply a single marriage model.

What are the traditional arts and musical instruments of the Xtieng?

The Xtieng love music. The most important instruments, and among the precious assets in traditional society, are the cong and chieng gongs. The Bu Lo group mainly uses chieng, in sets of 6; the Bu Dek group mainly uses cong, in sets of 5. In funerals, only 3 cong or 3 chieng are used. There are also horns, drums, gourd khene, and various stringed instruments. The Xtieng also have a fairly rich treasury of folk tales and their own singing tunes.

The difference in number and type of instruments between the Bu Lo and Bu Dek groups shows that Xtieng musical culture is not uniform but has its own nuances by local group. The use of instruments in funerals also has its own rules, with a more limited number of cong or chieng than other occasions, reflecting a clear distinction between the funeral ritual space and the festival space.

Summary table of some basic characteristics of the Xtieng people

What to note when learning about the Xtieng

Sources on the Xtieng have inconsistencies that should be clearly stated. On population, 2009 data recorded 85,436, while the 2019 Survey of 53 Ethnic Minorities recorded 10,752. This difference may stem from different survey scopes, methods of determining ethnic composition, and data collection methods between surveys. Readers should consult the original data sources directly for information suited to their purpose.

On residence area, sources also record different place names, reflecting changes in administrative boundaries over time. Places such as Song Be, Lam Dong, and Dak Lak appear in some earlier documents, while current sources often mention Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh, and Dong Nai.

Marriage, funeral, and worship customs of the Xtieng also differ between local groups and regions. This is a common feature of many ethnic groups with wide residence areas, and no single specific practice should be considered a common model for the entire ethnic group. Descriptions of customs should be tied to the scope recorded by the source, avoiding attributing one locality's custom to the whole community.

Finally, it should be noted that the traditional cultural values of many ethnic minorities, including the Xtieng, are tending to fade. Sources record that to date, even cong and chieng gongs are much fewer than before. This is a reality reflected in documents about the community of Vietnamese ethnic groups, and recording and preserving traditional cultural values is work that needs attention.