The Cham Of Vietnam

The Cham people once inhabited and ruled over a large stretch of what is now the central Vietnamese coast. Written by specialists in history, archaeology, anthropology, art history, and linguistics, these essays reassess the ways that the Cham have been studied.

The Cham people are thought to be descendants of the kingdoms of Champa located in central Vietnam between the 2nd and 19th centuries. Champa was one of the oldest Hinduinized kingdoms in Southeast Asia, and became prosperous through maritime trades and its high quality eaglewood from the central highlands made it famous. However, Champa disappeared from the political map of Southeast Asia after its defeats against the Vietnamese southward expansion. The Cham are now one of the 54 state-recognized national ethnic groups, but Champa’s ancient brick structures and temples scattered along central Vietnam attest to its previous glory. Champa adapted a number of foreign religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam in the course of its history, which made its culture and tradition rich and unique. This book is about a journey of understanding what it means to be Cham in the Social Republic of Vietnam. It is based on field studies in various Cham villages in three different localities: namely, the south central coast area, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta region. It is grounded in information gathered through prolonged interactions with Cham individuals over recent decades. The book stresses the complexity of Cham communities and the diversity and dynamics of the Cham’s understanding of who they are. It provides a comprehensive picture of Cham communities and the situation of ethnic minority people of Vietnam in general.

The kings of ancient Champa, a civilization located in the central region of today's Vietnam, started building sacred temples in a circular valley more than 1500 years ago. The monuments, now known by the Vietnamese name M? So'n, were discovered by nineteenth-century colonial soldiers and first studied by the French architect Henri Parmentier. Bombed during the Vietnam War, the ruins of the brick towers, decorated with exquisite carvings and sculptures, were designated as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1999. An Italian team has worked at the site for the last ten years, doing archaeological research and restoration work in cooperation with Vietnamese specialists. This book is the first published volume based on their efforts. The opening section consists of historical, anthropological and architectural studies of the civilization of Champa. The remainder of the book presents an unusually intimate and extensively illustrated portrait of the archaeologists' research and restoration work at M? So'n. While this book is important for specialists and students of the history and archaeology of Champa and Southeast Asia, it also tells a fascinating story that will appeal to general readers and visitors to this exceptional archaeological site.

Essays that demonstrate ways to "read" the pasts of Vietnam through detailed analyses of its art, chronicles, legends, documents, and monuments. The book's many voices undermine the idea of a single Vietnamese past. All the essays, while varied, are connected by their common concerns with language and text.

Based on a reconstruction of ancient Chamic, with care taken to identify inherited Austronesian words as well as loan words and their sources, this text points out what the linguistic evidence tells us about the history of the region, and sketches the major consequences of historical contact on linguistic change in the history of Chamic.