Rites of passage of ede society in the central hightlands of việt nam (case study the ede communities at two villages buôn dur and buôn kmal, krông ana district, daklak province, vietnam) m a

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Institute of Ethnology Master Thesis Module: 06 The first supervisor: Prof.Dr Josephus Platenkamp The second supervisor: Dr Almut Schneider WiSe 2016 Master Thesis Rites of passage of Ede Society in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Case study: The Ede communities at two villages - buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl, Krông Ana district, Daklak province, Vietnam) Thi Ngoc Luu, Tran Frauenstrasse 3-6 48143 Muenster Email: ngocluuknh07@gmail.com Matriculation n°: 405024 MA Social Anthropology 4th semester Date (of handing in): 29.03.2016 Contents Chapter one: Introduction and methods I Reason to choose the theme research II Research question and concepts used III Methods Research stages 2 The field-site of the research 3 Methods Chapter two: The foundation of argurments 15 I The cosmological concepts of the Ede 15 II The structure of family- kinship of the indigenous Ede 24 Chapter three: The traditional house (Ede sang) where rituals are organized 28 I The position of the house is considered in comparison with the cemerery in the Ede villeage 28 II The dualistic position of the front part of the house (dring gar) and the back part of the house (dring ok) 29 Chapter four: The process of the rites of passages 44 I The first worship in the life of a baby (ngă Yang pi anân)/ (Rắp Yun) 44 II Wedding (Kuôl ung mỗ) 48 III Ngă Yang asêi mlêi: a worship for the guardian god 49 IV The process of funeral - a rite for the deceased 53 Chapter five: The ritual alcohol cpe cheh in the rites of passage of the Ede 59 I Cpe cheh-preparing for rituals (ngă Yang) 59 II The procession of cpe cheh-drinking in the rites of passage 66 III The dualistic structures are performed in cpe cheh 74 Appendix: Picture from fieldwork 79 Appendix: The term table: Ede – English 82 Bibliography 83 Chapter one: Introduction and methods I Reason to choose the theme research Ede people living in the highland of Vietnam are one of fifty-four ethnicities of Vietnam They belong to the family group of Malay-Polynesian and their linguistic family is Austronesia They have many different names such as: Ede, Rhade, De, Moi, etc but Ede is their popular name in Vietnam They are known as the matriarchal group by many researchers The rituals of the Ede are a big topic among social anthropologists The theme regarding the individual’s life cycle ceremonies, or the term of “rites of passage”, first propounded by van Gennep is not a new theme in the researches into Ede culture Although scholars have considered to the Ede rituals, they have paid little attention to the ritual alcohol that is used in these rituals In fact research on alcohol in rituals is scarce Ede people call their traditional alcohol cpe cheh1 The indigenous Ede people use only one drinking straw, which is called đinh mnăm cpe in Ede language to drink wine cpe This drinking manner leads to a certain order in the drinking process, which gives prominence to the social ranks of members in the kinship system I found that drinking cpe cheh is an important part in all of the rituals of the Ede people, and the cpe cheh in particular has become a ritual in itself To be sure, drinking cpe cheh is not purely consumption but it is an obligatory etiquette of rituals Obviously, drinking cpe cheh as a cultural behavior has many meanings regarding cosmological concepts and the ideological system of Ede people Cpe cheh is present in all of the rituals of the Ede people Drinking cpe cheh is performed in the rites of passage of the Ede that are worshipped at two places: the house with rites for living people and the cemetery with funeral For my project, a consideration of all of the rituals was beyond the scope Thus, I just study ritual alcohol cpe cheh within the limits of the rites of passage of the Ede In other words, I consider cpe cheh in aspects of ritual alcohol when I put it in the context of the rites of passage In cpe-drinking, there is a transformation from water to wine (cpe) The direction of water is defined as the outside because water is pourred into cheh in the west of cheh As already mentioned, the west direction is understood as “the outside” The transformation from water to cpe happens in the inside of cheh when water combines to the mixture of rice and alcohol yeast Of course, this process is invisible in the inside of cheh After that, cpe is absorbed out from cheh in the east which is defined as “the inside” Thus, after the Cpe cheh is a phrase including two words: Cpe means the wine and cheh means the jug transformation which happens in the inside of cheh, water which belongs to “the outside” becomes cpe which belongs to “the inside” Three elements including: water, the mixture of rice and alcohol yeast and cpe transformed inside of the cheh are considered the stages in life cycle of humans in Ede culture In other words, the dualistic elements of transformation in cpe cheh such as: the outside and the inside are manifested the transformation of soul forms of humans which relates to the belief regarding reincarnation and the transformation regarding the social situation of male and female in the institution of marriage in Ede culture From these points, I pursue the following question in the course of this thesis: What are the cosmological concepts, the ideological system and the social structure reflected in rites of passage of Ede society in the Central Highland of Vietnam? To answer this question, I focus on studying the arrangement, drinking behavior and relationships regarding cpe cheh in the rites of passage Classification of rites of passage is a basic factor if we want explore meanings of the type of rites as well as meanings of cpe cheh in the correlative ritual II Research question and concepts used What are the cosmological concepts, the ideological system and the social structure reflected in rites of passage of Ede society in the Central Highland of Vietnam? Concepts used - Ritual, rites of passage - Social structure - Kinship system III Methods Research stages The fieldwork lasted for months and it was divided into the following stages: The first period: from May 2015 to June 2015 In the first month of the fieldwork, I met some Vietnamese and Ede scholars who researched into the Ede culture in the highland of Vietnam They gave me a general description that relates to the past culture of Ede people and how it has changed After that, we discussed choosing my sites of research These scholars proposed many different areas where the Ede have settled in Daklak province They wanted to select these areas according to the different criteria such as: the cultural interference between the Ede and the Kinh, the economic development in Ede communities, the effect of the tourist industry on the Ede culture and the change of traditional belief with the appearance of Catholicism and Protestantism I recorded their suggestions and chose a field site after I visited Ede people at this place Regarding the reasons that made me choose the field site, I will mention it in the part about sites of the research In addition to the academic discussion, the reference materials relating to the Ede culture were collected from some libraries of universities in Ho Chi Minh City They are the pieces of research such as: books, MA and PhD theses, and scientific journals Researching materials is a necessary step to equip me with theoretical arguments in the study procession These research works provide me with an overview about the Edee culture Furthermore, they show me what topics were researched by the scholars previously My theme of research inherits these research works of scholars and seeks new discoveries The second period: from June 2015 to August 2015 In the second period, I left Ho Chi Minh City and arrived in Daklak, a province of the highland of Vietnam I lived with Ede people in their two villages Dur and Kmăl for about twelve weeks.While staying here, I used the methods of ethnographic fields to collect data for my research The main methods applied include participation, observations, and indepth interviews After that, all of data were written down in my field notes on site The notes collected through observations and interviews are important data in my arguments The field-site of the research Reasons of the field-sites choosing Choosing field-sites depends on the object of research My theme of research is cpe cheh, so I relied on this criterion to choose Ede villages It is worth emphasizing that the traditional rituals are the important contexts of analyzing meanings of ritual alcohol, because only in these rituals is drinking cpe cheh regarded as a ceremony and therefore, the particularities of cpe cheh are manifested I sought out and arrived in some villages where the Ede still practice their traditional rituals without having any influences from outside cultures This means the Ede rituals because of their true wishes and demands Nowadays, at some villages, the Ede practice their rituals to satisfy the curiosity of tourists or newspaper reporters These practices are only the public performance before audiences Additionally, the appearance of other religions such as Catholicism and Protestantism in Ede communities changed the traditional practices of the Ede To be sure, there is the opposition in religious belief of monotheism of Ede Catholics or Ede Protestants and polytheism of Ede people who believe in animism The result is that belief and ritual practices relating to animism are renounced by Ede Catholics or Ede Protestants From this, it follows that the monotheist Ede not recognize cpe cheh drinking as a ritual behavior In the case of Ede Catholics, they still drink cpe cheh but cpe cheh is regarded as simply a beverage in their parties An Ede Catholic invited to a traditional ritual will refuse to drink ritual alcohol For Ede Protestants, they think that alcohol is a harmful beverage for their mind and body Thus, all the types of alcohol including cpe cheh are forbidden in the communities of Ede Protestants I chose two villages of Ede people according to the criteria which was already mentioned The Ede call their village buôn I chose two villages: buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl to carry out my research Buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl are territories of the Krông Ana district, Daklak province Almost all of the Ede believing in animism live at these villages Therefore, the ritual practices, and the alcohol drinking in these rituals, are always performed in buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl Only a small part of the population is Catholic and Protestant in these villages Although I focus on the rituals of Ede people who believe in animism, I also observed the rituals and the alcohol drinking of Ede Catholics when I was living at these villages These informations from these observations gave me the differences in opposition to beliefs of monotheism and polytheism The history of the Ede villages Buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl are the neighboring villages Buôn Dur located next to buôn Kmăl and they belong to the Dur Kmăl commune, Krông Ana district, Daklak province Because of their neighboring location, these two villages share a common history in the war on Vietnam before 1975 The old Ede inhabitants could not remember exactly the time when their forefather settled in buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl This region was probably settled by the Ede a long time ago From 1960s, all of the Ede inhabitants of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl left their villages to live in the forest with the soldiers of the liberation army who came from North Vietnam The fight against the puppet soldiers of South Vietnam was led by the Communist party of Vietnam This fight is the dark days of the indigenous Ede people at buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl They left their houses, the domestic animals, properties, and hulled rice in the villages and it was very difficult to remain alive in the forest Many Ede died in this period before coming back to their villages In the forest, Ede people lived in poverty and always coped with the possibility of death This state was a temporary life because they had to escape from the attacks of the puppet soldiers The lack of the material comforts led to the lack of needs of the mind and spirit No doubt, there were no rituals of Ede people in this period The Ede hold their ceremonies only when living in a plentiful condition All of the ceremonies of the Ede need the sacrificial animals and cpe cheh In the forest, Ede people have nothing to hold a ceremony If they not have enough rice to eat, they will never use it to brew wine Ede people of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl spent fifteen years living in the forest Many indigenous Ede became the party members of the Communist party of Vietnam because of their services in the fight In other words, becoming the party members of the Communist party of Vietnam was a reward for services rendered to their country This is also an important reason that explains why Ede inhabitants of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl did not join in the Catholic or Protestant communities like the other Ede villages Based on this, the traditional rituals are still retained and practiced at buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl by the Ede inhabitants After 1975, the Ede inhabitants of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl came back to their old villages Since then, they have restored and developed everything up Currently, some policies of Vietnam government are applied to the Ede villages in the highland The policy referring to the population arrangement led to the change in the structure of villages In earlier times, every Ede village had two parts regarding their locations in the village: an area for the living and an area for the deceased The living settle in their houses in the east of the village, this means that they belong to the inside of the village In comparison, the cemetery is in the west of the village, it means that this area is understood as the outside of the village However, this structure of the village was changed by the population arrangement in policies of the Vietnam government Nowadays, the living not only live in the east of the village but also expand their area to the west of the village The Ede call the area where they used to live the old village, and the area where they have expanded is the new village The result is that the structure of the Ede village has three parts now: the old village in the east of living people, the new village in the west of living people and the cemetery in the west of dead people The particular traits of two villages The village background: the population, the ethnic groups, the economic activities The population of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl is always changes because of the increasing in population density of parturition and emigrants The increasing population is the result of the increasing parturition at Ede villages The fact is that the birth-control policy of the government encouraging every family should born around one to two children did not achieve the desired effect Nowadays, every nuclear family of the Ede has approximately four to six children They still believe that the family has many children is better than a lot of property The New Economic Policy of the Vietnamese government applied from 1984 relates to the increasing number of emigrants at Ede villages The Kinh coming from the lowland immigrated to Ede villages in the highland of Vietnam The demographics in January 2015 of buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl showed the following figures: Buôn Dur has a total household of 227 with 1458 people A number of Ede households are 148 with 651 people Kinh people have 136 households and the rest of households are 48 with 226 people include Tay, Nung, Muong people As to buôn Kmăl, there are 227 households with 1073 people Among these households are 201 Ede households with 974 people The remaining part of this village is 26 households of the Kinh with 99 people The major economic activity of the indigenous Ede at buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl is cultivation Rice is the main crop plant on the fields, besides they also grow some plants such as corn, kinds of beans, coffee, rubber As Anna de Hautecloque Howe points out, tilling in the fields is a common activity of the mature members who live together in a house gõ êsêi Gõ êsêi had been exactly translated as a “rice pot” As to the economic aspect, gõ êsêi is a production and consumption unit In the old days, this unit included many nuclear families The marital couple and their children of every nuclear family in gõ êsêi culvivate in their field, but their agricultutal products are stored as the common or personal property in a paddy storehouse of gõ êsêi Nowadays, gõ êsêi is unit of one nuclear family generally Besides, the Ede members of families in a kinship usually work exchange to help each other on the fields, especially in the harvest or when a new crop begins In addition to agriculture, the Ede also breed some domestic animals, for example, buffalo, cow, pig, chicken, dog and cat The Ede breed a small number of animals in the area around their house only using them in their rituals The traditional handicraft is also a work in many Ede communities such as: weaving work instruments, weaving fabric, but it is not popular in buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl As mentioned, the number of Kinh people is just a little in comparison with the population of the Ede; however, the Kinh had their influence with the indigenous Ede in buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl While the Ede and other ethnic groups only earn their living as cultivators, the economic activities of the Kinh are more diversified The Kinh make a healthy profit on the food and household commodities trade Besides, the Kinh are merchants purchasing the farming products of the indigenous Ede Nowadays, many Ede people can speak Kinh language - Vietnamese and their lifestyle is similar to the Kinh people’s such as cloths, the kinds of food, the music of the young Ede Furthermore, the point that many young Ede used the kinship terms of the Kinh to call members in their family and they did not make a sharp distinction in the difference between the father’s side and the mother’s side although the cultural system of Kinh people is patriarchy and the cultural system of Ede people is matriarchy Social organization Anna de Hautecloque Howe researched carefully about Ede people and their social organization in her research work that named in French: “Les Rhadées: Une société de droit maternel” This research work is translated in Vietnamese by Nguyên Ngọc and Phùng Ngọc Cửu as an important material for anyone who want to study Ede society The fact is that Anna de Hautecloque Howe spent more two years staying at Ede villages in Daklak province as an ethnographer and researched many aspects in Ede culture After that, Vietnamese researchers having interest in Ede culture at the highland of Vietnam always quote the research work of Anna as a main reference in their studies Therefore, I use the considerations of Anna de Hautecloque Howe in her research work to compare the Ede society at present and in the old days As Anna de Hautecloque Howe depicts, every Ede village is managed by the firstborn daughter of the main clan of village In other words, the head of an Ede family as well as community is the matriarch Her position is called pô lăn and this term means the proprietor of the land However, the person managing the businesses concerning the family and the community is a man Normally, he is the husband of matriarch.The fact is that the Ede in the village call him pô lăn but is not his wife A basic cause of this position change relate the responsibilities of pô lăn to his community It is worth emphasizing that the most important responsibility of the pô lăn regarding the religious works which is only practiced by Ede men In fact, the pô lăn practices the religious obligation as a matter of priority He has responsibility for the fertile land what depends on the rain Therefore, every year, he has to visit around his village seven times The purpose of visits aims to inspect the boundary of the region and practice the ritual for the land However, Anna de Hautecloque Howe also thought that his responsibility does not exist in Ede communities nowadays In the religious domain, pô lăn also hold the position of pô tuh êa, a man who worships the sacrifice for water concurrently Pô tuh êa means the proprietor of the river watering place I think that maybe there is a connection between holding the position of pô lăn and the pô tuh êa concurrently and the fertile land what refer to the rain or water directly The point is that pô tuh êa has to practice rituals for the river watering place every year This worship aims to clean the water for village and pray for rain This religious behavior must be redone in case having the epidemic diseases in the village Besides the religious duty that relate taking good care of the land, pô lăn and pô tuh êa always have the highest jurisdiction in case having the conflict between individuals in the Ede community According to the long tradition, both of the position pô lăn and pô tuh êa are inherited from the mother line of the main clan in the village The son-in-law being the husband of the first-born daughter will inherit this position from his father-in-law In case without the daughter, this position is moved from the husband of the older sister to the husband of the younger sister In period of time when Vietnam is colony of French, a man being able to speak Vietnamese a little and understand Ede culture is usually accredited by the colonial government in every Ede village He plays a role as an intermediary between the provincial administration and the indigenous Ede in his village French colonialists called him khua buôn2 in the meaning the village leader The Ede term khua buôn and his roles are still kept by the Vietnamese government nowadays Also, the indigenous Ede use the term khua buôn to call their leader village as well as the village patriarch In general, the village patriarch also is leader village in Ede village because he is known as an old man with experience in solving the complications in his community In other words, he is wellinformed about the traditional culture and laws of Ede people Nowadays, the position of khua buôn still exists in Ede communities, but his roles are no longer in the village managing Although the managed roles of the khua buôn are no longer as in the earlier time, the Ede of every village still need a khua buôn in their village They only choose someone expert in Ede history and the traditional culture Therefore, a khua buôn always receives the confidence of all of the Ede in his village He presents in all of complications at his village and he plays a role as a peacemaker At the ceremony when the Ede worship their deities, khua buôn is always invited as an honor guest by the host of the house At the present, the Ede village management is task of the local government At every Ede village, the local government built a community house where everybody in the village can come in and solve their problem in the help of state cadres Almost the state cadres are Ede people; hence, an Ede person holds office as village leader If there is a Kinh person works in this system, he or she holds office as assistant leader of the village The local Anna de Hautecloque Howe explained the meaning of the term “khua buôn” that the Ede use term khua to talk about the fruits “become ripe” Also, a mature person is called mnuih khua, and in the broad sense of this word, khua means “eldest” and “leader” that this cpe is reserved for the deceased Indeed, the cheh of the deceased is brought to the cemetery with djiê At the cemetery The cpe cheh-drinking at the cemetery is divided into the two following periods: the first period is practiced on the first day when participants carry djiê from the house to the cemetery (nao đơr); the second period is practiced on the last day when participants come home from the cemetery22 In Ede language, this day is called mnăm lui msat, which means “drinking to leave the grave” The turns of cpe cheh-drinking during these two periods are performed in different ways according to the different meanings It is noteworthy that the space of the house is also divided into two parts including dring gar and dring ok and is also defined in four directions of geography From this, it follows that dring gar is connected to the north and dring ok is connected to the south Based on the directions of the conceptual category “gar” and “ok”, we can show the directions of the geographical categories north and south In sum, the concept of “gar” is understood as the north and the concept of “ok” is regarded as the south The space of the cemetery is larger than the space of the house; besides, it is not clearly divided into dring gar and dring ok In fact the Ede always enter the grave in the east and west directions Thus, based on the direction of the grave, the geographic directions such as the east, the west, the north and the south are showed In other words, the directions of the north and the 22 Nowadays, because the interment reduces in a day, the Ede come back their house on the first day and go to the cemetery again after three days On this day, they put the picture of djiê into the stele at the head of msat and drink cpe cheh Nowadays, the Ede not call this day mnăm lui msat; but it is called “the day to put picture” 72 south are pointed out according to the directions of the grave If the conceptual directions “gar” and “ok” help to point out the geographic directions of the north and the south in the context of the house, the geographic directions help to understand the conceptual directions at the cemetery In fact the north shows concept “gar” and the south shows concept “ok” On the first day when the living carry djiê from the house to the cemetery, the cheh line is arranged in the east in opposition to the grave which is in the west The living sit in the east of the cheh line to drink cpe The sitting-direction of the living next to the cheh line at the cemetery on the first day is similar to their sitting-direction next to the cheh at home However, the drinking-direction at the cemetery is opposite to the drinking-direction at home If the Ede always drink cpe according to the directions from “gar” to “ok”, they drink cpe in the directions from the south which means “ok” to the north which means “gar” on the first day at the cemetery The direction from “ok” to “gar” is similar to the direction which the living take the djiê from the house to the cemetery In fact when the living carry the djiê to the cemetery, they go according to the direction from dring ok to dring gar and after that from the house to the cemetery As already mentioned in the previous sections, both of the dring ok and the house are understood as the concept of “ok”; in contrast, both of the dring gar and the cemetery are regarded as the concept of “gar” Therefore, the drinking-direction on the first day implies that when a person dies (djiê), the djiê needs to be taken from the village of the living, which is understood as the inside “ok”, to the village of the deceased, which is understood as the outside “gar” This means the dead person no longer belongs to the living village 73 On the last day, when the living come back to their houses from the cemetery, their sitting-direction and drinking-direction are opposite to the sitting and drinking directions on the first day at the cemetery In fact the living sit in the west of the cheh line; and they drink cpe according to the direction from the north which means “gar” to the south which means “ok” Their drinking-direction on the last day implies that this is the final day the living will drink cpe with the dead person After this day, the living need to come back from the cemetery, which is understood as “gar” to their houses, which is regarded as “ok” This also means that the living define their belongingness to the living village III The dualistic structures are performed in cpe cheh 74 The cpe is made by two main kinds of materials including: rice and alcohol yeast Among these materials, the rice has not changed at all, but the alcohol yeast has changed in comparison with the past In the old days, the Ede made the alcohol yeast themselves Although the cpe was made by the Ede women, the materials which were used to make the alcohol yeast were found by the Ede men in the forest Nowadays, since the forests are reduced, the Ede men cannot find these materials in the forest The Ede have to buy the alcohol yeast, which is made by the Chinese at the markets The Ede also call the name of this alcohol yeast “the Chinese alcohol yeast” Although the Ede not like the Chinese alcohol yeast, they still use it nowadays In fact the Ede think that the cpe cheh made by this alcohol yeast is not good for their health, because it gives them a headache and makes them very tired after drinking it Thus, when the Ede use the Chinese alcohol yeast which is bought at the markets, the role of the Ede men is overshadowed in the making cpe nowadays As regards the rice, it is regarded as an important material in the making cpe Only the women, especially the female hosts in the Ede society, have authority over the amount of rice which is used in all of the activities of the Ede family In fact the work regarding pouring rice in the old days as well as cooking rice now are defined as the work of the women The Ede men still never this work This is the main reason why making cpe is a duty of the women Not like the materials of the alcohol yeast, which were found in the forests in the old days but are now bought at the markets, the rice is the material which the Ede families always have in their house As mentioned already, the Ede house is connected to the concept of “ok” which means “the inside”, while the forest and the market are thought in the concept of “gar” which means “the outside” From this, it follows that the materials which are used to make cpe are divided into the two following groups of the dualistic concepts: the first group regards the concepts of the female-rice-house-cultivated“ok”-the inside; and the second group regards the concepts of the male-the materials of the alcohol yeast-the forest (in the old days) or the market (nowadays)-found or bought-“gar”the outside The dualistic structure regarding cpe cheh is also reflected in preparing the cpe cheh for drinking The following table shows this: 75 The east direction and the west direction are regarded as two dualistic directions in the cpe drinking in ngă Yang The drinking-straw (đinh mnăm cpe) always faces the east, because the cpe-drinkers understood as both Yang, Yang adn ă and humans always sit in the east of cheh in their drinking-turn In contrast, the person who pours water into cheh while the cpe-drinker is drinking always sits in the west of the cheh The young men usually this duty in almost all of ngă Yang; however, in ngă Yang asêi mlêi, the servers who pour water into the chain of cheh reserved for Yang asêi mlêi are young women who still are single It is noteworthy that the attendance of two persons including the cpe-drinker, who sits in east of cheh, and the server, who sits in west of cheh, is required during the drinking-turns In fact, the cheh which is used to drink cpe needs to always be full throughout the drinking process The Ede think of the empty cheh or incomplete cheh as the cheh of the deceased In the comparison with the cheh of deceased, it is obligatory that the cheh of the living remains full Thus, the full cheh is a symbol of the living while the incomplete cheh is a symbol of the deceased Besides, when the water in the cheh becomes full, the cpe-drinker will absorb cpe, which is in the under of cheh by đinh mnăm cpe easily More importantly, the Ede men usually race in their drinking-turns to find who can 76 drink more cpe than the other They cannot count the number of glasses of cpe because the cpe is absorbed by đinh mnăm cpe Therefore, depending on the number of glasses of water which is poured into cheh, the Ede know how much cpe the drinker drank In fact the cheh is always full from when the cpe-drinker begins to when the drinker finishes Based on this, the Ede count the number of glasses of water poured into cheh while the drinker is drinking Again, it is important to note that đinh mnăm cpe always faces the east of dring gar to serve the participants who include Yang, Yang adn ă and humans when they are sitting in the east of cheh This means when cpe is used, it is thought that cpe belongs to the east of dring gar In comparison, when cpe becomes tasteless, which means that it becomes useless, the Ede men throw the cpe-refuse out the window in the west of dring gar If the east and the west of the village are regarded as the space of the houses, the living in the east, and the space of the graves, the deceased in the west, these directions have similar meanings in the context of the Ede sang In fact, the east of Ede sang is connected to the place of Yang, Yang adn ă and the family members The Ede practice rituals in the east of dring gar and the main activities of ritual such as worship, playing Gongs (tông chinh), sacrificing animals, etc are practiced in the east of dring gar In sum, the Ede believe that the east of dring gar is the place where Yang and Yang adn ă reside In comparison, the east of drink ok is the place where the family members make their private rooms The Ede store their valuable things in these rooms and they also sleep in here at night In opposition to the east of Ede sang, the west of Ede sang is considered in the concepts of the death, the bad, the dirty The window gar in the west of diring gar is connected strongly to the meaning of rejection Indeed, the Ede men used to urinate through this window in the old times and have also thrown cpe-refuse through this window The fact is that cheh is very heavy when it is full of water and banana leaves; thus, carrying a full cheh down the staircase is difficult For the Ede, throwing cpe-refuse after ngă Yang out the window of dring gar is advantageous However, they never throw this out of the windows in the east The Ede believe that rejecting the dirty things in the east is offensive to Yang Throwing the dirty out in the west is not banned Among four windows of dring gar, the window “gar” in the west is a reasonable choice because it includes two elements: it is in the west and the outside “gar” With these backgrounds in mind, the comparison between humans and directions show that the living is connected to the east, which also means the inside; in contrast, the 77 deceased is linked to the west, which also means the outside From this, it follows that when cpe is put in the comparison with directions of dring gar, the point is that the meanings of cpe are also linked to the situations of humans In other words, the life circle of cpe cheh is similar to the life circle of humans in comparison with the dual directions Two important periods of the humans as well as of the cpe cheh are referenced in comparison with the east and the west, these include: firstly, “life” for humans and “useful” for cpe cheh; secondly, “dead” for humans and “useless” for cpe cheh In particular, when cpe is useful, which means cpe is strong in cheh, it is thought of as living, because it serves the participants in the east of dring gar However, when cpe is useless, which means cpe is tasteless in cheh, it is thought of as a dead person, because it is thrown away in the west of dring gar, like the way the Ede bring the deceased to the cemetery in the west of the village 78 Appendix: Picture from fieldwork The ritual sedge mat23 The ritual objects contain offerings 23 A sedge mat is spead out on the floor This mat is next to the wall in the east and parallel with the line of cheh cpe Ede people arrange offerings over the mat in order that depends on kind of rituals.Pô riu Yang and the beneficiary who gains as a result of the worship sit together at the mat and worship the offerings to Yang 79 The bronze bracelets The branches of the bead tree Melia azedarch 80 Imitated objects 81 Appendix: The term table: Ede – English Ede terms Meaning of Ede terms in English cpe cheh The traditional wine of the Ede cpe wine cheh Vessel đinh mnăm cpe Drinking straw kpei Alcohol yeast Gâng cpe The wood pole buôn village khua buôn village patriarch Aduôn grandmother Ae grandfather Amĩ mother Ama father sang The Ede house Yang gods Yang duôn ae Soul of ancestor Ngã Yang worship msat funeral Kuôl ung mỗ wedding ngă Yang cbưi purification rite ngă Yang asêi mlêi the health worship or the oneself worship ngă Yang sang mrâu the new house worship ngă Yang pi anân the named child worship Ngă Yang cpe tlâu un The worship with three cheh cpe and one pig Ngă 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regarding Ede matriarchal family in the context of the economic, cultural and social conditions of the Ede nowadays] Highlands Development Vũ, Đ.L., Bùi, M.Đ & Vũ, T.H., 2000 h u s dụng đ t đai c c tỉnh ây Nguyên [Ownership and the use of land in the Central Highlands provinces], Hà Nội: Social science 86 ... mlêi II The structure of family- kinship of the indigenous Ede Kinship system The mother’s line and the father’s line The institutes regarding the kinship system of the Ede are based on the matriarchal... within the limits of the rites of passage of the Ede In other words, I consider cpe cheh in aspects of ritual alcohol when I put it in the context of the rites of passage In cpe-drinking, there... monotheism and polytheism The history of the Ede villages Buôn Dur and buôn Kmăl are the neighboring villages Buôn Dur located next to buôn Kmăl and they belong to the Dur Kmăl commune, Krông Ana district,