Who are the Jarai people?

Question

Who are the Jarai people?

Answer 1

The largest minority group on the central highlands is the Jarai, with a population of roughly 250,000. It's thought that Jarai people left the coastal plains around 2000 years ago, settling on the fertile plateau around Plei Ku, in Kon Tum Province. Some ethnol ogists hold that Cham people are in fact a branch of the Jarai, and they certainly share common linguistic traits and a matrilineal social order. Young Jarai women initiate the marriage proposal and afterwards the couple live in the wife's family home, with children taking their mother's name.  Jarai women typically propose marriage to men through a matchmaker, who delivers the prospective groom a copper bracelet.

Villages are often named for a nearby river, stream or tribal chief and in the centre of each can be found a large stilt house nha-rong, which acts as a kind of community centre where the council of elders and their elected chief meet. Houses are traditionally built on stilts, facing north.  

Animistic beliefs and rituals still abound and the Jarai pay respect to their ancestors and nature through a host of genies (yang) . Popular spirits include the King of Fire (Po Teo Pui) and the King of Water (Po Teo La), whom they summon to bring forth rain. Perhaps more than any of Vietnam s other hill tribes, the Jarai are renowned for their indigenous musical instruments, from stringed 'gongs' to bamboo tubes, which act as wind flutes and percussion.

Animist beliefs are still strong and the Jarai world is peopled with spirits, the most famous of which are the kings of Water, Fire and Wind, represented by shamans who are involved in rain-making cere monies and other rituals. Funeral rites are particularly complex and expensive: after the burial, a funeral house is built over the grave and evocative sculptures of people, birds and objects from everyday life are placed inside.

The Jarai also have an extensive musical repertoire, the principal instruments being gongs and the unique k'longput, made of bamboo tubes into which the players force air by clapping their hands.

During the American War the majority of Jarai villagers moved out of their war-torn homeland; many have been resettled in Plei Ku, and others are only now slowly returning.

http://www.vwam.com/vets/tribes/central....

Answer 2

They are people who like to be called Jarai.

Answer 3

google it

Answer 4

An ethnic group in central Vietnam.

Is Wikipedia down?