Sedang
Sedang
The Sedang (Ha[rh] ndea[ng], Xó dâng) are a group located in the highlands of Gia Lai-Cong Turn Province in Vietnam, centered approximately at 17° N by 107° E. The 1985 census of Vietnam counted 96,766 Sedang. "Sedang" is the French name for the group. They call themselves "Ha(rh) ndea(ng)" and are called "Xό dâng" by the Vietnamese. The actual composition of the group is unclear, with some authorities considering the Danja, Rengao, Ca-Rong, Hre, and Halang as subgroups. The Sedang have had much contact with the Bahnar and other local groups, but they strongly resisted French colonization. Traditional villages consisted of longhouses around a central men's house. The economy is based on a combination of swidden and wet-rice cultivation, with millet being an important secondary crop. The village is the most important social unit, with important intervillage alliances and a fairly rigid social structure of a chief, village headman, household chiefs, shamans, smiths, slaves, animals, and spirits and ghosts. Extended households are still the norm, though they have decreased in size over the course of the twentieth century. The traditional religion focuses on the powerful creators and ghosts, particularly of ancestors.
Bibliography
Devereux, George (1937). "Functioning Units in Ha(rh)ndea(ng) Society." Primitive Man 10:1-8.