About the link of origins between the inhabitants in the south in ancient times and some ethnic groups in the central highlands

Abstract

The South of Vietnam is an area of plains; however, it has special features not only in Vietnam, but also world-wide as it is the place where a lot of ethnic groups live, leading to multi-religion and multi-culture. The history of formation and development of the land is closely associated with the process of reclaiming virgin soil, building up villages, expanding the territory to establish, to enforce and to defend sovereignty of communities whose dominating role lies in the Viet’s hands. Due to the South’s special characteristics and big significance to the country development, there have been a lot of researches to affirm the cultural values of the communities living in the land, contributing to the enrichment of the Vietnamese culture. On the other hand, there are also researches on a bigger scale which cover the whole region revealing a lot of evidences from the first inhabitants as well as their cultures. These inhabitants, as far as anthropological type and culture are concerned, are close to the ethnic groups of the Malayo-Polynesian language family.

The expansion of territory, establisment as well as enforcement and protection of sovereignty of the Nguyen Loads and Nguyen Dynasty received positive and effective contribution from inhabitants of different ethnic groups out of whom the Viet played the dominating role. The paper, based on the materials and my knowledge, presents the link of origins between the inhabitants in the South in ancient times and some ethnic groups in the Central highlands in order to clarify the formation process of the Southern communities.