Tu Chi and His Uncompleted Desire of the Dong Son Sun in Vietnam Central Highlands

Abstract

The author transcribes some sections of an unpublished fieldwork manuscript owned by the renouned Vietnamese ethnologist Nguyen Tu Chi to express his feelings about the late ethnologist. At the same time, the author hopes that in the near future Tu Chi’s work will continue to have relevance to Vietnamese communist anthropology. This article is divided into two main parts: 1) Notes of the Banar and Gia-rai ethnic minority sepulchers and statues fixed around the sepulchers copied out from the Nguyen Tu Chi’s posthumous manuscript; and 2) Comments on figures, documentary pictures and illustrations decorated on the roof of a Gia-rai sepulcher in the Central Highlands (a section copied out from the Nguyen Tu Chi’s posthumous manuscript). From reading this article it is easy for the readers to recognize many interesting information of the sepulchers and statues fixed around the sepulchers as well as related spiritual faith; at the same time there are many unanswered questions that requires further study