Raglai people

Population and settlement

The census of 2019 recorded 146,613 Raglai in Vietnam^[1]. The census of 2009 had recorded 122,245, present in 18 of the country's 63 provinces and cities, and the census of 1999 recorded 96,931^[1]. Wikidata records the Raglai as an ethnic group under identifier Q3928451, with linked Wikipedia articles in Vietnamese, English and French^[5].

The 2009 figures by province were Ninh Thuận 58,911, or 48.2 percent of all Raglai in Vietnam, Khánh Hòa 45,915, or 37.6 percent, Bình Thuận 15,440 and Lâm Đồng 1,517^[1]. Ninh Thuận merged into Khánh Hòa on 1 July 2025, so the great majority of Raglai in Vietnam now live in a single province^[4].

Settlement runs along the mountains of the south central coast at heights of around 500 metres^[1]. Within the former Khánh Hòa, more than 75 percent of the province's Raglai lived in Khánh Sơn and Khánh Vĩnh, a catchment with 48 rivers of a few kilometres each, five of them more than 10 km long, and hundreds of streams^[1]. Within the former Ninh Thuận the largest concentration was in Bác Ái, with further communities in Ninh Sơn and Thuận Bắc^[1].

Language

Raglai is a Chamic language within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family, alongside Cham, Chu Ru, Ê Đê and Gia Rai^[1]. The Vietnamese Wikipedia article sets out a comparative table of basic vocabulary across those languages and Malay, showing regular correspondences in the numerals, body parts and common verbs^[1].

Researchers divide the Raglai into a northern and a southern group, with National Highway 27, which runs from the former Ninh Thuận up to Lâm Đồng, taken as the boundary^[1]. Both groups have long-standing exchange with the peoples around them, and with the Cham in particular^[1].

Household, clan and village

Raglai settlement is by bur, a hamlet, or palei, a village, usually placed on level high ground near water^[1]. A palei is commonly a few dozen houses of one lineage, and the household is normally parents and unmarried children^[1]. The head of the village is the pô pa-lây, usually the person who first cleared the land, and the senior figure of the lineage is the kây pa-lây, who directs festivals and common work^[1]. Separate roles cover the forest and swidden land and the settling of disputes under customary law^[1].

Descent and residence are matrilineal: a woman's family arranges the marriage, the husband lives in his wife's house, children take the mother's name, and the youngest daughter inherits the property together with the duty of caring for her parents in old age^[1]. The mother's brother has a recognised voice in marriage decisions^[1]. Where a Raglai man marries into a patrilineal family, the Vietnamese Wikipedia article records that authority in the household shifts to the husband^[1].

Four principal clans are named: Chamalịa, rendered in Vietnamese as Mấu; Pupur, rendered as Tro; Katơr, rendered as Bo Bo; and Pinãng, rendered as Cau or Cao^[1]. Other clan names recorded include Ha Vâu, Patauaxa, Asah, Tala and Taing^[1].

Swidden farming is the main form of production, with maize and rice as the staples, alongside beans, roots and fruit; buffalo, cattle, pigs and chickens are kept, and basketry, smithing and pottery are practised^[1]. Traditional houses are raised on stilts no more than a metre above the ground^[1].

Music and recognised heritage

Raglai instruments recorded in the Vietnamese Wikipedia article include the đàn bầu, the jew's harp, the chapi, the mã la gong set, the stone lithophone and the salaken^[1]. Antiphonal singing is common in village performance, and the Raglai have a body of epic poems, myths and tales^[1].

On 17 April 2014 the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism listed the Raglai Lễ Bỏ mả, the ceremony of leaving the grave, as national intangible cultural heritage under the heading of social customs and beliefs; the form best preserved is that of Ba Cụm Bắc in Khánh Sơn^[2]. The rite includes the kagor, a boat-shaped object set on the roof of the tomb^[2].

Two sets of stone lithophones were found by a Raglai family during the war and handed to the authorities in 1978^[3]. On 18 January 2024 the Prime Minister recognised the Khánh Sơn lithophone collection as a national treasure, by Decision 73/QĐ-TTg^[6]. The two sources disagree on how many objects that decision covered: a vice-chairman of the former Khánh Sơn district quoted by VietnamPlus gives 28 objects and groups of objects^[3], while Vietnamese Wikipedia’s list of national treasures records 29 in the twelfth batch^[6]. The instruments are held by the Khánh Hòa museum, and the musician Nguyễn Phương Đông has made more than 150 replicas from the two original sets since 1979^[3]. The district opened two teaching classes with about 120 pupils from primary to secondary level^[3].

Public figures

Pinăng Tắc (1910 to 1977), from Phước Thành commune in the former Bác Ái district of Ninh Thuận, fought in the wars against France and the United States and was given the title Hero of the People's Armed Forces in May 1965^[1].

Bo Bo Thị Yến, born in 1977 in Sơn Bình commune in Khánh Sơn, sat for Khánh Hòa in the twelfth National Assembly^[1], which the National Assembly's own record of its legislatures dates to 2007 to 2011^[7]; the Vietnamese Wikipedia article gives the term as 2006 to 2011^[1]. Cao Xà Buôn, born in 1945 in Thành Sơn commune in Khánh Sơn, also served as a National Assembly deputy for the province^[1].