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323
and agricultural rites and by the latter for their own religious ceremonies
such as Kate. (The most important ceremony of the year for Balamon,
Kate is held in the seventh month of Sakawi Ahier. Its main function is
the worship of ancestors, including former rulers like Po Klong Girai and
Po Rome.) Sakawi Awal, on the other hand, is used primarily by Bani to
determine the days for their own religious ceremonies, such as Suk Yang
and Suk Ramuwan.
Months
Western Sakawi
Climate months Awal Ahier Ritual practices
8 6 3 Suk Yang/Ndam likhah
rainy (Marriage)
7 4 Suk Yang (in other villages)
8 5 Mak hreh (Visiting graves)
11 9 6 Ramuwan/ Bang muk kei
(serving ancestors)
10 7
2 11
dry 8
12 9 Suk Waha/Ngak karek
(Puberty rite)
5 1 10 Suk Amuran
2 11
3 12
Rainy 4 1 Rija Nagar
5 1
6 2 Suk Yang/ndam likhah
(Marriage)
7 3 Suk Yang
with an extra day added at the end of a leap year. Sakawi Ahier also
appears to be utilized as an agricultural almanac: people traditionally
ascertain the correct time at which cultivation should commence by
observing the movement of the stars. The days in a month are counted
not from the 1st to the 30th but from the 1st to the 15th for the rst half
of the month (from new moon to full moon), and again from the 1st to
the 15th for the second half (from full moon to new moon). The period
of the rst half is locally referred to as Bingun and that of the second half
is called Kanam. Bingun and Kanam are symbolically classied as Ahier
and Awal respectively. Additionally, each day of the seven-day week is
also classied as Awal or Ahier, as listed in Table 2. This structure has
enabled the people to decide on Wednesday as the most suitable day for
the marriage ritual or the act of building a new house, both of which are
related to the aspect of creation.
Sakawi Ahier also has a 12-year cycle called Nthak, which is a
concept similar to that of the 12 animal zodiac signs found in many Asian
cultures (Table 3).
It can be said that Sakawi Awal is more relevant for the Bani; however,
the Balamon also acknowledge it because it relates to the leap year of
Sakawi Ahier. It is also related to Balamon customs to the extent that while
the taboo period is in effect for the Bani, the Balamon must also desist
from killing animals during their rituals or ceremonies. However, this
custom is not always followed by every Cham community. Some religious
leaders complain about this situation, stating that Bani and Balamon are
not as respectful of each other as they were before.
Table 5 shows the rst day of each month as well as the leap years.
The year Lieh starts from Suk, which is the rst day of the rst month of
the rst year of Ikessarak, or Friday. This table also shows three leap years
Hak, Dal and Jim Luic which represent the second, fth and eighth
years respectively of the Ikessarak. While the rule stating that Ikessarak
commences from Friday appears to be common knowledge among the
Cham leaders, the matter of setting the leap year in Ikessarak has proven to
be problematic. To the best of my knowledge, at least two different patterns
are used to interpret the leap year (Table 4) within Bani communities. An
interpretation like Pattern 1 corresponds to Table 5. However, there are
other interpretations, like Pattern 2, in which leap years are set on the
rst, third and sixth years of Ikessarak. One explanation of the method of
setting leap years like in Pattern 2 is as follows:
There is a principle that each religious leader has to calculate the leap
year from the 20th midnight of Ramuwan. That is, if the 20th midnight
of Ramuwan does not correspond to the rst day of the rst month
of the following year, otherwise the year is considered to be a leap
year. For example, the 20th midnight of Ramuwan of the year Lieh
is a Tuesday, which corresponds to the rst day of the rst month of
the year of Hak, hence the year of Hak is considered to be a normal
year. On the other hand, the 20th midnight of Ramuwan in the year of
Hak is a Saturday, which does not correspond to the rst day of the
rst month of the year Jim, Sunday, hence the year Jim is considered
to be a leap year.12
Naming of Years
As mentioned above, the Sakawi era does not have a system of continuous
dating for years. Therefore, people generally use the Western dating system
to represent a year on the printed Sakawi calendar owned by the Cham
intellectuals and religious leaders. Furthermore, people also represent the
Sakawi year with a set of appellations of Ikessarak of Sakawi Awal and
Month
Added day
12 (Kaleh Waha)
11
10
9 (Ramuwan)
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1 (Amu haram)
Ikessarak
Tho Tha Suk But Ang Dit Tha Jip But Tho Dit Suk Lieh
Tha Suk But Ang Dit Tha Jip But Tho Dit Suk Jip Ang Hak
But Tho Dit Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Suk But Ang Dit Jim
Dit Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Suk But Ang Dit Tha Jip Jay
Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Suk But Ang Dit Tha Jip But Tho Dal
Ang Dit Tha Jip But Tho Dit Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Bak
Tha Jip But Tho Dit Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Suk But Wao
Jip But Tho Dit Suk Jip Ang Tho Tha Suk But Ang Dit Jim Luic
Notes: Dit (Adit) = Sunday; Tho (Thom) = Monday; Ang (Angar) = Tuesday; But = Wednesday; Jip = Thursday; Suk = Friday; Tha
(Thanchar) = Saturday.
1/17/11 11:35:23 AM
332 Yoshimoto Yasuko
power has been vested in him by the provincial ofce of the Fatherland
Front (Mt trn T quc, the State organization which oversees religious
activities), and he is a member of that organization. As a representative
of the Bani communities, he plays an active role on occasions such as
ofcial meetings for improving or preserving traditional culture. Therefore,
it is the On Yew who makes the nal decisions on Sakawi within the Bani
community in Bnh Thun, even though each Po Gru exercises authority in
his own village. In Ninh Thun, by contrast, there is no On Yew or anyone
equivalent in prominence among the Bani community. Another difference
is that while the Bani in Bnh Thun hold an annual ceremony called Suk
Yang, those in Ninh Thun celebrate it only during leap years. So far no
explanation can be found for these differences.
In the case of the Balamon, the highest-ranking religious expert, Po
Dhia, is authorized to decide matters relating to religious rituals as well
as Sakawi. Unlike the Bani Po Gru, a Po Dhia does not exist in each
village; there is only one for all of Bnh Thun province. In Ninh Thun,
three people have equal authority to decide on matters concerning Sakawi;
however, I am uncertain whether they are all Po Dhia.
The disunity in the Sakawi has been revealed not only between
the two religious groups but also within the same group. For example,
there was a two-month gap between the Balamon communities in Bnh
Thun and Ninh Thun, so they used to celebrate the Kate the biggest
annual Balamon ceremony, held on the 1st day of the 7th month in
Sakawi Ahier on different days. This disunity was not in accordance
with the governments view that all members of an ethnic group should
celebrate the groups traditional ceremony together. Therefore, in 1987
a meeting was organized under the direction of the local government
in order to ensure that all the Balamon people would celebrate Kate on
the same day. Following this meeting, the two-month gap between the
Sakawi Ahier in the two provinces was resolved. However, it is said that
this solution created another gap in the Sakawi Ahier, this time between
Bani and Balamon in Bnh Thun.
Moreover, there has been polarization within the Bani community
in Ninh Thun over the xing of the leap year. As mentioned above,
the Bani in that province celebrate a ceremony called Suk Yang in every
leap year; however, the two sides organized the ceremony in different
years. Therefore, in 2001 a meeting was held in Ninh Thun to rectify this
difference. At the Suk Yang ceremony the following year, it was ofcially
announced that the two sides had resolved the problem and that the
Sakawi Cham in Ninh Thun was totally unied.13 However, in 2003,
some people were still in disagreement. Although several similar meetings
have been held to unify the Sakawi Cham, debate over this issue is still
ongoing among the South-Central Cham.
CONCLUSION
As mentioned in the introduction, the South-Central Cham have been
monolithically represented in previous ethnographic descriptions. The
Sakawi Cham has been regarded, both within and outside the community,
as a part of orthodox culture that has been inherited from the traditional
culture of Champa. I have examined the Sakawi Cham based on
observations made through eld research in order to understand it from
local perspectives. Sakawi Cham, which is used among the members
of both the Bani and Balamon communities, is depicted in intellectual
narratives as a symbol of unication between the two groups, the
relation between the two groups being explained through the notion of
Ahier and Awal. Nevertheless, in practice, the Sakawi Cham itself is not
Notes
1. Rie Nakamura, Cham in Vietnam: Dynamics of ethnicity, Ph.D. diss.,
University of Washington, 1999.
2. The current number of ethnic groups and the three criteria for classication
were dened only in 1979. For a discussion of the historical evolution of
the Cham ethnic category, see Yoshimoto Yasuko, Minzoku hanchu to
Chamu hyosho: Betonamu no jirei kara [Ethnic category and representation
of Cham in Vietnam], Popurusu [Populus] 1 (2002): 4476.
3. For example, tienne Aymonier and Antoine Cabaton, Dictionnaire cam-
franais (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1906), pp. xxixxxxi; Nguyn Khc Ng,
Kho cu lch Chm [A study of the Cham calendar], Vn-ha -Chu
[Asian Culture] 1 (1958): 5165; Trng Vn Mn, Lch ngi Chm
Thun Hi [The calendar of the Cham in Thun Hi] (Lun vn Tt
nghip ngnh Dn tc hc, Trng i hc Lt, 1991); Trng Vn
Sinh, S lc v cch tnh lch Chm [Outline of Cham calendar
calculation], TAGALAU 1 (H Ch Minh City: Hi Vn hcNgh thut cc
Dn tc Thiu s Vit Nam, 2000), pp. 16571.
4. In fact, the Cham people do not use the word Balamon among themselves;
instead, they usually use just Cham to refer specically to those that the
Vietnamese designate as Balamon, which is the Vietnamese rendering of
Brahman; see Nakamura, Cham in Vietnam. I am using the term here
to make the distinction clearer between the two groups.
5. See, for example, Phan Xun Bin, Phan An and Phan Vn Dp, Vn ho
Chm [Cham culture] (Hni: Khoa hoc X hi, 1991), pp. 285, 300.
6. See, for example, Thnh Phn, T chc tn gio v x hi truyn thng
ca ngi Chm Bni vng Phan Rang [Religious organization and
traditional society of the Cham Bani in the Phan Rang area], Tp san Khoa
hc [Scientic Review] 1 (1996); and Nakamura, Cham in Vietnam,
pp. 83103.
7. For further details, see Rie Nakamura, Awar-Ahier: Two keys to understanding
the cosmology and ethnicity of the Cham people (Ninh Thun Province,
Vietnam), in Champa and the Archaeology of My Sn (Vietnam), ed.
Andrew Hardy, Mauro Cucarzi and Patrizia Zolese (Singapore: NUS Press,
2009), pp. 78106.
8. For an overview of the arrival of Islam among the Cham, see Pierre-
Yves Manguin, Lintroduction de lIslam au Campa, Bulletin de lcole
Franaise dExtrme-Orient 66 (1979): 25587.
9. For a discussion on the derivation of the Champa calendar, see Sugimoto
Naojiro, Indochina-ni okeru Indo-bunka no Bochimondai: Rekihou wo
Chushin toshite [The problem of the origins of Indian culture in Indochina,
with a focus on the calendar], Tonan Ajiashi Kenkyu 1 [Studies on Southeast
Asian history] (Tokyo: Gennando, 1956): 14369.
10. Interview at the Editorial Ofce of Cham Language Texts (Ban Bin san
Sch Ch Chm), Ninh Thun province, August 1996.
11. Takahashi Muneo, Jawareki no taikei to sono henkaku [The system of
Jawa calendar and its reformation], Koyomi to kurashi: Daisan Sekai
no rodo rizumu [Calendar and life: Working time in the Third World], ed.
Kojima Reiitsu and Oiwakawa Futaba (Tokyo: Ajia Keizai Kenkyusho,
1987), pp. 7785.
12. Interview with a Bani religious leader, Bc Bnh district, Bnh Thun
province, June 2000.
13. Yoshimoto Yasuko, 2002-nen, Nintuan-syo no Sukjan ni Sanka shite: Sakawi
Cham no toitsu to iu dekigoto [Unication of the Cham calendar: A note
based on participation in the Suk Yang ritual], Betonamu no shakai to bunka
[Vietnamese society and culture] 4 (2003): 2858.
14. See Sinh, S lc v cch tnh lch Chm.