The Khmer Lands of Vietnam: Environment, Cosmology and Sovereignty

Chapter 2: Coastal River-Dune Complex: A Narrative Confederation

68 The Khmer Lands of Vietnam 68 2 Coastal River-Dune Complex: A Narrative Confederation The coastal dune belt extends south of the Bassac River into the present-day provinces of Soc Trang [Khleang] and Bac Lieu [Plieu]. Discussion of this region so far has focused on its northern half, centred in Preah Trapeang, or Tra Vinh. However, the Khmer-populated coastal area south of the Bassac possesses unique characteristics that merit treating it as separate region (see Map 1). The southern half of the coastal dune belt shares with the north a surface water regime of alternating freshwater/saltwater incursions. As in the north, groundwater is too salty to drink. Here again, Khmers reside in great numbers along phno, the ancient coastal dunes that run parallel to the shoreline. The phno are elevated platforms for settlement in an inundated region. As natural reservoirs of fresh water, they are tapped by wells and communal ponds that sustain human life and allow horticulture to be practised in a maritime setting. These elongated sand ridges also serve as inter-settlement communications routes.1 As in the north, the dune belt is encompassed by major waterways, interlaced by internal water routes, and linked into oceanic trade routes. There are, however, some telling differences. Rainfall in the southern half of the coastal dune belt is higher than in the north and the rainy season lasts up to a month longer.2 On the other hand, there are fewer phno in the south, and they are on average lower than those in the north. The low elevation impedes their functions as dry residential platforms and as natural reservoirs of subsurface fresh water. Yet they retain enough water to make residence possible, Coastal River-Dune Complex: A Narrative Confederation 69 and the difference they make is critical, given the pronounced salty water conditions of the southern part of this region. The dune belt in the south runs close to the sea. The most westerly phno is just 40 kilometres from the coastline.3 The phno in the south are spaced more widely apart than those in the north. The depressions between the ridges are much broader and a greater proportion of land in the region is covered seasonally by brackish water and by permanent salt marshes.4 Finally, the tidal rivers that snake between the phno are longer and wider than those in the north. They open the region to the sea and, during the dry season, serve as an efficient conduit for saline water to infiltrate the entire region. Another characteristic of this maritime region is its apparent ecological incoherence. One set of Khmer villages clusters along the present-day shoreline. The lives, ritual practices and mythic consciousness of these villagers are intricately bound up with the sea. Another set lies along dunes in the interior separated from the shore by a vast salt marsh. Residents here consider the sea both dangerous and, fortunately, far away from where they live and work. Complicating matters further, most Khmer villages in this region are not on phno at all. Instead they are found along the region’s seasonally saline rivers, dispersed from the headwaters of these rivers to their mouths. The lives of the Khmers of these scattered and ecologically distinct localities differ so markedly that one might wonder if they have anything in common at all. Perhaps the most striking feature of this Khmer-settled region is its outgoing character. The southern coastal complex is economically the most dynamic region of Kampuchea Krom. The Khmers of this region are renowned for the production of surpluses for commercial sale, and for their entrepreneurial capacities. A good number of the large thriving enterprises lining the roads and rivers are owned by people who identify as Khmer. Khmers of this region are renowned among their peers as enterprising travellers and migratory labourers who frequently are to be found in other regions working as agricultural labourers and skilled artisans. Theirs is also a strikingly cosmopolitan region where people of different ethnicities and languages mingle with comparative goodwill. Khmer locals proudly contrast their openness, customary hospitality to strangers and facility in three languages to the more monocultural, closed ethos prevailing in Cambodia and in the Khmer-settled areas north of the Bassac River. 70 The Khmer Lands of Vietnam Considered together these characteristics raise a number of puzzling questions. Living among the mud flats and salt marshes of the...