The hills above the Quảng Ngãi plain and the upper Tam Kỳ: the Cor of Trà Bồng, who strip the cinnamon, the Hre of Sơn Hà, who carry it down the Trà Khúc, and the villages of Bắc Trà My, the best cinnamon on the coast and one of the two or three things Champa sells that nobody can undercut (board).
Cham boats stop at Sơn Hà and Hre carriers take over (board). Nothing here is fortified and nothing needs to be, because the Cham buy rather than take. The group names are those of the nineteenth and twentieth century; the Chinese and Cham sources of the time use general labels. We use the later name only to say which people the ground is for, and we read their society backwards from later ethnography: villages with headmen and elders, shifting fields, no kings and no towns.
Who holds it
- Title
- Village headmen and councils of elders; no overall chief is known for 1200
- Confidence
- low
Later ethnography read backwards; Chinese trade lists and Cham inscriptions that name hill goods (board)
Overlord
The governor at Châu Sa trades; no tax is recorded.
How things stand that morning
Governing itself under village headmen; the lowland courts trade with it and claim it in name; not pinned further.
Wealth
Cinnamon bark, wax, honey.
Military
Village fighters; no numbers.
Places of note
- Son Ha: Hre exchange
- Tra Bong: Cinnamon hills
- Tra My: Cinnamon valleys
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Chinese trade lists, Cham inscriptions that name hill goods, and ethnography written six centuries later (board); no dated event for 1200.
On the map: A union of modern districts standing for the people's country; there was no border, and the groups overlapped and traded across any line we draw.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA board notes for the Vietnam and Champa area (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.