Wet mountain forest between the Tonle Sap plain and the Gulf, holding cardamom, benzoin, eaglewood, beeswax and resin, and the upland people who gather them (board).
Angkor buys these and never governs the hills. The people are the Pearic-speaking Pear, Chong and Samre, who farm upland rice by swidden, hunt and gather, and, on English Wikipedia's reading, owe cardamom as a tribute duty which the later texts call Pol Kravanh. Their way of life changed after the Khmer built a state round them. The only track over the Cardamoms from Pursat (the Veal Veng track) is ten days of forest with no rice, which is why almost nothing goes that way and the coast is easier to reach by sea.
Modern ethnonyms are used with caution: the evidence for the hill peoples of 1200 is Chinese trade lists, Cham and Khmer stelae naming forest products, Vietnamese notices of campaigns and ethnography of later centuries.
Who holds it
- Title
- Headmen of the hill villages (no name known)
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
English Wikipedia (Chong people; Pear people): the Pearic peoples speak related languages; the Pear live mainly in Pursat, the Chong in Koh Kong, Trat and Chanthaburi; the Pol Kravanh ('cardamom slaves') duty on the Pear of the mountains and the Samre of Mount Kulen 'probably dates back to the end of the first millennium' (an estimate, not a dated source); the earliest dated notice of the Chong is Zhou Daguan (1296), who writes that they do not dwell in houses.
Overlord
Angkor takes cardamom and other goods; the king's writ does not govern the hills.
What it holds
- The cardamom, benzoin, eaglewood, wax and resin of the forest
- Swidden fields and hill villages
- The Veal Veng track
How things stand that morning
Gathering and paying in goods; no event.
Wealth
Cardamom, resin, eaglewood and wax (the goods the Khmer buy).
Places of note
- Veal Veng track: Where the plain ends and the track over the hills begins.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry the-cardamom-forests: 'a raiding and gathering belt'. No raid is dated; we write a gathering country and put the forest in a belt record with that caveat.
- English Wikipedia (Pear people) does not mention the Cardamom Mountains; the page gives Pursat and, in smaller numbers, Preah Vihear and Battambang.
- Map ruling (sheet builder, pass 1): the Cardamom hills are drawn in the peoples' colour over the outline of the Khmer realm in this researcher's own realm record. This record says the Khmer realm does not govern the range, so the narrower record stands over the wider one.
Evidence: Later ethnography and one 1296 notice.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A block round the range; the peoples' villages are not located.
Sources and studies
- English Wikipedia, Chong people
- English Wikipedia, Pear people
- OMNIA board notes for the Khmer and Lao area (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.