The basalt plateau of Đắk Lắk: longhouse villages under their own headmen, owing nothing to Vijaya or to Angkor (board).
Eaglewood, wax, horn and captives come off it in both directions, to the Cham ports on the east and down the Srêpốk to the Khmer on the west. There is no political centre to take and no wall to knock down, which is why neither empire holds it (board). Elephants are taken and broken in the open forest at Ban Don. From memory, and not checked, the Cham inscriptions of the twelfth century name a people called the Radeh among the hill folk the Cham king fought; if that is right the Rade were already known by name.
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
Neither empire rules; the Cham ports and the Khmer both buy.
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
Eaglewood, ivory, horn, elephants, captives.
Military
Village fighters; no numbers.
Places of note
- Buon Ma Thuot: Plateau
- Ban Don: Elephant country on the Srepok
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.