The Alak or Hrlak are an

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The te ...

ethnic group of southern

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

, living mainly in Salavan Province. They speak the

Alak language Alak is a language spoken by some 4,000 people in southern Laos, especially in the Provinces of Salavan and Sekong (where the Alak people The Alak or Hrlak are an Austroasiatic ethnic group of southern Laos, living mainly in Salavan Province ...

. Little is known of their history, though as an

-speaking group, their origin is presumably in the Central Highlands of

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

Culture

Nowadays, most Alak live in scattered villages of between ten and sixty houses, traditionally built in a circular pattern around a communal house. Houses are normally built on stilts about a metre high. The main diet and trading staple is

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

, farmed with the

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegeta ...

method, although small game, fish, and various plants and mushrooms provide additional food. Religious beliefs involve a range of supernatural beings, including spirits of mountains, forests and other natural features. Most villages have a

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...

who helps cure the sick and predict the future for the village. The dead are typically buried in

graveyard A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

s in the forest.

Notable members

Ong Keo Ong Keo () led Austroasiatic-speaking minorities (formerly called Mon-Khmer) in what in Thailand was called the Holy Man's Rebellion, where it was a widespread but short-lived cause. Against French and Lao forces, however, Ong Keo continued th ...

Ong Kommandam Ong Kommandam (also Ong Kommadam) was the confidant and successor of Ong Keo as the leader of the Mon-Khmer tribes of southern Laos in their struggle for independence from French and Lao rule. Ong Keo was assassinated in 1910 by the Commissioner o ...

References

*Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.) 2017, ''Ethnologue'' (twentieth edition, online

*Schliesinger, Joachim, ''Ethnic Groups of Laos, vol. 2'', White Lotus 2003,

External links

* http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) * hdl:10050/00-0000-0000-0003-903B-B@view, http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-903B-B@view Alak in RWAAI Digital Archive {{Ethnic groups in Laos Ethnic groups in Laos

Culture

Notable members

See also

References

External links