Yang, forest animism, and environmental perception among the Bahnar in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

In this paper, we explore Animism-Knowledge of nature spirits, and reciprocal relations among humans and non-humans-as a framework that the Bahnar people of Vietnam use for thinking about and interacting with their forest environment. Our case study is based on extended fieldwork among and consultation with the Bahnar people of the Central Highlands, who weave reciprocity with the spirit world into daily activities such as architecture, foodways, forest wayfinding, gong playing, plant gathering, agriculture, and river navigation. Understanding about the spirit world's relations to the local environment and people is encoded in the Bahnar language through the lexicon-especially the emic concept yang which denotes spirits or deities-and is transmitted via metaphors, wise sayings, songs, stories, placenames, gong music, and epic tales by people who occupy diverse social roles. We hypothesize that the Bahnar human-spirit-environment cosmology is the primary lens through which they perceive nature and guides their daily interactions with it. We consider how their ancestral cosmology may additionally position the Bahnar as stewards of biodiversity and practitioners of sustainable living.