The deep love between Cham and Chu Ru

With historical sources, we conducted many field trips to the Chu Ru people to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the Chu Ru and Cham people.

The Chu Ru people live on the lowest slopes of the Central Highlands and they have a special historical fate. This ethnic group has gone through many ups and downs, just like the mountains of the country extending to the sea, it seems that they have deep roots somewhere in the plains. Mr. Ya Loan, a Chu Ru, explained: “In the ancient language, the word “churu” means “land invaders”. Our ancestors were probably coastal people. At some point in the Champa empire, they had to leave their hometowns and homeland”. Perhaps because of that origin, the Chu Ru people today can still speak the Cham language, are good at leading water to the fields to make wet rice, are good at fishing, know how to find good clay to make and bake pottery, know how to cast silver rings, know how to carry goods to trade everywhere. Those occupations are not the strengths of many indigenous ethnic groups in the Central Highlands.

The Chu Ru people have many cultural similarities with the Cham people.

Compared to the Ma, K'Ho, M'nong, Ede... who have lived together for a long time, the Chu Ru are new members of the Central Highlands. That so-called "new" time, according to the hypothesis, was about three or four centuries ago. I turned to documents and anthropology to prove that the Chu Ru and Cham people are both of the Austronesian race, sharing the same Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family. Costumes, musical instruments, folk tales, epics, folk songs, and dances of the Cham and Chu Ru also clearly show the close, intimate relationship between the two ethnic groups. The legend of the Chu Ru people also tells that, during a time of war, the Cham kings and their families were persecuted. On their journey of exile, they chose the land of the Chu Ru people to take refuge, to entrust worship and care for ancestral treasures. Is it because of the kinship and roots that there is trust?

In an article, researcher Nguyen Vinh Nguyen analyzed: “The road connecting Lang Bian plateau with Cai river valley - belonging to Ninh Thuan (old) now Khanh Hoa province - was formerly a remote route passing through steep mountain slopes, sacred forests and poisonous waters. But for the Cham people in the coastal areas of Phan Rang and Phan Ri, it was a secret passage that decided the life and death of the community when this ethnic group was forced into a corner by invading forces. The Cham people called Dran (Lam Dong) Padrang. In the 19th century, the Dran area was the stronghold when the Cham people in Phan Ri and Phan Rang retreated here to take refuge and rebuild their forces every time they were forced into a corner by the Nguyen Dynasty. This explains why the Chu Ru people in the ancient Dran area were deeply imbued with Cham culture, from pottery making to brocade weaving, beliefs and language…”. On the contrary, in Cham folklore, there is still an Ariya (long poem) about a Cham leader named Damnưy Ppo Pan who went to the Chu Ru region in the lower reaches of the Da Nhim River. Instead of nurturing the will to restore the country, he lived a dissolute life with Chu Ru girls, his virtue declined, his career was lost...

There is an interesting thing, Mr. Ya Loan and Mr. Ya Ga in Don Duong area both told about the "Nau drà" (market trips) of the Chu Ru people. Their trips lasted for months. The direction they sought was the coastal region. Perhaps, from such trips to the plains, the Chu Ru people satisfied their nostalgia for the sea in their consciousness, the nostalgia for the origin that their ancestors left long ago to become migratory birds, carrying the fate of their people to the distant mountains and forests?

The sacred entrustment of the Cham people to the Chu Ru people to worship and protect their ancestral treasures is a very clear demonstration.

Old documents show that in the past, Lam Dong officially had three locations containing treasures of the Champa dynasty, all three of which were concentrated living spaces of the Chu Ru people. They were Lobui village (now in Don Duong commune); Krayo temple and Sopmadronhay temple, now in Ta Nang commune. It can be said that there was a historical trust between the Cham and Chu Ru people.

The treasures containing Cham artifacts in Lam Dong were repeatedly surveyed by French historians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, in 1902, two researchers H. Parmentier and IME Durand visited the two temples mentioned above. Before arriving, they went to Phan Ri and asked a former Cham princess to guide them, then the Chu Ru people opened the temple. In 1905, through the research article “Letresor des Rois Chams” in the yearbook “EC cole Francaise Détrêeme Orient”, author Durand announced about the above treasures. In 1929 - 1930, archaeologists visited these treasures and wrote articles about the treasures kept here and published them in the Proceedings of the French Far East Institute, volume 30. In 1955, ethnologist Jacques Dounes, in his book "En sui vant la piste des hounes sur les hauts plateaux du Vietnam" also mentioned in detail about the Cham treasures in the Tuyen Duc region (present-day Lam Dong).

The Chu Ru people built a temple at Karyo to worship the king and queen of Champa.

The most thorough survey of this Cham treasure trove belonged to Professor Nghiem Tham's group in December 1957. During this survey, Mr. Nghiem Tham's group visited all three locations: Lobui village, Krayo temple and Sopmadronhay temple. According to Mr. Nghiem Tham's description at that time, in Lobui there were three places to store Cham treasures: a place to store precious objects, a place to store porcelain and a place to store clothes. There were not many treasures here. In a bamboo basket were 4 silver cups, several small cups made of bronze and ivory. In addition, there were 2 king's hat rims, one made of silver and one made of gold mixed with copper. Porcelain objects such as bowls and plates were placed in a pre-dug hole in a separate house. Most of the porcelain bowls and plates here were common Cham people. As for the clothes, most of them were rotten. The Chu Ru people in Lobui village said that every year in July and September according to the Cham calendar (ie September and November in the solar calendar), Cham representatives from the sea come up to perform worship ceremonies at places where gold, silver, clothes and porcelain are stored in this village.

At the Sópmadronhay temple, from the information on the seals and seals found along with historical research, Mr. Nghiem Tham's delegation assumed that the above seals and seals belonged to a Cham vassal king named Mon Lai Phu Tu. This explanation follows the history of the Nguyen Dynasty, in "Dai Nam Thuc Luc Chinh Bien" and "Dai Nam Chinh Bien Liet Truyen" it is written: In the year Canh Tuat 1790, the son of the Cham king in Thuan Thanh town, Mon Lai Phu Tu, brought his subordinates and people to follow King Gia Long to fight the Tay Son army. He was later appointed to the position of Chief and was given the Vietnamese name Nguyen Van Chieu. But not long after that, Chieu committed a crime and was dismissed from office. Perhaps, after that, Mon Lai Phu Tu brought his relatives to the mountains to take refuge and live with the Chu Ru people. Therefore, the seals, royal costumes and gold and silver utensils of this vassal king were found at the Sópmadronhay temple in the Sop village of the Chu Ru people.

For hundreds of years, the Chu Ru people have remained faithful, kept the Cham people's wishes, and have not forgotten their responsibility to worship the Champa royal family...

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/phong-su-ky-su/202510/moi-tham-tinh-cham-va-chu-ru-9350896/