Members of the Tampuan indigenous ethnic group gather for a traditional funeral in northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri Province. Alisa Lukina
The Tampuan people, who number over 31,000, are one of Cambodia’s many distinct indigenous ethnic groups.
They live in northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri Province, where they’ve maintained close-knit communities for generations.
Their language, part of the Bahnaric group of the Austroasiatic family, is still widely spoken. While children are taught in Khmer, Cambodia’s official language, Tampuan remains the main language used for daily communication. Recent expeditions by Russian anthropologists in May and November 2023 gathered valuable linguistic and cultural data, especially on the Tampuan’s funeral practices.
I have produced a set of visual anthropology materials that document a traditional Tampuan funeral.
This short film, titled The House Where Khmaoch Lives, includes rare footage of the ceremony, featuring a narrative delivered in the Tampuan language by Suvannkiri, the head of Phumphnom village.
The narrative was carefully transcribed and translated by Sergey Dritrenko and Irina Samarina, my colleagues at the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Saint-Petersburg and Moscow.
Graves are referred to as “houses”, and they are often built to resemble a simple home with a gabled roof, as seen here. Alisa Lukina
The Khmer word khmaoch can mean “evil spirit” or “ghost,” but its primary meaning is “dead person.” The phrase “house where the dead live” reflects the Tampuan belief that death is a transition to another state of being. In their language, they refer to a grave as a “house” (hey in Tampuan), and the graves are often built to resemble a simple home with a gabled roof.
This short film offers a rare glimpse into this rich cultural tradition, portraying death not as an end, but as a continuation of life in another world.
More snapshots of my time among the Tampuan can be seen on my personal Instagram account, found here, and on my personal Telegram channel, here.
Alisa Lukina is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)
