Georges Condominas
Encyclopedia
Georges Louis Condominas (29 June 1921 – 17 July 2011) was a French cultural anthropologist. He is best known for his field studies of the Mnong
people of Vietnam
.
(former French Indochina, Vietnam
today). His father was a French officer in the colonial army and his mother has Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese roots. He died in the night of Saturday to Sunday 17 July 2011 from a heart attack at the hôpital Broca in Paris where he had been hospitalized for some time.
, on the southern outskirts of Paris, but kept in touch with his father through letters and photographs. After he graduates, he starts studying law in France. Then he returns in Indochina to work in the colonial administration but give up his job and studies art in Hanoi. During the Japanese occupation he is made prisoner at the Mikado Hotel.
After World war II, he finds his way in ethnology and returns in France to follow the lectures of famous professors of the time such as André Leroi-Gourhan, Denise Paulme or Marcel Griaule at the Musée de l'Homme
, and Maurice Leenhardt at the École pratique des hautes études
in Paris.
, Togo and fulfills several missions in Thailand
, Laos and Cambodia
for the Unesco
.
In 1960, he becomes professor at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris and creates the CeDRASEMI, a French research center focused on South East Asian and the Insulindian world, in 1962.
Condominas is Visiting Professor at Columbia University
and Yale University
between 1963 and 1969. He is Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences of Palo Alto in 1971. He pronounce in 1972 the Distinguish Lecture of the annual session of the American Anthropological Association
, where he denounce the Vietnam War
and the ethnocide of the Mnong
. He was a closed friend of Margaret Mead
, John Embree
and Elisabeth Wiswell Embree.
He is considered as a master of ethnology in Japan, where he was the first foreigner ever to pronounce a speech at the Nihon Minzoku Gakkai, a Japanese anthropological association, for its 50th anniversary.
He is also invited at the Australian National University
in 1987 and at the Japanese university of Sophia in 1992.
His work inspired many books and movies. The record he made of the Mnong music can be heard at the end of Francis Ford Coppola
's Apocalypse Now
, the final scene of which was inspired by Condominas's description of the ritual slaughter of buffalo.
For the opening of the Musée du quai Branly
in 2006, an exhibition is devoted to him and his field of Sar Luk. The exhibition was also presented the next year, in 2007, in Hanoï, Vietnam, with a bilingual catalog.
Today, his working papers, his personal library and his pictures are preserved at the mediatheque of the Musée du quai Branly
, available for scholars and researchers.
Mnong
The Mnong or M'nong are an ethnic group from Vietnam . They can be subdivided into three groups:...
people of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
Biography
Condominas was born in 1921 in HaiphongHaiphong
, also Haiphong, is the third most populous city in Vietnam. The name means, "coastal defence".-History:Hai Phong was originally founded by Lê Chân, the female general of a Vietnamese revolution against the Chinese led by the Trưng Sisters in the year 43 C.E.The area which is now known as Duong...
(former French Indochina, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
today). His father was a French officer in the colonial army and his mother has Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese roots. He died in the night of Saturday to Sunday 17 July 2011 from a heart attack at the hôpital Broca in Paris where he had been hospitalized for some time.
Education
Georges Condominas studied at the Lycée LakanalLycée Lakanal
Lycée Lakanal is a secondary public school in Sceaux, France. It was named after Joseph Lakanal, a French politician, and an original member of the Institut de France. The school also offers a middle school and highly ranked "classes préparatoires" undergraduate training...
, on the southern outskirts of Paris, but kept in touch with his father through letters and photographs. After he graduates, he starts studying law in France. Then he returns in Indochina to work in the colonial administration but give up his job and studies art in Hanoi. During the Japanese occupation he is made prisoner at the Mikado Hotel.
After World war II, he finds his way in ethnology and returns in France to follow the lectures of famous professors of the time such as André Leroi-Gourhan, Denise Paulme or Marcel Griaule at the Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
The Musée de l'Homme was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878...
, and Maurice Leenhardt at the École pratique des hautes études
École pratique des hautes études
The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....
in Paris.
The field of Sar Luk, Vietnam
One of his first ethnologic field is in a Vietnamese village called Sar Luk in the province of Dac Lac. From this experience, he wrote two books:- The first one is entitled We have eaten the forest in 1957. It is noticed by Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
and Edouard GlissantÉdouard GlissantÉdouard Glissant was a Martinican writer, poet and literary critic. He is widely recognised as one of the most influential figures in Caribbean thought and cultural commentary.-Life:...
for its literary qualities. - The second one is entitled L'exotique est quotidien (1965) but hasn't been translated into English so far.
Researches and missions
After this first major field, he studies other fields in MadagascarMadagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
, Togo and fulfills several missions in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Laos and Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
for the Unesco
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
.
In 1960, he becomes professor at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris and creates the CeDRASEMI, a French research center focused on South East Asian and the Insulindian world, in 1962.
Condominas is Visiting Professor at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
between 1963 and 1969. He is Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences of Palo Alto in 1971. He pronounce in 1972 the Distinguish Lecture of the annual session of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
, where he denounce the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the ethnocide of the Mnong
Mnong
The Mnong or M'nong are an ethnic group from Vietnam . They can be subdivided into three groups:...
. He was a closed friend of Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
, John Embree
John Embree
John F. Embree was an American anthropologist and academic who specialized in the study of Japan.-Career:John Embree received his B.A. from the University of Hawaii in 1931, his M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1934 and his Ph.D from the University of Chicago in 1937...
and Elisabeth Wiswell Embree.
He is considered as a master of ethnology in Japan, where he was the first foreigner ever to pronounce a speech at the Nihon Minzoku Gakkai, a Japanese anthropological association, for its 50th anniversary.
He is also invited at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
in 1987 and at the Japanese university of Sophia in 1992.
His work inspired many books and movies. The record he made of the Mnong music can be heard at the end of Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
, the final scene of which was inspired by Condominas's description of the ritual slaughter of buffalo.
For the opening of the Musée du quai Branly
Musée du quai Branly
thumb|225px|Musée du quai BranlyThe Musée du quai Branly , known in English as the Quai Branly Museum, nicknamed MQB, is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly -...
in 2006, an exhibition is devoted to him and his field of Sar Luk. The exhibition was also presented the next year, in 2007, in Hanoï, Vietnam, with a bilingual catalog.
Today, his working papers, his personal library and his pictures are preserved at the mediatheque of the Musée du quai Branly
Musée du quai Branly
thumb|225px|Musée du quai BranlyThe Musée du quai Branly , known in English as the Quai Branly Museum, nicknamed MQB, is a museum in Paris, France that features indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. The museum is located at 37, quai Branly -...
, available for scholars and researchers.
Books
- Nous avons mangé la forêt de la Pierre-Génie Gôo (Hii saa Brii Mau-Yaang Gôo). Chronique de Sar Luk, village mnong gar (tribu proto-indochinoise des Hauts-Plateaux du Viet-nam central), Paris, Mercure de France, 1954 (2nd edition 1974, 2003; paperback edition Flammarion, 1982; transl. Italian, Milan, 1960; Russian, Moscow, 1968; German, Frankfurt, 1969; English, New York, Harmondsworth, 1977 and republished New York and Tokyo, 1994; Japanese, Tokyo, 1993; Vietnamese, Hanoi, 2003; Hungarian, Budapest, in preparation).
- L’ Exotique est quotidien, Sar Luk, Vietnam central, Paris, Plon, 1965 (Collection Terre humaine) (2nd edition 1977; transl. Spanish with preface by Manuel Delgado, Barcelona, 1992).
- Fokon ‘olona et collectivités rurales en Imerina, preface by Hubert Deschamps, Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1960, 234 p., cov. ill map; bibliog. p. 23 1–234 (L’homme d’Outre-Mer. Nouvelle série. 3) (2nd edition ORSTOM, 1991).
- L’Espace social. A propos de l’Asie du Sud-Est, Paris, Flammarion, 1980 (transl. Vietnamese, Hanoi, 1997). Republication underway by Editions Les Indes savantes.
- From Lawa to Mon, from Saa’ to Thai: historical and anthropological aspects of Southeast Asian social spaces, transl. by Stephanie Anderson, Maria Magannon and Gehan Wijeyewardene, Canberra, Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1990, VI-114 p., ill., maps, plan, photographs; glossary (An occasional paper of the department of anthropology, in association with the Thai-Yunnan project).
- L ‘Espace social = Raya thaang sangkhôm, Bangkok, Cahiers de France, 1991 (transl. Thai by Chatchada Ratanasamakarn and Sumitra Baffie).
- Le Bouddhisme au village = Val sonna bot: notes ethnographiques sur les pratiques religieuses dans la société rurale lao (plaine de Vientiane), Vientiane, Cahiers de France, 1998 (transl. Laotian by Saveng Phinith).
Editorship of collective works
- Agriculture et societies en Asie du Sud-Est, Etudes rurales, 53–56, Jan.-Dec. 1974 (co-edited with J. Barrau, L. Bernot and I. Chiva).
- L’Anthropologie en France: situation actuelle et avenir. Acts of the international colloquium organized at the CNRS by G. Condominas and S. Dreyfus-Ganielon, 18–22 April 1977, Paris, CNRS, 1979.
- Disciplines croisées: hommage à Bernard Philippe Groslier, Paris EHESS, 1992 (co-edited by D. Bernot, M.-A. Martin and M. Zaini-Lajoubert).
- Les Réfugiés originaires de l’Asie du Sud-Est: rapport au Président de la République, Paris, La Documentation française, 2 vol. 1982–1984 (CeDRASEMI collective report, edited in collaboration with R. Pottier, duplicated in 1981).
- Formes extrêmes de dépendance: contributions à l’étude de l’esclavage en Asie du Sud- Est, Paris, EHESS, 1998 (co-edited with M.-A. Martin and J. Ivanof).
Filmography
- Sar Luk: les travaux et les jours d’un village mnong gar du Vietnam central, film directed by Georges Condominas and Aiain Bedos based on photos, sung poems collected between 1948 and 1950, and music recorded in 1958 and 1984 (English version translated by Maria Pilar Luna-Magannon).
- [Sar Luk: toils and days of a Mnong Gar village in Central Vietnam: [synopsis], transl. by Maria Pilar Luna-Magannon, film, CNRS-CeDRASEMI, 1984, 14 ff. dact.]
- L’Exotique est quotidien: retour à Sar Luk, directed by Jean Lallier, 16:9 digital telefilm, 16:9 satellite broadcast by France Télévision, VHS videocassette, 52 min., Paris, ADAV / Europe images, Les Films d’ici, Paris, 1996, broadcast by France 2, 1997.
- Nous avons mangé la forêt..., film directed by par Georges Condominas and Jean Lallier, VHS videocassette, 80 min., Le Vidéographe, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail / Les Films d’ici co-production, 1999.
- Le Sacrifice du buffle, film directed by Georges Condominas and Jean Lallier, VHS videocassette, 50 min., Le Vidéographe, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail / Les Films d’ici co-production, 1999.
Discography
- Musique mnong gar du Vietnam (anthologie de musique proto-indochinoise, vol. 1), Paris, OCORA, 1974, 30 cm LP, text by G. Condominas, 10 p. in French and English, notes and bibliog., 12 black-and-white photos, 1 color photo, 1 map (Musée de l’Homme collection, OCORA OCR 80/ ORTF).
- Vietnam: musique des montagnards, le Chant du Monde, CNR 2741085.86, 1997 (Collections of the CNRS and the Musée de l’Homme) [CDI, Jörai (1), Lac (14, 15, 16); CDII, Khmu, 1973 (19, 20, 21)].