Word: montagnard
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...collected in 1965 and 1966 in a series of interviews by Susan Sheehan, a New Yorker writer and the wife of Neil Sheehan, who was a New York Times correspondent in Saigon. In addition to this Vietnamese trio, seven other people are presented in the book: a landlord, a Montagnard, an orphan, a Buddhist monk, a Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese soldier, a politician...
What made Dr. Smith's work especially tough was the nature of the people she wanted to help. These were the mountaineers whom the French politely called Montagnards, a people apart from the lowland Vietnamese who sneer at them as moi (savages). In any language they are rebellious, superstitious, troublesome and riddled with diseases. Traveling by Land Rover, the big-boned, blue-eyed doctor sat around the fire in 200-odd Montagnard villages, becoming fluent in their principal dialect, sipping their raw rice wine and occasionally, as a good guest should, eating a native delicacy...
...complex of six whitewashed buildings that are almost as overcrowded as the old dispensary. For its 40 beds there are 120 patients; fortunately, many of them actually prefer to lie on mats on the floor or on porches outside the buildings. There are no minor illnesses. "When a Montagnard comes in from his village," says Dr. Smith, "we take it for granted that he's malnourished, mostly from protein deficiency, that he has intestinal parasites and also malaria. After that, we ask what's wrong with him." Despite the confidence she has won through her skill and insight...
Early this year, Saigon resumed negotiations with the Montagnards, and last week Premier Ky flew to Pleiku with the bill of rights that they had long sought. Already, he had met one of Fulro's demands by setting up a special commission for Montagnard affairs, named a Montagnard to head it. He promised to return tribal lands to Montagnard control, create a special Montagnard pennant to be flown alongside the national flag, and set up an elite highland military force under Montagnard command. Nine Montagnard representatives now sit in Saigon's Constitutional Assembly, and tribal languages are again...
During a three-hour ceremony at Pleiku, Ky sat impassively in his black uniform and lavender scarf, removing his gloves only to put on the brass bracelets that symbolize Montagnard friendship. Solemnly, 250 Montagnard rebels knelt before him to pledge allegiance to the Saigon government. Then, as Ky, a host of government officials, and U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge looked queasily on, the Montagnards poured rice wine over the Premier's boots and slashed a water buffalo to death in honor of the Saigon visitors. Fortunately, the sacrifice took only five minutes rather than the usual hour or more...