Most highlanders in Ratanakiri are animist and practice slash-burn agriculture. They farm rice and grow vegetable, and raise water buffalo and cows. They also hunt, using crossbows with poison-tipped bamboo arrows. Sacrifice to the numerous animal spirits of the forest is common, and regularly performed for any special events such as marriage, the construction of a new thatch-roofed hut, or a move to a new village location. At these events a feast is held, a pig sacrificed and large quantities of rice wine consumed.
At these gatherings the spirits believed to take a possession of certain individuals, who in a trance lose their own personality and take on that of the spirit, acting out a particular animist trait. Pries tesses regarded as the spiritual healers contact ancestral spirits and relay dreams.
Highland women enjoy as much freedom as men. They are free to divorce a husband who is cruel, and decisions on childbirth are the exclusive domain of women. If an unmarriageable women finds herself pregnant, she is not disgraced the man responsible, if not willing to marry, must reimburse the woman’s family. The going rate is four buffaloes, some pigs, a few chickens and rice wine. Although some hilltribers don Khmer dress, others retain traditional wear.
Krung tribeswomen wear sarongs, go bare breasted, and smoke-stemmed pipes. Brou tribeswomen have large pierced earlobes and wearing earrings sculpted from chunky ivory tusks.
Their faces are tattooed and they wear bead necklaces and brass anklets. Ban Lung, population 10,000, is the principal town in Ratanakiri province, and lies 155 km east of Stung Treng. There may be direct flights into Bang Lung. The hotel in Bang Lung charges $5 a room; the town has a post office and bank. You can get to Bang Lung in five or seven hours, but the road may be washed out in the May - November monsoon season. In parts of Ratanakiri, the only vehicles that move during the rainy season are oxcarts and elephants.
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