January 2021

On August 2, 1914, on the eve of Germany’s declaration of war on France, the explorer Henri Maitre and 26 of his men were slain in Bu Nor by the Mnông of the Yok Laych plateau, Dak Nong province, south Vietnam. From September 1914 to 1935, there was an armed rebellion in the Mnông area, making it impossible for the French to return to Bu Nor. In December 1940, André Baudrit and Théophile Gerber discovered Maitre’s tomb with a kapok tree growing on it: “... they leaned their victim's head on a kapok cushion found in the luggage. It would be one of the seeds contained inside this cushion which would have germinated. Thus, Providence marked with a tree – rare in the forest – the resting place of this pioneer of French expansion in the Moï hinterland.”

In January 1943, not far away at a place known as the three-borders knob (the ancient border between Annam, Cambodia and Cochinchina), Admiral Jean Decoux, the Governor-General of French Indochina, inaugurated a monument in honor of Maitre. Designed by J.-Y Claeys of the École française d’Extrême-Orient, the monument symbolizes a Proto-Indochinese sacrifice pole.

Secret Indochina begins 2021 by evoking the life of Henri Maitre, whose fieldwork has guided our research for many years. Maitre was the preeminent explorer of the central Indochinese high plateau (central Highland); from 1905 to 1914, he travelled the Dac Lac plateau, the Jarai country as far as Kratie in Cambodia, the Lang Biang mountains, the Sedang country in the north, and the closed Cau Maa’ country in the south. He published two books: les Régions moï du Sud Indochinois and Les Jungles moï.

Between 1905 and 1908, Maitre carried out an initial series of missions to explore the entire high plateau to allow the colonial administration to cut roads and establish military posts, as well as subdue and federate the Proto-Indochinese. His first mission was to southeastern Dac Lac, passing through the Lang Biang mountains and particularly uneven parts of the Annamese Cordillera before reaching Phan Rang. In July 1906, he travelled through the Ban Don – region of the Edé (Rhadé) and elephant hunters – and further north, surveyed the Yang Prong Cham tower. Maitre then traversed the country of the Bih people, a region of lakes, swamps, and thick forests (today the Lak-Lak and Nam Kaa area of southern Dac Lac). There, he was irresistibly drawn to the foothills of the Yok Laych plateau, sealing his destiny as an explorer.

In December 1906, he travelled through the impenetrable undergrowth of Chu Tu Sap (Khanh Vinh district, Khanh Hoa province), connecting Dac Lac and Khanh Hoa, before finding the sources of the Song Cho and Song Cai. At the beginning of 1907, he embarked on a long voyage of discovery between North Vietnam, Danang and Nha Trang, before surveying the Srepok River up to its mouth, at the level of Kratie in Cambodia.

In March 1907, Maitre crossed the Yok Laych plateau for the first time. The Yok Laych (High Chhlong) – also known as the Herb Plateau (Plateau des Herbes) and the Roof of Indochina – is a vast basalt dome that stretches west of Dak Nong to the northwest of Binh Phuoc and east of Mondulkiri, once the heart of Mnông country. It features a series of small hills with meadows and wooded valleys. The southern Yok Laych is covered by the Bu Gia Map evergreen forests, now a national park. In February 1908, Maitre delineated the border between Phu Yen and Dac Lac – the region of the Ayunpa and Song Ba rivers and territory of the Sadets, fiercely local kings of fire opposed to any submission.

Maitre concluded his first missions by exploring the Upper Krông Knô in greater depth and then embarked for France. There, he published his first work, Les Régions Moï du Sud Indochinois - le Plateau du Darlac, which won him the Armand Rousseau Prize from the Société de Géographie de Paris.

Maitre often travelled light without heavily armed escorts. He undertook his first missions with just two or three trackers, later adding a few Khmer or Edé militiamen. He tirelessly collected notes and information, drew maps, made catalogues, and built posts – essentially carrying out the first large-scale anthropologic study of the Proto-Indochinese. He sailed unknown waters and fearlessly entered unexplored massifs where fevers and tigers were rampant. Danger was everywhere.

His works show his fascination and apprehension with the forest, as in this extract from page 57 of Les Jungles moï: “... for a moment the furious barring of an elephant bursts into the night and suddenly in this intense darkness, where the wind roars, where the threats of the jungle creep in, one feels overwhelmed by an immense sensation of complete isolation, of absolute solitude and, cut off from all relations with the outside world, one has the strange impression of being ignored, lost and forgotten in a dreamland from which one may never leave.”

His words paint a picture of a land of dreams, death, and paradoxes; it is clear he loves the country deeply, but at the same time recognizes it as potentially murderous. Maitre is fascinated by the natural environment of the Proto-Indochinese, their remarkable adaptability, their grace, and resignation in the face of adversity. His adventures, encounters, responsibility to his mission of pacification, and growing commitment combined to become a fatal addiction.

He is aware this is a journey of no return, as he writes on page 127 of Les Jungles moï: “... life in the bush is a terrible mistress and, like opium, bewitches and tyrannizes, dispensing to his lovers the rarest joys, the most poignant emotions and refined and precious pains on a par with his strangest voluptuousness.”

Maitre led a second series of missions, during which he refined his initial research, explored the furthest reaches of the high plateau, established posts, and attempted to subdue the Yok Laych Mnông rebels. After his stay in France, he returned to Saigon on January 13, 1909, before traveling on to Phnom Penh by river. In Cambodia, administrator Louis Paul Luce entrusted Maitre with the mission of exploring the region between the Dong Nai, Srepok, and Mekong rivers.

In March 1907, he reached Bu Sra where, despite the resistance of the Mnông, he established a post that would be his future rear base. He then discovered the sources of the Song Be and Dak Dam rivers at the center of the Yok Laych plateau, venturing near Bu Nor to the Nam Nung massif and collecting stories of strange woodsmen on the way. He then explored the Middle Song Be (the Cochinchinese peneplain), a partly unsubdued country controlled by the Stieng.

On another mission, he connected Phan Thiet with Djiring, residence of his friend Cunhac, delegate of the canton. In addition to subjecting the Mnông country, Maitre had a second, equally ambitious project that eventually brought about his death: to explore the Middle Dong Nai river, the Nggar Maa’ – Nggar Yaang of the Cau Maa’ people. All previous French missions had failed in the region west of Djiring, notably Lt Gautier in 1882 and Patté in 1904. It was a closed, sacred country considered by surrounding peoples to be the Heart of the Domain of the Genies, a local Heart of Darkness, and at the time guarded by the Maa’ Huang, a sub-group of the Cau Maa’.

Maitre organized an initial mission there and along the northern part of the left bank, although not without difficulty. The Dong Nai River (the Daa’ Dööng of the Maa’) snakes west before forming a majestic loop, then flows towards the southeast and its delta. In the big loop – a notch in one of the last massifs of the high plateaus – the river has a muddy, capricious flow with gorges, falls and rapids. On its banks lie the Domain of the Genies, a dense forest that spreads out over a narrow network of steep ridges. According to the Maa’, the forest is the land of Genesis and the primordial spirits, as Jean Boulbet writes in his 1967 work Land of the Maa’. Domain of the Genies - Nggar Maa’, Nggar Yang: “... in the Bördee Heights is inscribed the history of all beginnings. Everything is sacred and at the same time magnificent, curious and terrible, everything is a mixture of wonderful and fearsome.”

During the rest of the dry season, Maitre travelled through the center and north of the high plateau, the country of the Jarai and Bahnar, where he met Father Kemlin. He continued along the Sesan, then passed into Laos and Attapu, where the Sekong descends before joining Champassak and Khone. He spent the autumn of 1909 consolidating the post of Bu Sra and carrying out a mission near Lak-Lak. From January 17 to February 8, 1910, Maitre again explored the great loop of the Dong Nai and followed it until its exit at the modern district of Cat Tiên. He undertook this mission with only four militiamen, avoiding the hostile Dip and Maa Huang villages as much as possible. He sailed on a makeshift raft and then two pirogues, avoiding confrontation and focusing on speed, leaving little time for the Huang warriors to react.

Passages in Les Jungles moï and a letter dated February 8, 1910 to his friend Cunhac attest to the extreme conditions of this mission: “... for 72 kilometers we went down the river bordered by many villages which all received us weapons in hand and refused us the slightest bowl of rice; in the evening we camped at the top of the steep banks as far as possible from the hamlets and we hid the pirogues.”

After Maitre’s mission, the great loop would remain closed. Feared by all, it was described as an explorer’s tomb and a back jungle. It was not until 1952 that Jean Boulbet, ethnographer of the Cau Maa’, was able to enter and leave unharmed.

In 1911, Maitre was appointed a second-class clerk in the Civil Service and took a long leave of absence. During this time, he married and wrote his most famous work, Les Jungles Moï (Editions Larose, 1912), for which the Société de Géographie de Paris awarded him the Pierre Félix Fournier prize.

In 1914, while Maitre was away in Djiring for a few days, his Cambodian militiamen raped the wife and daughter of Pu Trang Long, a Mnông Biöt chief (also named Pu Trang Leung or N’Trang Long). The Mnông took revenge by killing two of the militiamen, while the other militiamen returned to the village and mutilated the two women to death. In retaliation, the Mnông decimated the garrison. On his return from Djiring, Maitre agreed to visit the village of Bu Nor to negotiate peace and meet the elusive Pu Trang Long. In fact, the chief – an accomplice of Rding and the Biöt clan of Bu Nor – was determined to get rid of the decidedly too enterprising Maitre.

In the fortified village of old Bu Nor, located slightly above the Upper Dak Nglen river, the Mnông chiefs gathered more than 150 warriors. Maitre likely arrived there on August 2 around 7 am, left his elephants outside, and entered the mousetrap. The delegation settled in a dark narrow Mnông house where the chiefs and some of their men were gathered. One chief prepared the sacrifice of peace, in which weapons would be laid down and anointed with the blood of a sacrificed buffalo and the rönööm, alcohol from a jar.

With the weapons stored near the door, Maitre was surprised to find that Pu Trang Long was not there. A few moments later, he approached the jar, sat down on a paddy mortar, and prepared to drink when a man appeared in front of him and said: “You wanted to see Pu Trang Long, now look, he is in front of you.” The man took out a long blade from under a blanket and stabbed Maitre in the heart. Rding probably also hit Maitre before he collapsed with a deep groan.

The ten Edé militiamen of Maitre’s escort were slain and their corpses thrown into two pits between the village and the Dak Nglen. Maitre and his servant were buried nearby. In spite of their treachery, the Mnông placed a kapok cushion under the explorer’s head as a token of respect. They then attacked and burned the post of Méra, killing seven Edé militiamen and two others hiding in the bush.

With the death of Maitre, his nearly completed third book also vanished – a unique and precious testimony that was, according to him, superior to Les Jungles moï.

While Maitre’s death was a direct consequence of the rape of the daughter and wife of Pu Trang Long, there are other factors that indirectly led to his death. In addition to the impact of colonization, Maitre’s decision to cross the Domain of Genies was widely viewed as a desecration, according to Jean Boulbet. Also, the Mnông perhaps naively wanted to eliminate the one person they viewed as the instigator of all their problems, despite the fact that other explorers of the high plateau suffered the same fate.

The tale evokes the cold determination of Pu Trang Long, a Mnông warrior fiercely attached to his freedom. He was a visionary who was occasionally (and incorrectly) presented as a pot-bellied pirate with supernatural powers, well aware of the mercantilism hidden behind the pacification campaigns, who became the inspiration for future Vietnamese liberation movements.

In 2012, after bibliographical and field research, Secret Indochina rediscovered the lost tomb of Henri Maitre and his kapok tree, located in a forest in Dak R’Tih, Dak R’Lap district, in the southwest of Dak Nong province near the Cambodian border. Read more about Henri Maitre here: LINK