Xo Dang people

The Sedang people (In Vietnamese: Xê Đăng or Xơ Đăng) are an ethnic group of Vietnam. They mainly inhabit the Kon Tum province, Quảng Nam province (Trà My and Phước Sơn districts), Quảng Ngãi province (Sơn Tây district). They are made up of five main groups: Xơ Teng (Xteng), Kayong, Halang, Monom and Todrah. Their main source of income is farming, but before the 20th century, they mostly relied on hunting and gathering. They are also known to be raising cattle and poultry. Religiously, they are largely animistic and Roman Catholic. Their language is part of North Bahnaric a branch of the Mon–Khmer language family. A small Halang speaking community with around 1,000 people of Sedang live in the Laos' southeastern boundary province of Attapeu.

The myth of ethnic origin shows that these North Bahnaric groups are close to the Hmong–Mien inhabitants and some Sino–Tibetan groups, suggesting that their ancestors may have been too far from north. The closeness of their linguistic and cultural means to the language and culture of the ancient Vietic people provides more evidence. It is possible that the Chams ancestors separated them from the Vietic ancestors, and then the internal conflicts of the Mon–Khmer residents, the conflicts with the Cham people (12th 15th centuries), Lao people (16th century), Siamese people (18th 19th centuries), the encroachment of other Mon Khmer groups, such as Katu, Brau, Ta Oi from Laos, has narrowed their range of residence. Having been there for so long, they no longer remember the stories of the long migrations and they have attached their legends to some locations in northern Central Highlands. Elite warriors, war horses, war elephants and logistics from Sedang tribes alongside Bahnar, Jarai and H're tribes kept an important role in the victories of Tây Sơn dynasty at the end of the 18th century.

Monom group practices farming in a primitive way: tilling the land by driving buffalo herds to stomp then using wood or iron hoes to excavate. In the other groups, slash and burn agriculture play a dominant role, with tools and farming methods similar to other ethnic groups in the area: cutting trees with axes and knives, then burning with fire; using a sharpened stick or a stick with an iron blade to poke holes to sow seeds; weeding with a small hoe with a handle taken from a fork and a scraper with a bent blade to one side; harvesting the rice by hand. They celebrate Peng Chupi Festival.