MONTAGNARD

(French: Highlander, or Mountain Man), any member of the hill-dwelling peoples of the Indochinese Peninsula. In Vietnam the Montagnards include speakers of Mon-Khmer languages such as the Bahnar, Mnong, and Sedang and speakers of Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages such as the Jarai, Roglai, and Rade (Rhade). They mostly grow rice, using shifting cultivation. Montagnard houses are usually raised above the ground on piling. Religious beliefs involve many spirits associated with nature or ancestors, and they maintain shamans and sorcerers to intercede with them. Among the Jarai, Mnong, Roglai, and Rade, descent is traced through the mother. The typical household is a longhouse inhabited by the women of a maternal line with their husbands and children. The Montagnards long have sought to preserve their cultural identities. During the Vietnam War they sided with the South Vietnamese and Americans against the North. They have fought for autonomy within Vietnam since the country was reunited in 1975. (French: Mountain Man), any of the radical deputies in the National Convention during the French Revolution. Noted for their democratic outlook, the Montagnards controlled the government during the climax of the Revolution in 179394. They were so called because as deputies they sat on the higher benches of the assembly. Collectively they were also called Le Montagne (The Mountain). The Montagnards emerged as the opponents of the more moderate Girondins in the National Convention in the fall of 1792. Composed of deputies elected from Paris and other cities, the Montagnards depended on the support of the petty bourgeoisie and the sansculottes (Parisian lower classes) and were closely associated with the Jacobin Club of Paris. After the overthrow of the Girondins by the popular insurrections of May 31 to June 2, 1793, the Montagnards dominated the convention, and they composed the majority of the Committee of Public Safety, which in effect ruled France in 179394. With the Thermidorian reaction of 179495, many of the Montagnards were either executed or purged from the convention, where they were reduced to a minority group called the crte (the crest) and ceased to be influential.