Nomadic Tribe

The Tampuan (also known as Tompuan, Tampuon, Tumpoun or Tumpuon) are a native ethnic group living in the Western and Southern Ratanakiri region in Cambodia. Additionally, they are called “Upper Khmer” or “Montagnards” as all hill tribes in past French Indochina. They are approximately 30.000 people.

Tampuans live in small villages (from 100 to about 400 people). Communities, usually displayed in a square plan, have a communal house and a court in the centre. All around the village, there are plantations mostly occupied by dry-land rice. The possession of the land is collective, but each family has his designated section. People are mostly subsistence farmers, and they practice "slash and burn agriculture". In this rotational way of farm: after two or three years of exploitation the soil is left to lie fallow, and a new one is prepared to burn some plants on it to make it more fertile.

They also breed pigs, chickens, and cows. They hunt deer, small rodents, boars, and pheasants and catch bugs or ants to eat them as snacks.