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.