| Publication |
June 2004.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Little is known of the contributions of French missionaries to early highland ethnography in the mountainous north of Vietnam (then Tonkin) at the time of colonial contact, a period defined here as 1895-1920. This paper investigates how a handful of men from the Catholic Société des Missions étrangères de Paris contributed significant amounts of text from their postings in remote parts of the Upper-Tonkin (Haut-Tonkin) vicariate, and in some cases Southwest China. A selection of their prose is presented and its ethnographic value appraised, bringing to light the authors in their context as well as the texts themselves. It is assessed in conclusion that, despite their uneven importance as a source for ethnography, these texts nevertheless constitute a unique supply of information on the populations they describe.
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