Discovering the E De Ethnic Group

Imagine arriving at a village where the houses stretch for up to 100 meters, built in the shape of ancient seafaring vessels anchored among coffee-covered hills. The women greet you first, because in this community, they always do. They manage the household, inherit the land, propose marriage, and lead the village. You have entered the world of the Ede people, one of Vietnam’s most culturally distinctive ethnic groups and one of the few living matrilineal societies in all of Southeast Asia.

The Ede have called the Central Highlands of Vietnam home for centuries. With nearly 400,000 people concentrated primarily in Dak Lak province, they are the dominant indigenous group of the region and one of the most accessible minority cultures for travelers visiting the highlands.

Whether you are drawn to gong music performed inside a longhouse at night recognized by UNESCO, epic poetry recited under the light of a full moon, rice wine shared from a communal jar, or the sight of a house designed to look like a ship, the Ede offer cultural experiences found nowhere else in Vietnam.

Ede people in Vietnam wearing traditional clothing and showcasing their local culture.

General information about Ede people

The Ede are spread across 59 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces, but their heartland is undeniably Dak Lak in central highlands, where nearly 300,000 of them live, making up over 17% of the province’s total population. Every Ede community is organized around the buon, or village, which serves as both the basic residential unit and the primary social organization. Life in the village is tied closely to the rhythms of swidden agriculture: rice cultivation on cleared hillside fields, supplemented by the growing of corn, squash, tobacco, and cotton. Today, many Ede families also cultivate commercial crops, particularly coffee, which has become the economic backbone of Dak Lak province.

Unique history and ancient maritime origins

Austronesian roots

The Ede are descendants of ancient Malayo-Polynesian seafarers who migrated to mainland Southeast Asia thousands of years ago. Their maritime heritage remains visible today: from a language closely related to Cham, Malay, and Indonesian, to traditional longhouses built in the shape of boat hulls. The earliest historical record of their ancestors appears in an 8th-century inscription at the Po Nagar Cham Towers in Nha Trang, which mentions the “Rang De” people living along coastal rivers before migrating inland.

Settlement in the central highlands

Over centuries, the Ede moved west to settle the fertile red soil of the Dak Lak plateau, becoming the dominant ethnic group in the region. By the late 19th century, French explorers documented their villages, gong culture, and matrilineal legal system, referring to them as the “Rhade.” Today, the Ede are recognized as one of Vietnam’s 54 official ethnic groups, with the city of Buon Ma Thuot serving as the main gateway for travelers to explore their historic heritage.

The historical migration of the Ede people across Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Source: Gunawan Kartapranata

Unique features of Ede society

The Matrilineal System

Of all the aspects of Ede culture that surprise first-time visitors, the depth and completeness of their matrilineal system is the most striking. This is not simply a matter of women being respected or influential: Ede society is architecturally designed, legally structured, and ritually organized around the primacy of the female line.

Children take their mother’s family name. Inheritance of property, land, and the family longhouse passes to the youngest daughter, who is also responsible for caring for aging parents. When a couple marries, the husband leaves his own family and moves into his wife’s longhouse. If the wife dies, her family must provide a replacement partner for the widower so that he is never left without family support, a custom known as chuê nuê. If no replacement is available, the widower returns to his birth family.

As a traveler, you are stepping into one of the few places in Southeast Asia where this kind of society is still genuinely lived. Pay attention when you visit an Ede longhouse: the oldest woman of the household will almost certainly be the one who sets the tone of the welcome, decides who sits where, and determines when the rice wine jar is opened.

A traditional Ede ritual welcoming the groom into the bride’s family.

Village Organization and the Water Source

Every Ede village (buon) begins with a woman finding a suitable water source meeting five key criteria: clean spring water, flat elevated ground, fertile farmland, primary forest, and cemetery land to the west. The woman who discovers it becomes the Pô Pin Êa (Master of the Water Source), serving as village chief and custodian—a title passed down to her youngest daughter. Each year after harvest, the community holds the Water Source Ceremony to clean bamboo channels, thank the spirits, and educate younger generations on protecting forest water sources.

Beliefs and Religion

Traditional Ede spiritual life is animist, honoring supreme creator god Aê Diê alongside nature deities like yang lăn (earth spirit) and yang mđiê (rice spirit). Ritual sacrifices are held throughout the farming year to seek blessings and ward off bad spirits. Since the early 20th century, Protestant Christianity has also taken root, leading many modern Ede communities to harmoniously blend Christian faith with ancestral animist traditions.

Iconic architecture: ships anchored on land

The Ede Longhouse

Built on low stilts with outward-sloping walls, the traditional Ede longhouse resembles an upturned boat hull, honoring their maritime roots. Ranging from 15 to over 100 meters, a single house accommodates an entire extended matrilineal family. Inside, the space splits into two areas: the Gah, a public hall featuring a 20-meter carved bench (Kpan), gongs, and rice wine jars; and the Ôk, a private corridor divided into sleeping quarters for married couples.

At the main entrance sits a sacred seven-step hardwood staircase carved with a crescent moon above stylized female breasts—a striking symbol of matriarchal authority welcoming every guest.

Traditional Ede longhouse, a distinctive architectural feature of Ede communities.

The Village Landscape

An Ede village centers around the communal yard in front of main longhouses where ceremonies take place. A wide front porch signals the family’s status and hospitality. To the west lies the community cemetery, featuring intricately carved and painted wooden tomb houses that reflect the Ede’s deep, continuous connection with their ancestors.

Rich cultural traditions

Gong Culture (UNESCO Intangible Heritage)

Inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2005, gong music is the beating heart of Ede life. The standard bronze ensemble, Ching Knah, features ten bronze gongs played alongside the H’gơr drum. Unique to Ede tradition, the drum has two faces: the female face is beaten during celebrations, while the male face is struck only to announce a death in the household. Alongside bronze gongs, the Ede play Ching Kram (bamboo gongs) in the fields. For the Ede, gongs are living spiritual presences present at every life milestone, connecting humans to the spirit realm. The Central Highlands Gong Festival does not take place on a fixed date; instead, it typically spans from March through December each year.
Update: The 2026 International Central Highlands Gong Festival is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 8, 2026, in Pleiku Ward, Bien Ho Commune, and several neighboring localities.

Ede people performing Central Highlands gong music, recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.

Epic Poetry (Khan / Klei Khan)

Parallel to gong music is Klei Khan, a living oral tradition of epic storytelling. Performers sing, chant, and enact heroic tales across entire nights in the longhouse. The most famous epic, Dam San, tells the story of a warrior chief defending his village and family. Other key epics include Sing Nhã and M’drông Dăm, preserving ancestral history and moral values across generations.

Traditional Weaving and Costume

Using traditional backstrap looms, Ede women weave dark indigo cotton embroidered with red, white, and yellow geometric motifs. Women wear a pullover blouse and wrap skirt (Ieng), while men wear a loincloth (Kpin) and an embroidered jacket (Ktêh). Both sexes wear copper rings and stacked bangles, whose clinking sounds traditionally allowed villagers to identify friends from a distance. Visitors can watch weaving demonstrations and purchase authentic textiles at Ako Dhong village in Buon Ma Thuot.

Visiting Ede villages: what to know

Best Destinations in Dak Lak

Ako Dhong Village (Buon Ako Dhong) is the most accessible starting point for any traveler interested in Ede culture. Located within the city limits of Buon Ma Thuot, the village has maintained its traditional longhouses and runs an active community tourism program. A guided visit here can include a tour of a working family longhouse, a gong performance in the Gah, a demonstration of traditional backstrap loom weaving, and the opportunity to taste can wine in an authentic communal setting.

Buon Don district, about 40 kilometers northwest of Buon Ma Thuot along the Serepok River, is the other major destination for Ede cultural tourism. Best known internationally for its history of elephant training, the area also offers beautiful riverside scenery, traditional suspension bridges over the Serepok, and access to working coffee farms. The Dak Lak Museum of Ethnology in Buon Ma Thuot displays a full-scale authentic Ede longhouse as a permanent exhibit, alongside traditional costumes, musical instruments, and ceremonial objects from across the province’s ethnic communities. Visiting the museum before going to a living village gives you the context and vocabulary to make the village experience far richer.

Ban Don Tourist Area, a cultural and scenic destination in Dak Lak, Vietnam.

Best Time to Visit

The dry season from October through March is the best overall window for visiting Ede villages. Roads are passable, trekking conditions are comfortable, and the period from October to January coincides with the New Rice Festival and the Ede New Year celebrations, when villages are at their most musically and ceremonially active.

The Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival, held in March of even-numbered years, incorporates large-scale gong performances and Ede cultural events into a multi-day public program. March also brings the Elephant Racing Festival in Buon Don, held in the third lunar month, which combines traditional community celebrations with the spectacular sight of racing elephants along the Serepok River banks.

Vibrant Festivals and Sacred Rituals to Experience

The Ede ritual calendar follows the post-harvest agricultural cycle, making October to March the ideal festival season for visitors.

• New Rice Festival: Held right after harvest, families offer new rice and sacrificed livestock to the rice spirit (yang mđiê) and earth spirit (yang lăn), followed by night-long feasts of rice wine and gong performances.
• Ede New Year: Celebrated in the final lunar month after harvest completion, this is the year’s largest festival, filled with generous feasting and community gatherings.
• Water Source Ceremony: Held annually post-harvest, the village cleans its water channels and offers prayers of thanks to water spirits, reinforcing community environmental stewardship.
• Tomb Abandonment Ceremony: Held years after a burial, this dramatic multi-day ritual features decorated wooden tomb houses, animal sacrifices, and gong performances to mark the spirit’s final farewell to the living world.

Enjoy the specialties of the Ede people

Ede cuisine relies on fresh ingredients from forests and streams: steamed rice cooked in clay pots, wild bamboo shoots, river fish, foraged greens, and chili. Ceremonial sticky rice is reserved exclusively for spirit offerings. Betel nut chewing remains a warm social welcome shared among hosts and guests.

Can Wine: Fermented from rice or cassava in glazed earthenware jars, can wine is the ultimate symbol of Ede hospitality. Guests sip the wine through long bamboo straws from a shared jar while the host adds water. Accepting a straw and taking a sip is considered a genuine gesture of respect and friendship.

Responsible Tourism Tips

• Visiting an Ede village is a privilege, and the quality of the experience depends on approaching it with genuine curiosity and respect. Always ask permission before photographing people, especially elders and children, and inside the longhouse.
• When offered can wine, accept the gesture even if you only take a small sip, as declining entirely can read as a rebuff of hospitality in Ede culture.
• If you are purchasing handwoven textiles or crafts, buy directly from the artisan rather than from a middleman, as the income difference is significant.
• Arrange your village visits through established operators like us – Paradise Travel who have genuine relationships with the communities and who share tour revenue with the village directly.

Plan Your Vietnam Trip with Paradise Travel

Paradise Travel is a licensed international tour operator and destination management company headquartered in Hanoi. We have been organizing tours across Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand since the early 2000s, and we proudly hold the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Award for 2018, 2019, and 2024.

Experiencing the cultural richness of Vietnam’s ethnic minority communities takes expert local knowledge and trusted community relationships. Our team can arrange village visits, gong performances, homestay experiences, and guided cultural tours of Dak Lak’s most significant Ede sites with knowledgeable local guides who speak the language and know the communities personally. Get in touch with our team today to start planning your Central Highlands journey.

Address: 81 Alley 12 Dao Tan Street, Giang Vo Ward, Hanoi, Vietnam

Hotline: 0989391076

Email: sales@vietnamparadisetravel.com