ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some Montagnard resistance movements against colonial rule as a context for the interpretation of later millenarian context of the events and traces French perceptions and policies regarding Sam Bram. It explains colonial interests shaped and privileged a certain representation of the ‘Python God Movement’ for political reasons. The campaigns against Kommadam and N’Trang Lung and the Python God movement took place against the backdrop of mounting political and military tensions threatening the French hold on Indochina. The chapter discusses how the initial interpretations were constructed and reinterpreted in the light of political developments in colonial French Indochina. It also explains the interpretations by anthropologists, who have their own reasons for uncritically adopting a biased, colonial representation of a millenarian movement. The chapter also discusses some of the theoretical implications for the study of a topic – millenarianism – that combines ethnographic and historical method.
