MATERIAL LIFE OF THE KATU PEOPLE IN HOA VANG DISTRICT, DANANG CITY CURRENTLY: ANALYSIS FROM THE CHANGES

Abstract

The Katu people in Hoa Vang district, Danang city, have a branch on the progress of the ethnic division of the Katu people in Quang Nam province. Their population is 1000 Katu people taking slash-and-burn agriculture as the main economic base and other supporting economic activities such as gathering, hunting, fishing, breeding, and handicraft. However, recently in industrialization and modernization taking place dramatically across the country, the Katu community in Hoa Vang, Da Nang city, has changed all life aspects, especially in material culture. There have been changes in village structure, house patterns, costume characteristics, gastronomy, means of transportation, and tools of production. Some have remained traditionally intact, but some have been lost or transformed. This status is a context with many inevitable and objective reasons that will naturally occur in integration, industrialization, and modernization (Louis Wirth,1945; Michael Jackson, 2013). This article provides an overview of the material cultural change of the Katu community here. Besides, it analyzes\decodes these changing trends from cultural anthropology to find out interventions, active supports, or give predictions intending to minimize the distortion and oblivion of material culture, contributing to preserving the traditional culture of the ethnic group.