Editing Montagnard (Vietnam) (section)

====Montagnard revolt of 1937====
{{main|Dieu Python movement}}

In June 1937, Montagnard villages from many different tribes led by Sam Bram, a prominent [[Jarai people|Jarai]] chief in the vicinity of Cheo Reo, began to form an esoteric Christian religious movement. The chief announced that his daughter had given birth to a python who was believed to be an incarnation of the Python God called Dam Klan. Sam Bram distributed magic water (Jarai: la Iun) to his followers, and preached about how the expulsion of white people and Vietnamese from the highlands would fulfill a [[Biblical prophecy]].<ref name="salemink109">{{harvnb|Salemink|2003|p=109}}</ref> The new faith spread quickly to Kontum, [[Quảng Nam]], Quảng Ngãi, and to [[Rade people|Rhade]] recruits of the French garrison of [[Buôn Ma Thuột]].<ref name="salemink108" /> Followers of Sam Bram then attacked French patrols in the highlands. The movement was quickly suppressed by the French military, although Dieu Python groups in the north of the highlands continued to resist French pacification until 1940 when tribal resistance eventually linked up with Vietnamese communists active in the region.<ref name="salemink110" />

At the end of the revolt in 1938, Sam Bram was sentenced to ten years in prison for "sorcery with the aim of fraud by abuse of influence". Other 14 people who got involved in the movement were convicted 8 to 20 years in jail for "sorcery, secret meetings and conspiracy against the state security."<ref>{{harvnb|Salemink|2003|p=112}}</ref>

The Dieu Python movement's appeal across several distinct tribes convinced the French colonial officials, among others, of an incipient pan-highland nationalism.  The French began treating the people of the ''Pays Moïs'' as one ethnicity and worthy of separate status, and attempted to suppress ethnic rivalries within the Montagnards.  The French position of power also allowed them to decide which aspects of Montagnard culture should be preserved, and which ones changed; they were happy to celebrate harmless traditions such as ritual buffalo sacrifice, but continued discouraging shifting cultivation or the remnants of the Dieu Python movement.  Leopold Sabatier, who had been driven out by rivals in the 1920s, was rehabilitated in French eyes as a visionary who had understood the locals.  The result was the French administration presenting itself to the Montagnards as a friendly, if stern, father figure that protected them from the Kinh people, justifying the French administration as preserving Montagnard autonomy.  The French military also sought to be ready to use the Highlands should a war with Japan come and they need to retreat inland.<ref>{{harvnb|Salemink|2003|pp=113–128}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Salemink|first=Oscar|year=2013|title=Primitive Partisans: French Strategy and the Construction of a Montagnard Ethnic Identity in Indochina|editor=Stein Tonnesson|editor2=Hans Antlov|contribution=Imperial Policy and Southeast Asian Nationalism|pages=261–93|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781136781896}}</ref>