The Katuic peoples live mainly in central Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

's Truong Son

Trường Sơn

Trường Sơn is a commune and village in Lục Nam District, Bac Giang Province, in northeastern Vietnam.-References:...

 region and the highlands of south eastern Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

. The peoples include the Katu, Ta Oi, Paco

Paco

Paco is - together with Pancho - the Spanish nickname for Francisco, as in Pancho Villa, the legendary Mexican revolutionary.The nickname has its origins in Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the father of the Franciscan order...

 and the Bru

Bru people

The Bru are an ethnic group living in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. They speak Bru, a Mon–Khmer language, which has several dialects...

 (Van Kieu) in Vietnam. The Katuic groups in Laos include the Bru

Bru people

The Bru are an ethnic group living in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. They speak Bru, a Mon–Khmer language, which has several dialects...

, Ta'oih, Kantu, Dakkang, Triw, Chatong and Ngeq.

They subsist mainly on shifting cultivation

Shifting cultivation

Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned. This system often involves clearing of a piece of land followed by several years of wood harvesting or farming, until the soil loses fertility...

, hunting

Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

 and fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

. They traditionally lived in small villages centered around a communal house. Their religion revolves around the spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

s of the forest, the Rice Mother and ancestor spirits. Even today, these groups retain most of their traditions and spirit beliefs. However, they have been heavily affected by the newly constructed Ho Chi Minh Highway

Ho Chi Minh Highway

Ho Chi Minh Road or Ho Chi Minh Highway is a highway in Vietnam. It runs from the north to the south of Vietnam, west of National Road 1A. The highway was named after Hồ Chí Minh. The route roughly coincides with the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War...

, which cuts straight through the homeland of the Vietnamese Katuic groups.

The French military officer Le Pichon, who was stationed among the Katu in 1938, wrote a short book about entitled Les Chasseurs de Sang (The Blood Hunters) about the (now non-existent) practice of the Katu to hunt people to please certain spirits.