Cultural symbols of Gia Rai people and acculturation of these symbols of Catholicism in Central Highland

Abstract

Learning about cultural symbols - the quintessence of an ethnic group’s culture, researching and decrypting those symbols have been done by many researchers. However, there are a few studies on acculturation of Gia Rai people's cultural symbols in Central Highland. This paper is the author's effort to fill that gap in the current research literature of cultural anthropology in Central Highland. The paper introduces and generally analyses the cultural symbols of Gia Rai people and the acculturation of those symbols of Catholism in Central Highland, thereby points out the reasons for this acculturation and some urgent issues influencing the cultural symbols under this acculturation.