Ia

Ia takes its name from Pơtao Ia, the Jrai King of Water, a hereditary ritual authority in the highlands west of the Cham coast. The Water King belonged to a sacred order that also included the King of Fire. Their powers were associated with the forces upon which crops and communities depended, and their reputation reached beyond the Jrai valleys. Objects preserved by the Water King were regarded as powerful talismans, connected in local tradition with floods and the waters of the land.