Anthropological Reconnaissance in Central Laos: A Survey of Local Communities in a Hydropower Project Area 915060967X

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Jan Ovesen

ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE IN CENTRAL LAOS A Survey of Local ComMunities in a Hydropower Project Area

Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology, No. 13

1993

Cover photo: Tai Men women from Ban Vangxao on a resin collecting expedition

published Ami distribute £3 Department of Cultural Anthropology Uppsala University Tradgardsgatan 18 S-753 09 Uppsala, Sweden

© Jan Ovesen 1993

ISBN 91506-0967-X ISSN 0348-9507 Photos, typesetting and lay-out by the author Printed in Sweden by Go tab, Stockholm 1993

CONTENTS Preface

vi

Introduction

I

Agriculture Other Subsistence Activities

9 9 9 12 13 17 17 26

Ethnicity Ethnic Composition of the Project Area

31 34

Migrations, Culture History and Contemporary Society The Lao Kaleung and the Tai Khang The Tai Men, the Tai Messy and the Tai Pao Synoptic Description and Comparison of the Tai Groups The Hmong Khao

36 36 38 40 47

Places and Artefacts of Possible Archaeological and Culture-Historical Interest

52

Resource Use Culture Introductory Population Area, Population and Productivity Houses, Villages and Material Culture i1T€,"~"

Brief Description of Fle Project Area Villages I The Nam The un Area The Nam Gnouang Area The Nam Hai Area '

55 55 61

Summary and Recommendations

'71

Bibliography

r

Appendices I. Terms of Reference II. Time Schedule

63

75

79 80

V

PREFACE Fieldwork for the present study was carried out from March 8 to March 25 in an area in the southern part of Bolikhamxai and the northern part of Khamrrlouane provinces in central Laos. The study ws undertaken as a short-term anthropological consultancy which formed part of the feasibility study for the'Nam The un U2 Hydropower Project. The study was commissioned by the Norwegian Power Consultants NORPOWER and financed by the Norwegian Development Agency (NORAD). On the national side, the body responsible for the feasibility study, as well as for the eventual implementation of the project, is Electricity du Laos (EdL) in coopertion with the Hydropower Office of the Ministry of Industry

and Handicraft. During fieldwork I was based in the project's little village house in Ban Nahin. From there I visited all the other villages scheduled for possibly being affected by the hydropower project. The villages were reached by car and by a combination of car and boat. Apart from visits to the villages, the study included an excursion to the Phontan area - an important center of cultural/historical reference for some of the groups in the project area, and further along the Road 8 through Lakxao - an

important contemporary development area - to the border with Vietnam where we replenished our stocks at the monthly Vietnamese market. The study also included a day's climb and walk in the forest along the Narn Sanam, towards the Phu Pam am to see a site of possible archaeological interest. It goes without saying that a survey of 22 villages in less than SO many days cannot honour the requirements for proper anthropological field research, and that the information gathered in the different villages is only sporadic and to some extent the result of chance circumstances. But

I feel that I have satisfactorily covered the points listed in my terms of reference (see Appendix I), and I further believe that even such a short field trip to an ethnographically hitherto unknown area may have potential value also for academic anthropology.

vii

viii

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of my counterpart from EdL, Mr. Vonexay Vinthilath, who proved an excellent companion in the field, as well as an adequate interpreter. I also record my appreciation of our driver, Mr. Thongsa, whose skills in driving were matched by his skills in cooking and his enthusiasm for hunting, and whose energetic and cheerful disposition did much to make our field trip a pleasant one. The relative success of my investigations of course owes a lot to all the many villagers who patiently answered all sorts of questions, and to village leaders who agreed without hesitation to compile population statistics. On the whole, I was impressed by the patience of practically all informants during our semi-structured interviews and by their willingness and, indeed, eagerness to ensure that I got what they felt was complete and correct information. Their kind hospitality included frequent profferings of a drink of rice wine (lao hat) and the occasional meal, as well as an invitation to a lavish wedding party and the

opportunity to witness a spirit medium seance. Further, I gratefully acknowledge the practical support extended by Mr. Voradeth Phonekeo of EdL in Vientiane, and the useful material and instructions left bY Mr. Charles Adamson, environmental coordinator for NORPOWER. Finally, I am grateful to my colleague and life companion, Dr. Ing~Britt Trankell for offering comparative perspectives on my field material on the basis of her own research in Thailand and Laos, and for our fruitful discussions of various points of linguistic and anthropological interest. In preparing this report for publication, I have added an Introduction and some maps and photos which serve the purpose of putting the study in context, since prospective readers cannot be assumed to be familiar with the country, the area, or the nature of the hydropower project. I have also taken the opportunity to add a few further points and reflections which the rigorous deadline prevented me from including in the original report. Apart from these minor additions, the text is identical with that submitted as the anthropological report to NORPOWER.

Luann Prabang and Uppsala, April 1993

Jan Ovesen

INTRODUCTION The population of Laos amounts to about 4 million people, distributed over a surface of 236,000 km2. It comprises representatives of four major ethnolinguistic categories. The Mon~Khmer speaking peoples represent the earliest of the contemporary inhabitants. Today they form a minority of several hill-dwelling ethnic groups scattered over most of the country, but with the greatest concentration in the north. From the 13th

century onwards, they were gradually displaced, subjugated, or subsumed by the various groups of Tai spealdng peoples who immigrated from the north and who quickly came to form the majority (today about 65%) of the population. The Tai peoples comprise the ethnic Lao as well as a number of smaller groups, sometimes referred to as 'tribal Tai', of which most of the people subject to the present study are examples. The most recently immigrated groups in the country are the Miao-Yao speaking Hmong and various smaller Tibeto-Burman speaking groups, such as the Akha and the Phunoi in the far north. Their origin is also in the north (the Chinese province of Yunnan), from where they have entered the country during the last couple of hundred years.

* Anthropological studies in Laos have so far been few and far between. A pioneering effort was Swedish anthropologist Karl-Gustav Izikowitz' study in the 1930s of the Lamet, a Mon-Khmer speaking, mountain dwelling minority in the far northwest (lzikowitz 1951). After that, the military situation made field research in the country rather difficult. Joel Halpern's fieldwork in the late 1950s is quite unique for the period (et. Halpern 1964). Since the revel ution in 1975, when the country was named the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), it has been governed by the ('communist') Lao People's Revolutionary Party which

has yet to be convinced of the importance and usefulness of social science research. The few contemporary, fieldwork-based anthropological contributions which have emerged include those by Carol Ireson (1991), 1

2

Jacques Lemoine (1972), Christian Taillard (1977), and In-Britt Trankell (1993). Other anthropologically important works are the political-economic study by Grant Evans (1990) and the historical study by Geoffrey Gunn (1990), Gunn has also produced a useful bibliographical essay (1989). The modern standard political-historical introduction to the country is written by Martin Stuart-Fox (1986).

* "Despite, or in large part because of, fifteen years of stable communist government after thirty years of civil war [and, we may add, after sixty years of French colonial neglect), Laos remains a desperately poor country" (Stuart-Fox l99l:4, my addition). But like the case of so many other poor Third World countries, this does not mean that the population generally live in desperate poverty in the sense of suffering starvation or malnutrition. It means, rather, that the national economy is not in very good shape. Virtually all agricultural, technological, infrastructural and other development is financed by foreign assistance which amounts to about 150 million US$ per year, "an amount which cannot easily be increased because the country lacks both the technical and the managerial means to absorb more" (ibid.). One of the stumbling blocks is the low level of education. In both primary and (where such exist) secondary schools, the curriculum is still inspired by the French school system

(hardly a model for pedagogical progress), and higher education is limited to a teacher's training college and a medical school in Vientiane. There is no university in the country. The few people who were selected by the colonial masters for higher education in France are now approaching or beyond retirement age. From 1975 to 1990, quite a few young people were sent to the fanner Soviet Union and other East Block countries to get a university education, which was all very well, but it is the irony of history that after having spent years in places like Moscow, Minsk, Tashkent or Sofia, their arduously acquired language skills have now proved rather useless, and they have to start all over again learning English. Many do this without complaining, or even with enthusisrn, and one could wish that the government showed a little more appreciation of such efforts. The one official bookstore in Vientiane still has piles of Russian books (everything from political and other 'educational' literature to Tolstoy and Dostojeyski, as well as textbooks in various

3

branches of engineering), but not one book in English, attempts by foreigners to bring in a few English books is looked upon by the authorities with the utmost suspicion.

* Economically, Laos' greatest asset is her natural resources. Among the natural resources which are currently being exploited for commercial purposes, timber and hydroelectric power constitute the major sources of foreign exchange income for the country. Almost all electricity generated by hydroelectric power plants is being exported to Thailand, whose demands exceed Laos' still rather modest supply. The construction of several additional power plants therefore has a high priority in the planning of the country's technological development, and the natural

geography as well as the extremely low population density in most mountain and forest areas are points in favour of such developments In central Laos, the river Nam The un and its tributaries constitute one area for which hydroelectric projects have been deemed feasible. The project for which this study was made is one of three contemplated projects in this area. Earlier considered projects are the Nam The un 1 and the Nam The un 2 projects, scheduled to be situated downstream and upstream, respectively, from the present project. The name for this, the Nam The un 1/2 Project, does not imply that it is a combination of the former two, it is called so simply because a better name has not yet been decided upon. The Nam The un 2 project, in particular, has met with a certain amount of resistance, both from the local population - since it would entail the forced relocation of a number of villages - and from environmentally concerned scholars (Lohmann 1990; ANU 1991). It has been pointed out that the project would threaten a biologically unique forest area, that wildlife populations would suffer, that fishing would be severely impaired, and that ideal breeding grounds would be created for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and for various fresh water snails who act 1

It may give cause for some concern that hydroelectric projects are instigated solely in order to satisfy the needs ot" a foreign country, thereby making Laos economically still more dependent on her neighbors. One can only hope that Karl Marx' idea that political-economic power rests with those who control the means of production also holds good in this case.

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