Journal of the Siam Society; 60

Table of contents :
JSS_060_1a_Front
JSS_060_1b_Solheim_NewLookOfSoutheastAsianPrehistory
JSS_060_1c_GriswoldPrasert_KingLodaiyaOfSukhodayaAndContemporaries
JSS_060_1d_Chandler_CambodiaRelationsWithSiamInEarlyBangkokPeriod
JSS_060_1e_Oblas_TreatyRevisionAndAmericanForeignAffairsAdvisor
JSS_060_1f_ChobKachaananda_SystemeDeLaFamilleYao
JSS_060_1g_Dessaint_LisuSettlementPatterns
JSS_060_1h_Hogan_MenOfSeaCoastalTribesOfThailandsWestCoast
JSS_060_1i_Kauffmann_SocialAndReligiousInstitutionsOfLawaI
JSS_060_1j_Smithies_VillageMonsOfBangkok
JSS_060_1k_Terwiel_FivePreceptsAndRitualInRuralThailand
JSS_060_1l_Walker_BlessingFeastsAndAncestorPropitiationAmongLahuNyi
JSS_060_1m_Penth_OldPhrao
JSS_060_1n_SmithiesEuayporn_NangTalungShadowTheatreOfSouthernThailand
JSS_060_1o_Reviews
JSS_060_1p_Contributors
JSS_060_1q_ObituaryMahaChamThongKamwan
JSS_060_1r_ObituaryPrinceSithipornKridakara
JSS_060_1s_Back
JSS_060_2a_Front
JSS_060_2b_Smith_ThailandVietnamComparativeHistoricalAnalysis
JSS_060_2c_Brown_PaperCurrencyInReignOfKingChulalongkorn
JSS_060_2d_DemaineDixonLandTenurePatternsAndAgriculturalDevelopmentInNEThailand
JSS_060_2e_Marr_ManuscriptsOnGranthaScriptInBangkok
JSS_060_2f_Bee_kanInModernStandardThai
JSS_060_2g_ManasChitkasem_EmergenceAndDevelopmentOfNiratGenre
JSS_060_2h_Ginsburg_ManoraDanceDrama
JSS_060_2i_Burr_ReligiousInstitutionalDiversityInSouthernThaiCoastalFishingVillage
JSS_060_2j_TurtonMatrilinealDescentGroupsAndSpiritCultsOfThaiYuan
Vol 060_2 p.249.pdf
Vol 060_2 p.249
Vol 060_2 p.250
Vol 060_2 p.251
Vol 060_2 p.252
Vol 060_2 p.253
Vol 060_2 p.254
Vol 060_2 p.255
Vol 060_2 p.256
JSS_060_2k_Reviews
JSS_060_2l_AnnualReport
JSS_060_2m_ListOfMembers
JSS_060_2n_ObituaryElisabethChulaChakrabongse
JSS_060_2o_ObituaryEWHutchinson
JSS_060_2p_ObituaryRLeMay
JSS_060_2q_Back

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JOURNAL

· .·.· ·. SIAM SE>CIETY OF~HE

..

JANUARY 1972

volume &o part 1

THE SIAM SOCIETY PATRON VICE-PA'I.'HONS

I-10:-J. PRESIDE:"'TS IIO:-... YICE-PHE:SIDENTS

His Majesty the King Her Majesty the Queen Her Majesty Queen Rambai Barni Her Royal Highness the Princess of Songkhla H.H. Prince Dhaninivat, Kromamun Bidyalabh H.S.H. Prince Ajavadis Diskul H.E. Monsieur Ebbe Munck Mr. Alexander B. Griswold

COUNCIL OF 'l'IIE SIA:'\1 SOCIETY FOR 1971-1972

H.R.H. Prince Wan Waithayakorn, Kromamun Naradhip Bongsprabandh H.E. Mr. Sukich Nimmanhaeminda H.S.H. Prince Subhadradis Diskul M.R. Patanachai Jayant M.R. Pimsai Amranand Dr. Tej Bunnag Miss Elizabeth Lyons Dr. Tem Smitinand Mrs. Katherine Buri Mr. Kenneth Johnson Mr. Victor Kennedy H.E. Monsieur A.W. K¢nigsfeldt Mr. Graham Lucas Mr. F.W.C. Martin Mrs. Nisa Sheanakul Dr. Prasert Lohawanitjaya Dr. Roger Smith Mrs. Edwin F. Stanton Dr. Laurence D. Stifel Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa H.E. Monsieur Leonard Unger

President Senior Vice-President Vice-President Vice-President and Honorary Treasurer Honorary Secretary Honorary Editor, journal of the Siam Society Honorary Librarian Leader, Natural History Section

JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY

JANUARY 1972

volume so part 1

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE SIAM SOCIETY JANUARY 1972

THE JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY contents of volume 60 part 1 January 1972 Page Articles Wilh elm G. Solheim II

The "New Look" of Southeast Asian Prehistory

1

A.B. Griswold an d P ras e rt t:J a Nag ara

Epigraphic and Historical Studies, No. 10: King Lodaiya of Sukhodaya and his contemporaries

21

David P. Chand le r

Cambodia's Relations with Siam in the Early Bangkok Period: the politics of a Tributary State

153

Treaty Revision and the Role of the American Foreign Affairs Adviser 1909-1925

171

Chob Kac ha-ananda

Le systeme de la Famille Yao

187

Alai n Y. Dessaint

Lisu Settlement Patterns

195

David W. Hogan

Men of the Sea: coastai tribes of South Thailand's 205 west coast

H.E. Kauffmann

Some Social and Religious Institutions of the Lawa (N.W. Thailand) Part I 235

Michae l Smithi es

Village Mons of Bangkok

307

B.J. Terwi e l

The Five Precepts and Ritual in Rural Thailand

333

P..nthony R. Walker

Blessing Feasts and Ancestor Propitiation among 345 the Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu)

Pete r Oblas

Notes Hans Pe nth

Old Phrao

373

Michael Sm ith ies and Euayporn Ke rdc hou ay

Nang Talung: The Shadow Theatre of Southern Thailand

377

Pr ince Dhaninivat

J.M. Cadet, Ramakicn, the Thai Epic

389

Mattani Ru tni n

Suwannee Sukonta, Kao chue K.arn (A Man called Kam) 390

Reviews

Page Michael Vickery

Prachum sila charu'k phak thi 3 (Collected Inscriptions Part 3) Prachum sila charu'k phak thi 4 (Collected bzscriptions Part 4 ) Prachu!ll phra tamra baral!l rachuthit phu'a kalpana samai ayuthaya J)hak I (Collected Royal Decrees Establishing Religious Foundations in the Ayuthaya Period Part 1) 394

Bonnie and Derek Brereton A . Teeuw and D .K. Wyatt, Hikayat Patani, the

Story of Patani Ke n non Bn;!azea le

408

Toem Wiphakphotchanakit, Prawatsat !san (.4

History of Northeast Thailand) V'va ltC'r F. Vella

413

C hamu 'n Am9ndarunrak (Chaem Suntharawcl),

Important Works of King Rama VI Chamu'n Am~llldarunrak, ed., Dusit Thaui: The

Democratic State of K ing Rama VI Laurence D. Stifel

A.A. Rozen tal, Finat1ce and Development

4 16 Ill

Thailand Ge han Wijeyawardene

Edward Van Roy, Ecorzomic Systems of Northem

Thailand: Structure and Change Brian L. Foster

41 9 422

Boonsanong Punyodyana, Chinese-Thai Differen-

tial Assimilation in Bangkok : An Exploratory Study 426 .A.s tri Su hrke

Kamol Somvichien, Pattana ganmuang thai Donald E. Weatherbee, The United Front in Thai-

land.

A Documentary Analysis

429

f1 ichael Smithies

James Basche, Thailand Land of the Free

432

Jane Bunn ag

Melford E. Spiro, Br4ddhism and Society

434

Davi d P. Chand ler

Bunchhan Mul, Kuk Niyobay

437

Angu s Hone

Donald Fryer, Emerging South East Asia: A Study in Growth and Stagnation 439

Page Hira m W. Woodward, Jr.

Prince Dhaninivat

Albert Le Bonheur, La Sculpture indonesienne au Musee Guimet

Recent Siamese Publications 447.

Yudi, Chin: Prehistory in Thailand

448.

Diskul, Prince Subhadradis : The Art of Lobpuri

449.

Wallibhodom, M: The Art of Uio'D

450.

Amatyakul, T: The Art of Ayudhya

451.

Lyons, Miss E.: The Art of Bangkok

444 447

452. Jatakamala 453.

Lalita-vistara

454.

Rasavahin'i

455.

Naradhip, H.R.H. Kromapra: !11 Honour of the Queen

456.

Bangkok Bank Ltd. : Pra Baram'i Pokklao

457.

The Electricity Generating Authority Club of Thailand sponsored : The Grand Palace

Notes on collfributors

460

Obituaries

467

Adrel'tisements

475

THE ''NEW LOOK" OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREHISTORY 'i' by

Wi lhelm G. Solhe im II

New data, from excavations made since July 1964 in Taiwan and northern Thailand, strongly support the need for a new interpretation of the prehistory of Southeast Asia. These data have been supported by further data from excavations in the Philippines, Sa~·awak, North Vietnam, eastern Indonesia, and northern Australia. If these new data had been found before the Second World War in the manner of archaeological work being done in Southeast Asia at that time they would not have suggested that a new interpretation was needed. It is as much the new methods and techniques of archaeology in gathering and analyzing these data as the da ta themselves which are leading to a new interpretation of Southeast Asian prehistory. Before 1950 the archaeol ogists working in the field in Southeast Asia paid only iip service to stratigraphic excavation . They reported that sites in which they excavated were not stratified or that they were badly dist urbed and that therefore, it was impossible to work out the stratigraphy. Since 1950 various methods of much improved stratigraphic excavation have come into use in Southeast Asia and we now know that most sites are stratified even though it may be difficult to excavate in such a way that the stratigraphy can be closely followed. With the better stratigraphic information that results from the newer excavations we know much better what artifacts are as sociated with each other and which artifacts are found earlier than others and which come later. Along with the greater care in excavation which gives us a more certain sequence of events, new method s of absolute dating have become available to the archaeologist, such as Carbon-1 4 dating and thermoluminescence dat ing as two examples. With these, and other methods, we are able to find out roughly what was happening at a particular time in one area of Southeast Asia and know wt1et!Jer re lated ha ppenings took place earlier or later in some other area in Southeast Asia or in India or China. * Presented at the 5th Conference on Asian History, IAH A'7 1, Manila, Philippines, 28 May 1971.

2

Wilhelm G. Solheim II

Before the Second World War, excavations were primarily decided upon in a rather accidental nature. Accidental finds, when reported to the existing archaeological service, if they were sufficiently exciting, led to an excavation. This resulted in excavations either in areas easily accessible to the archaeologist or in a scattered fashion over relatively wide territory. This way there tended to be considerably more work done relatively close to the headquarters of the archaeologist than at a distance. Since the Second World War, there has been a tendency to work in a small area, explore this area extensively and within the area work intensively on a small number of excavations. This is best illustrated with the excavations in the neighborhood of Tabon Cave in Palawan, Philippines, and in the Niah Caves in the Fourth Division of Sarawak. As a result of a number of excavations in a small area it has been possible to build up a long sequence and to get some idea of what happened over this lon g period of time to one or more cultures or groups of people living in this particular area. New technio.ues of analysis have also been developed in the laboratory for use once the materials have been excavated and brought back to the home base. Previous to 1950 the great majority of the analyses that had been done in Southeast Asia was concerned with stone tools, and this primarily with their form. Since 1950 there has been much attention paid to pottery. Studies made of present day pottery manufacture and the distribution of the methods of manufacture have given us clues of value for the reconstruction of prehistoric pottery and its manufacture, its distribution, and suggestions for working from the excavated pottery to the people who made this pottery. Only in the last few years archaeologists have been developing techniques of examining edge damage of stone tools. With a microscopic examination of the working edge of stone artifacts it is possible to hypothesize what uses they were put to and, in many cases, it has led us to realize that stones we were previously throwing away were used. We now recognize that much of the material that was recovered in excavations previous to the Second World War which would have been of great importance in reconstructing the life of the people who had lived in these archaeological sites vvas thrown away without ever being examined. While these discoveries do not invalidate the work that was done before the Second World War, it means that we

.'

'i'HE ''NEW LOOK" OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREHISTORY

3

must find sites similar to those excavated before the War and make new excavations with new and much more complete analysis of the total collection. The results of these analyses will be considerably different from the results which had been achieved before,

)

The combination of the new data from relatively circumscribed areas, and the new techniques in recovering these data from the sites and in analyzing and dating these data are requiring a different interpretation than before of the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Also, the world is in a different cultural situation than it was before the Second World War resulting in a different way of looking at these data. Mucli of the reason for the reconstruction which was made of the data available by the beginning of the Second World War was the general colonial philosophy that was unconsciously held by all archaeologists in Southeast Asia, whether European or local. This was not a new or distinct philosophy but very much a part of the Victorian Age which was the peak of the colonial empire period. Archaeological beginnings, over a hundred years ago now, took place in western Europe and many of the ideas associated with the reconstruction of world prehistory were based on the first excavations and the reconstruction of European prehistory. The prehistorians, without realizing the damage they were doing, took it for granted that what they found in western Europe and the Middle East would be found in much the same relationships in the rest of the world. In Europe, over the forty or fifty years of archaeology done before the First World War, the different cultural manifestations and sequences were based primarily on the stone working which was found in the archaeological sites. It was felt that there was a continuous improvement in stone working from the very crude and large stone tools of the Early Palaeolithic to the smaller and much better made stone tools of the Late Palaeolithic and the microliths, very small, geometric stone tools of the Mesolithic. The stone flaking found in the Late Palaeolithic of western Europe was, some of it, impressively beautiful and there was a general feeling that there was a one-to-one correlation between the fineness of the stone work and the progressiveness of the cultures doing the stone work. As very rough sequences of cultures were worked out in Southeast Asia during the

4

Wilhelm G. Solheim Ii

1920s and 1930s, it became apparent that there had been relatively little change in the stone working techniques in Southeast Asia and that, compared to the stone work of the Middle East and Europe, the stone working during the later Palaeolithic in Southeast Asia was extremely crude. lt was, therefore, felt that there had been little cultural advance in Southeast Asia and because the methods for stone working found in the Middle East and in Europe were not present in Southeast Asia, it was felt that Southeast Asian peoples were isolated from the advances of the west and that the general cultural level of Southeast Asia lagged far behind the cultural level of the west. During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in Southeast Asia the European scholars who followed their governments into the countries of Southeast Asia quickly came to recognize the very obvious evidence of Indian and Chinese influences in different parts of Southeast Asia. These scholars became acquainted with the aristocracy of countries of Southeast Asia and recognized the close similarity of the religious beliefs and the political practices of the aristocracy of countries in Southeast Asia with those of China or India. As more and more knowledge was accumulated of some of the spectacular ruins in Southeast Asia, it was realized that these also showed a very strong influence from India or China. The interpretation was, therefore, that civilization had not developed in Southeast Asia but had come to Southeast Asia from China andfor India. To their minds this was just further evidence that Southeast Asia was culturally far behind the rest of the world until these civilizing influences had entered from the north or the west. Combining this historical viewpoint with the developing ideas on the prehistory of Southeast Asia, it seemed logical to the European prehistorians and their local students that Southeast Asia had been a cultural cul-de-sac which owed all progress to outside sources. The explanation of progress as seen in the patchy archaeological record was that it came about through migrations of people, ordinarily from the north. You could almost automatically say that in an archaeological excavation when some new and advanced technique appeared in an area the interpretation would be that it had been brought in by a new people coming from the north. Slightly later, in the very early historic times,

'·

'rHE 1'NEW LOOK" OF SO UTHEAST ASIA N PREHISTORY

S

many of the advances were thought to have come in from India. In the 1950s and even the 1960s, prehistorians who were reasonably well acquainted with world prehistory said that Southeast Asia was of importance in world prehistory as here you could investigate interacti on between India and China. One of the archaeologists went so far as to explain the lack of any references to Southeast Asia in an anthology of archaeological works because nothing of importance had ever been found in Southeast Asian prehistory. A rapid review of the traditional reconstruction of ~he prehistory of Southeast Asia will amply demonstrate the passive position of Southeast Asia in the eyes of the prehistorians. The early and the middle palaeolithic cultures were discovered and defined primarily in the '30s by Hallam L. Movius, Jr. {1955), and others in Burma, Malaya and Indonesia. Movius presented the defi nitions of the chopper-chopping tool tr adit ion of Southeast Asia and hypothes ized that thi s vvas distinct from the stone-working tradition s of wes tern India and the west. Throughout the duration of this general pebble tool industry there was little change in form of the stone tools, only a sli ght decrease in the size of the tools and a slight improvement in the flakin g. It was felt that during this cultural stage Southeast Asia was culturally isolated from the rest of the world and already was fallin g fa r behind in cultural development. The Hoabinhian culture was fir st discovered and defined in North Vietnam by Madeleine Colani. At first she considered it a late palaeolithic culture but after disagreement with her colleagues she changed her mind and felt that because this appeared to date completely from the Holocene it should be considered a mesolithic culture rather than palaeolithic (Matthews 1966). In the Philippines and central and eastern Indonesia there was evidence discovered of several flake cultures which showed some resemblance to each other. While these flakes were relatively small compared to the earlier flakes and cores of t he chopper-chopping tool tradition, they were not true microliths in that they were, for the most part, not geometric and were considerably larger than true microliths. The prehistorians in Southeast Asia were not well acquainted with Middle Eastern and European prehistory, however, and they used

Wilhelm G. Solheim it

the term microliths for the tools and microlithic as a descriptive term for the cultures which, in equating again with European terminology, they considered as mesolithic. The reconstruction of the "neolithic" in Southeast As ia is primarily the result of research by Robert Heine-Geldern in the 1920s and 1930s (!932). He proposed a series of migrations wh ich, for the most part, brought peoples from the north (China or Japan) south into Southeast Asia. These cultures were typified by their typical associated stone polished axes and adzes. One of these cultures, the shouldered ax culture, was completely internal to Southeast Asia, and Heine-Geldern did suggest the possibility that the oval ax culture (the early neolithic) could have originated in Southeast Asia but much more strongly suggested that it came from Japan or the coastal a rea of North China. The most important of these neolithic cultures for Southeast Asia was the late neolithic culture of the four-cornered adze, or rectangular adze. This, Heine-Geldern suggested, came out of North China , down through Southeast Asia and Malaya into Indone sia and up into the Philippines and Formosa, moving to some degree as far as Japan, and another branch going o ff to the east into Melanesia and Polynesia. Agriculture , he hypothesized, was introduced into Southeast Asi a in two stages: by the early neolithic cultures from Northern China or Japan and by the rectangular adze culture from North China . In the upper layers of the Late Hoabinhian si tes were commonly found some quantity of potsherds and a few chipped stone adzes wh ich were ground and polished only on their working edge. No one suggested that this was an internal development in Southeast Asia but hypothesized that neoli thic farmers from the north who made pottery and polished their stone tools were settled in the valleys and the Late Hoabinhian people, in contact with these, picked up the techniques of polishing stone and making pot tery but never were able to incorporate them well into their stone work and cultural life. Others suggested that the Hoabinhian peopie did not make the pottery found in their sites but that this was left by the neolithic farmers of the lowland. None of the lowland neolithic sites of this assumed association have ever been found. The traditional bronze culture of Southeast Asia was the Dongson culture first noted in North Vietnam. Two diflerent hypotheses of its origin both brought it in from outside of Southeast Asia, Heine-Geldern

THE " NEW LOOK" OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREHISTORY

7

(1951) hypothesizing its resulting from a migration of tribal groups from eastern Europe who arrived in North Vietnam around 800 B.C., and Bernhard Karlgren (1942) saying that these techniques were brought from Northern China into North Vietnam around the third century B.C. bringing in Late Chou art sty les, as found on the large bronze drums in particular. Finally, the reconstruction of the earliest history an d protohistor:· of Southeast Asia made by the historians presented overwhelming evidence for the beginnings of civilization in Southeast Asia as a result of contacts of one kind or another from India and from China. From these contac ts were developed the civilizations of Vietnam, Champa, Funan, Dvaravati, and Shrivijaya. The later civi lized empires of Southeast Asia developed out of one or the other of these earlier civili zations. Archaeological data whicll have been uncov ered primarily during the last ten years is very st rongl y suggesting tbat these traditional interpretations are incorrect (Solheim 1971 s). Edge da mage unalysis of some of the flakes from an archaeological site in far northern Thailand suggests that many of t hese may hav e been used in working wood . I have hypothes ized that there was a lignic period during the Late Pleis tocene when instead of an evolution of new and better technique in stone work ing, the peoples of Southeast Asia started making wooden tools a nd that the evolution which wo uld demonst rate their cultural development took place in wood rather than stone. If this is so, it is most unlikely that a ny of the wooden tools themselves will ever be found to prove it as they are organic and the soil and climatic conditions in Southeast Asia result in the rapid destruction of this type of organic remains. I have visited fiv e areas in Southeast Asia where archaeological excavations have p roduced sequences of up to 40,000 and more years. In all of these sequences there have been additions to the cultural inventory a pparent in the artifacts recovered but in most of them t here has been little indica tion of a replaceme nt of one cultu ral group with a new and different cultural group. The site with which I have been most closely connected, Non Nok Thain northeastern Thailand, has a sequence

8

Wilhelm G. Solheim II

of about 7,000 years. From the very beginning of this sequence to the end of the sequence, probably about 200 years ago, it is obvious that it is populated by people of the same general culture. There are numerous changes but at all times it is apparent that the people who are there are closely related to those who had come before them. This does not deny that there may have been movements of people which were sufficiently large to be called migrations but it very strongly suggests that most of the cultural evolution in Southeast Asia was internal with new elements of culture obviously coming in but not making any major disruption of the culture that was there. The one time when I feel that there was something approaching a migration was during the last half of the first millennium B.C. when I feel that the evidence suggests that a considerable number of people moved out of southeastern China by water, some of these people going to Formosa, some going to Korea and Japan but the majority going south through the Philippines and into Indonesia and later moving north into western Mainland Southeast Asia. Our excavations at Non Nok Tha have demonstrated a clear and long lasting bronze technological period and the dates that we have for this bronze manufacture go back to about 3,000 B.C. A burial at an earlier level than the earliest bronze had on its chest a copper-socketed tool which was very likely heat worked at some stage in its manufacture. This indicates bronze manufacture and mettalurgy at least 2,000 years before the so-called Dongson culture and a thousand or more years before bronze was being manufactured in China. This is five hundred to a thousand years earlier than bronze was being worked in India. The evidence of bronze working at Non Nok Tha shows that the ores were not being mined in the immediate locality of this site but that there was trade bringing either bronze or the component metals copper, lead, and tin to the localities where they were worked. From the few sites so far excavated in Southeast Asia where bronze v1orking artifacts have been found, I would hypothesize tha t bronze working was done in many localities and that there was not a major trade in bronze artifacts , at least a t the beginning of its manufacture. Paul Benedict, the person who in 1941 hypothesized that the Thai language was not a Sinetic language but related to the Austro-Asiatic languages, has done considerable research along these same lines during

--

THE " NEW LOOK "

OF SOUTHEAST AS!A N PR EHISTORY

9

the last five years (Benedict 1967). There is not time here to go into his findings but he has suggested to me in a le tt er that writ ing was developed in Southeast Asia before it was in China and diffused from Southeast Asia to China. Becm1 o,e the traditional material on which writing was done in Southeast Asia has been bamboo or leaves of one kind or another, none of these early record:> of writing are likely to be recovered. I emphasize that this is purely a hypo thesis, but a possible one. If this is so, we have in Southeast Asia, probably early in the third millennium B.C. , all of the requirements for a civilization except for urbani zation. There are some suggestions from recent excavations in the central plai ns in Tha iland th at some urbanization was und envay before Indian influence came into the area to speed it up. Whether there was urbanization or not, there is no ind ication of politica l centralization in Southeast As ia except for the area of North Vietnam . Excavations and analysis of the artifacts recovered in North Vietnam since 1960 have indicated that there were one or possibly two distinct bronze manufacturing cultures in North Vietnam before the time of Dongson. At leas t one of these cul tures produced large quantities of arrowheads or spearheads ind icating an army and obvious political organ iza tion of some type. The North Vietnamese archaeologists are in the process of relating these to the previously considered mythological kingdoms of Vietnam. Their hypothetical dating, of which they have done very little, has suggested to me that they felt tha t these go back to about the beginning of the first millennium B.C. Early in May, 1971 , I received a letter from an archaeologist in East Berlin from an institute that has been doing Carbon-1 4 dating for the Nort h Vietnamese. This archaeologist, Professor Dr. H. Quitt a, mentioned that dates for early bronze cultures in North Vietnam are in the second millennium B.C. (16001100 B.C.). It is much too early to relate these developmen ts in Nor th Vietnam and the fir st millennium developments in Thailand to the early history of China and the first m illennium B.C. history of India. I believe that we can say, however, that the cultural situation in Southeast As ia before the beginnings of Indian and Chinese contact was much higher than anyone has previously accepted or even suggested.

10

Wilhelm G. Solheim II

I am going to very briefly summarize the new data that has led to my new reconstruction of Southeast Asian prehistory which will follow. Some of these data have been published and much of the rest is in the process of publication. I will give you general references to this work so that you can check the data. In the early 1950s I lived for over four years in the Philippines and put in most of my efforts on the pottery of Philippines. As a result of this work and work since that time I proposed the Sa-huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition as found on the coast of Annam and in the central Philippines. Related pottery has been found on a small island· in the Gulf of Siam, in Indonesia, Borneo, and South Vietnam. At first I had proposed this for a Southeast Asia-wide pottery tradition but in the last few years with more data and more of this pottery dated , it had become obvious that there is too much variation both in dates and in the material to include aU of this pottery in one tradition . Rather, there are a number of related tradition s of pot tery manufacture in Southeast Asia that have many similarities partially because of a Southeast Asian art style that is shared by many peoples of Southeast Asia and which is also found in the designs in tattooing, textiles, basketry, and wood carving (Solheim 1967). The most important area of prehistoric sites in the Philippines is in the neighborhood of Puerto Princessa on the west coast of Palawan. Here, following several years excavations in the Tabon Caves, and other caves located in the area, under the direction of Robert Fox of the National Museum, a sequence of cultures has been built up going back over 30,000 years. A good summary of these finds is available in The Tabon Caves, by Robert Fox ( 1970). The Niah Caves sites in the fourth division in Sarawak, East Malaysia, were excavated under the direction of Tom Harrisson, at the time the Curator of the Sarawak Museum. From these sites there is a sequence going back 40,000 years with, as in the Tabon Caves, deposits going down considerably deeper, and thus earlier, than the earliest Carbon-14 dates. From Niah Cave was recovered a skull of an adolescent Homo sapiens which dates from a bout 40,000 B.C. This is the earliest dated Homo sapiens skull known in the world. The cultures represented

T HE ' 1NEW LOOK" OF SOUTHEAST ASIA N PREHISTORY

1i

in the Niah Caves and the Tabon Caves show a number of relationships both in the earlier levels and in the later levels. The Late Pleistocene levels in both caves were occupied by peoples making and using primarily flakes for their tools. Later, when pottery manufacture came in, it came into both areas some time during the second millennium B.C. or possibly earlier. This pottery, though far from identical, shows considerable relationship and I have hypothesized that both of these potteries belong to the Sa-huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition. Fox, on the basis of his more extensive work with the pottery from Tabon Caves sites, does not completely agree with this but he does agree that the pottery from Borneo and from the Tabon Caves is very closely related. One of the important items of evidence from Niah Cave is an edge ground stone tool dated at about 8,000 B.C. A detailed summary of the results of the work in Niah Cave and in Sarawak as a whole can be found in an article by Tom Harrisson in Volume XIII of Asian Perspectives to appear some time in the fall of 1971. In 1964 and 1965, Professor Kwang-chih Chang of Yale University led an expedition from Yale and from the National Taiwan University in excavations at Fengpitou and Tapenkeng in Taiwan ( 1969). Two di stinct cultures were identified and dated going back to about 2,500 B.C. One of these, Chang suggests, is related to the Lungshanoid cultures of southeastern China and the other to the painted pottery cultures of the north. Below these levels in two sites he found an earlier corded-ware culture for which he has no Carbon-14 dates. From the considerable depths of these deposits it is obvious that this corded-ware (pottery) culture was in existence for a long time. Chang has hypothesized that this was a horticultural society with its closest relationships to the people making cord-marked pottery in southeastern China of as yet unknown but early dating. About the middle of the first millennium B.C., geometric pottery started showing up in sites in Formosa, related obviously to the geometric pottery in southeastern China. In far northern Thailand, near the Burmese border, Chester Gorman discovered and excavated Spirit Cave. In this cave he found a typical Late Hoabinhian stone industry and in the top layer he found cord-marked, incised, and burnished pottery, polished slate knives, and rectangular polished stone tools. Throughout the site he found remnants of plants

12

Wilhelm G. Solheim Ii

which are tended and cultivated in the general area today. The dates for this site go from about 5,600 B.C. at the very top to about 10,000 B.C. in the middle of the deepest cultural level. The polished stone tools and pottery came into the site about 6,600 B.C. and the very possibly domesticated plants go back to 10,000 B.C. or earlier. Included in these probable domesticated plants are two different kinds of beans and a pea. A summary of the contents of this site will be found in Asian Perspectives XIII (Gorman, 1971 ). The excavations at Non Nok Tha, like those of Spirit Cave, were undertaken by a joint expedition of the Fine Arts Department of Thailand and the University of Hawaii under my general direction. Excavations at Non Nok Tha were primarily conducted by Hamilton Parker of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and Donn Bayard, now also of the University of Otago. While there was very little problem with the Carbon-14 dates from Spirit Cave the Carbon-14 dates from Non Nok Tha have presented considerably more problem. We have a sequence in which we feel confidence, however, going back beyond 3,600 B.C. and continuing up to only one or two hundred years ago. From the very bottom of this site we found evidence ot bovines which are probably Bos indicus, the zebu cattle, and these were probably domesticated. In potsherds trom the bottom levels of the site we have found impressions of Oryza satzva, the common rice of Asia. Rice impressions were identified by Professor Hitoshi Kihara of Japan but from the impressions it is impossible to say whether the rice is domestic or wild and whether it is dry or wet rice. We are of the opinion that this is a dry, domesticated rice. As mentioned before, from the burial dated about 3,600 B.C. was recovered a copper-socketed tool and from levels just above this, dating probably a bit before 3,000 B.C., we have recovered the first considerable remnants of bronze. Bronze was being used at the site in some quantity as evidenced by the remains of pairs of sandstone molds for casting the axes, several bronze axes, whole and fragmentary crucibles, and many small nodules of bronze (Solheim 1968). The dating for bronze working at Non Nok Tha goes back as early as any of the bronze working known in the Middle East and the technology evidenced in this site is on a level with anything being done in the Middle East at this time. It is possible that bronze was invented earlier in Southeast Asia than in the Middle

THE "NEW LOO K" OF SOUT HE AST ASIAN PREHISTORY

13

East. A detailed preliminary report on the work at Non Nok Tha by Donn Bayard will be found in Volume XIII of Asian Perspectives (1971). The site of Chansen was excavat ed in 1968 and 1969 by a joint Thai-University of Pennsylvania expedition. This si te is in eastern central Thailand. Carbon-14 and thermoluminescence dates suggest that it was in use as a village and later a ofl s.;t (AD 1'4 ! 8)

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ka' au keman de'on yak an blet bulang yukut dalak klan minyat kelun kading ikun buloi buloi h:>ta k h:>tak tenga' mata :' yung :>kang krepan klre kukoi kakai ta' :>t ngan lake lubng tuj:>i hatai katai me' am nyam n:>g:>t

228 ENGLISH

see hear know sleep die kill swim fly walk come lie, deceive sit stand give say sun moon star water rain stone earth sand cloud fire smoke ash burn (noun) path mountain red green yellow white

David W. Hogan MALAY

lihat dengar tahu tidur mati bunoh berenang terbang jalan mari bohong dudok berdiri beri kat a matahari bulan bin tang ayer hujan batu tanah pasir a wan a pi asap abu luka angus jalan bukit merah hijau kuning puteh

URAK LA WOI' MOKEN

lihai' meningai tahu lin a' mati bun:)h betenang tdbak jalat mareh me'upay dudo' bfdiri bri melau mata' ari bulat bitak aye hujat batu tanah tanah patai kemuwang a pi as a' habu hang:)i' jalat buke' merah hijau kuning puteh

MOKLEN

melit nenga nyedan kelet matai munu' nangowi ticum (?) lakau ngadin kawau med:) yenan me' :)n

pena nenga dan teklet matai munu' nangoi tichl!m nayak kau din kawau d:)k yen an ':)n

mekau mata' aloi bulan bituak uwen hujan batoi tanai ketam tanai betiak keniang apu :, apwi . ahoi, kahoi kaboi tutung jalan ta'lai mrelat ng:)my kunyik putiak

klau mata' aloi bulan bituak u'en by an batoi tanai tre'et tanai panat kedet angin apwi kii gi:hai tutung apwi yalan te'lai mrelat yau Hang (Thai) putiak

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black night hot cold full new good round dry name eat rice Where are you going? What are you doing?

hi tam malam panas, hangat dingin penoh baharu baik bulat kering nama makan nasi

hi tap me nap malap kern an ldat hangai' tayam bejeh penu pen:Jh kebi baru am:Jn baji' kelum bulai' krik ket~ nganyan nama makat nasi nyam j:Jn

pergi mana

pi diha

lakau pita

229

MOKLEN

nap keman blat tayam penn' klai am:Jn klum 'et~·

yam j:Jn kau tam

Whose boat? my boat a big ship

b:J' anong bwai' nama b:J' anun prahu sapa kabang acha kabang acau kabang jai perahu sahaya prahu na' ku kabang jui kabang ada' kapan besar cep:J' ada' kapal besar

go to catch

pergi tangkap pi riga' ikat mengap ikan

fish

ikan

my mother

mak sahaya

bikin apa perahu siapa

rna' de' ku

en:Jng joi

mengap ikan inong jai

It is obvious from these lists that the four languages belong to the same language family, with Malay and Urak Lawoi' being more closely related to each other and Moken and Moklen forming another pair. Experience has shown that the dialects are not mutually intelligible unless there has been some mixing together. For instance, few of the Urak Lawoi' on Phuket can speak Malay and a Malay-speaker would not be able to follow their conversation. However the Urak Lawoi' in the Adang Group have mixed with Malays more so that most understand Malay and they use more Malay words than those in Phuket would. Similarly the Moklen from the north of Phuket Island do not understand a Moken speaker because they rarely meet them, while those in the Ko' Phra Thong area who do meet them can talk with them.

230

David W. Hogan

It will be seen that there is a systematic pattern of phonetic changes

evident between these various languages. I have commenced to analyse the variations between Malay and Urak Lawoi' and find they follow similar patterns to those evident in other languages closely related to Malay, such as Pattani Malay. Moken and Moklen seem more distantly related to Malay. Miss Lewis ( 1960) has listed 1430 Moken words. Of these she has found Malaya-Polynesian affinities (or loans) for 365 words, ManKhmer affinities (or loans) for 46 words, 69 words possibly Th~i loanwords and 36 words possibly Burmese loan-words. I have not yet analysed my Urak Lawoi' vocabulary in that way, but of the 110 words listed above there are only these ten words for which I cannot see a cognate Malay word: hoi (have not), dumi' (small), lulu (flesh), po' (hair), o' (drink), melau (say), kemuwang (cloud), bejeh (cold), diha (where?), na' (of). However a word checklist of this type can be deceptive and give a false impression of the resemblance to Malay. It makes no indication of differences in syntactical structure, and by concentrating on basic words which may not vary much from one language to another, and by the small size of the sampling used it can obscure the real situation. For instance in 106 Moken words above I can see 49 which have obvious parallels in cognate Malay words, which is to say there is a 4696 correlation. Miss Lewis' list with 1430 words and 365 affinities obviously gives a much more realistic correlation of 25.5% URAK LA WOI' PHONEMIC STRUCTURE AND ORTHOGRAPHY

Urak Lawoi' has 23 consonantal phonemes: the unaspirated voiceless stops p t c k' (glottal); the voiced stops b d j g; the rare voiceless aspirated stops ph th ch kh; the voiceless fricatives s h; the nasals m n ny ng; the laterals 1 r; at~d the semi-vowels w y. All these occur initially in syllables, but only the following 12 appear syllable-finally: the stops p t c k'; the voiceless fricatives s h; the nasals m n ng; the lateral 1 and the semi-vowels w y. Phonetically both "r" and "1" occur syllable-finally, but they are interpreted as one phoneme "1" because of the lack of contrast.

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MEN UF THE SEA: CO tiSTAL T RlBES OF SOUTH THATLAND'S WEST COAST

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Of these consonants, all except "j g ny" appear in the Thai alphabet, so they are represented in Thai by the normal middle and lower class consonants. Less frequently used Thai letters n1 ~~ and !)J are borrowed for "j g ny". Thai does not have the sounds "c s h 1" appearing syllable-finally. Using the Thai letter B finally for "h" does not cause any complication, but the Thai letters for "c s" ~ 9i are pronounced "L" finally, and final " 1" " is pronounced "n". A primer has been prepared to aid those who can read Thai to learn how to pronounce these letters in Urak Lawoi', e.g. : "c" is phonetically equivalent to "i' "; "s" is equivalent to "{h"; and "1" is pronounced as an alveolar or blade-palatal "1" according to its context. This may be seen in the words: "darah" ~nio (blood ); "proc (= proi')" hln (stomach); "atas (= ataih )" ~41 8c l. •-' "--~, ..~ Bo•"••••n . I·.)'>• " "'--{0 . . . ~··••:"' ""•' . ' ""··· ..... . ' ·.~•,·'_~. ·""/ ...._"•n• \·-·

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SOME: SOCIAL AND RE:LIGIOUS I NSTITUTIO NS OF THE: LA W A

239

Way back: (B.Huai Hagmai Tai, u .H'1tH1ni~1 ~ )-B.La'ub, u.n:vu--B.Pa Pae, u.JllliJ- trunkroad east of Maesariang. ' 3) 23.12.1968-18.1.1969: K3ng L3i-(B.Mre Tho Luang)-B.Yreg. More on social and religious items. On 28.12.68. departure from our quarters in the ritual house of B. Yreg to the north, passing through B.Changm3 Man 3d and B.Changm3 N5i. The day by day itinerary of the tour to the Northern Law a is detailed on Table 1. In B.Tun, B.Sam, B.H:)', B.G:)g Luang and B.Pae' we stayed two nights, in all other places only one night. Though we concentrated our inquiries on a few themes -leading personalities, ritual house and sacrificial posts, ancestor spirits, death-rites, handicrafts and art- shortness of time made it impossible, as will be understood, to draw a complete and conclusive picture in every respect. Often enough our queries stayed unanswered for our informants' lack of knowledge or for their reluctance to reveal what they thought better kept secret. Furthermore from B.Tiin to B.Mied L3ng, Khun Suchat's health was slightly impaired (a fact which is reflected in defective information from these villages). 2.

Karen intrusion

I have given the above itinerar ies purposely to show that nowadays it is practically impossible to tour the Lawa bills without an occasional stopover in Karen villages. North of B.G:)g Luang, the northernmost Lawa village, we were assured all villages were Karen. There might be the odd Maeo village also, but definitely no more Lawa ones. According to Kunstadter ( 1969, 234) Sg5-Karen coming from Burma have slowly infiltrated what had been exclusively Lawa land for about the past 120 years (c.1 850). They first appeared in small groups, modestly asking the then wealthy Lawa, owners of fields and elephants, to take on lease some fields "in exchange for 10 per cent of the annual rice crop" (Kunstadter, 1966 A, 66; 1969, 234). This was approved by the Prince of Chiengmai who demanded tribute from both Lawa and Karen. Since then this process has continued and now the Law a settlements are interspersed by Karen ones; or, as a i Kham Sug of B.Yreg put it more drastically, all Lawa villages are menaced by a growing encirclement of Karen. One need only look at the map (southern part ) to see the once Lawa-owned hills now teeming with Karen villages and hamlets. Of this

240

H.E. Kauffmann

state of affairs, Kunstadter ( 1970, 3) has given a particularly clear picture: "The hills in a rectangle 20 km. to the north and 18 km. to the east of the town of Mae Sariang were once the exclusive property of the three Lua' villages of Pa Pae, Ban Dong, and La'ub. Now the spaces between these Lua' villages have been filled with about 30 Karen hamlets, whose total population is probably three times that of the Lua' villages." There are also mixed tribal villages where Lawa and Karen live peacefully side by side. Of the 46 houses of B.H::>', 20 in the western upper viiiage have been Karen for at least three generations. The grandfather of the present headman Run Khunwong divided t_he village: the upper western part was reserved for the Karen, the rest was to go to the Lawa. The headman is responsible for the Karen quarter also. In B.G::>g Luang, of 68 houses 12 are Karen, and two houses flush with the ground are H5 traders' shops. The process of the encroachment of the Karen on Lawa land and the successive impoverishment of the Lawa, who were still well-to-do 120 years ago, has been clearly described by Kunstadter (1969, 234/35). Furthermore the Lawa had at an earlier date lost much of their lowland property to the Thai. They have good humoured tales about the cleverness of the Thai and the foolishness of their naive ancestors (Kunstadter 1969, 232). A story of this kind I learned in B.Sam: The yong bl3ngl once trapped many stags (jag) and kept them in fences for food. One day Thai traders came up with ponies, and when they saw the stags they readily exchanged a pony for each stag, so getting all the stags. The Lawa thought, well, a horse is bigger than a stag and through this exchange we will have more meat. The Thai killed the stags, dried the meat and the skins for easier carrying, and took all, including the horns, down to town . The next day the Lawa wanted to kill a horse for food. They went to open the fence, but lo-in a moment all the horses bad run out and galloped back to their former masters. There is yet another story, from B.H::>' this time, of the Karen profiting from the Lawa. On our list of northern Lawa villages to be visited B. Thuan (u. tnu, Lawa: Yuang Thuan) originally was noted, but we soon found that this village had been Karen for quite a long time. 1) yong : community of one of the ritual houses. blong: horse. M.C. Sanidh Rangsit, 1942/ 45 701 : mbr:>ng jag: stag. , 699 : t'ak

SOME SOCIAL AND RELI GIOUS I NSTITUTIONS OF TI-lE LAWA

241

The lege11d of Ban Thuan

In the olden days Ban Thuan possessed a sacred pond containing the water of immortality. All villagers drank of it, so nobody died. One day a group of villagers of Ban Thuan went to a Karen village and there a dead man happened to be being carried to the grave-yard with gongs beating. The Lawa of Ban Thuan thought this most laughable and bought the corpse, the gongs and all the other paraphernalia to have the same fun in their own village. They carried everything to Ban Thuan and walked around with laughter and rejoicing. But the village spirit became furious over such stupid behaviour and punished them by withdrawing the sacred water of immortality. On the same day all those died who had brought the corpse into the village. The pond dried up, there was no more water, and this is the reason why the people of Ban Thuan emigrated. Five of their families live now in Ban H:>' where they have their own nyoe' nyu (ritual house). The dried up pond is still to be seen nowadays at Ban Thuan. The Karen, more astute, took over the fields and do not mind going a long way to fetch water. 3.

Moral disintegration

The influence of the Karen, which is certainly strong in many respects, and the missionaries' eagerness for proselytizing are not the only factors in the progressive decay of Lawa culture. To these energetic and fleet-footed hill people the extremely steep and treacherous paths are no obstacle in reaching, relatively quickly, the small market-towns of Maesariang, Maelan:>i and Maejaem, which are active centres in Thailand's domestic trading system. The young men working during the cold season on the roads, in teakwoods, in mines, etc., see all the modern means of communications, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, transistors and a great many other useful objects, so they feel that life is easier and more profitable down there. Why should they spend money on spirit sacrifices if they can buy some more tangible assets for the same amount? Parallel to this there is "a decrease in interest in megalithic conceptions" (Kauffmann, 1971, 147). Nai Kham Sug of B. Yreg opines that the ancient customs are neglected more and more, especially in the northern villages, ~o that within tqe next 20 years belief in phi (spirits) willl;>ecome ~x:tipct,

242

H.E. Kauffmann

With the firm religious pattern dwindling, many families turn their backs to the hills and settle down in one of the two so-called Lawa suburbs of Maesariang. So for example did two families from B. Tun who just when we visited were feeding their ancestor spirits for the last time. And when we left the hills in January 1969, 15 families out of the three Changm5 villages of the Umphai group were leaving their homes for good to move with bag and baggage down to Maesariang. Kunstadter wrote (1970, 4) that within the last generation 15-20% of the hill Lawa of Maesariang District had emigrated to the plains. Nai Lu, the gorid (see p. 279) of B.Yieg, thinks that within the next ten years there will be no more Changm5 villages at all. He has travelled several times to Chiangmai and grumblingly uttered: "Look at that Chinese of "Thantraphan" Department Store, no spirits, no la'mang (ancestor spirits), and he is a millionaire. We are sacrificing to the phi all the year round, but still stay poor." 4.

Maeo

In 1962 we passed through B.Mreo Gao Lua' (u.ulfm1Hi1t, lit. "once Lawa now Mieo village"), a wretched hamlet of four or five huts on the path leading from Umphai along the D5i B5 Hre (vnwJauti, lit. "mountain of ore mines") to B.Mre Tho Luang. In later years I have not seen this hamlet, mentioned also by Obayashi ( 1964, 200). Certainly the people have moved further on; it is interesting to learn that this place was once a Lawa village, and it is not the only one which has disappeared. In 1969 we passed through B.Mreo Mre Tho (u. ulf1uuTo) of the Blue Mreo, north of B.Mre Tho Luang, a village of more than 100 houses and a shop run by a H5. Some sections are in Amphoe H5d and some in Amphoe Mrejrem. B.Mreo Khun Mre Hre (u.ulf1'1!uuJwi) has only two families and a H5 shop. It is situated one hour east of B. Yang Mre Hie Nuea (u.vwtJutittt~v) where we stayed overnight, while Khun Suchat and some porters went there to buy provisions. At B.Yang Mre Hre Nuea we were told that there is no communication between Lawa and Mreo, as the latter trade opium and the Lawa $enerally are not addicts. Still 1 we noted some well-tended poppy fields

SOME SOCIAL AND RELI GIO US INSTITUTIO NS OF THE LA\VA

243

of the Law a along the path from B.G::>g Luang to B.Pae', though they were far smaller than the Maio's. On the contrary, the Karen smoke opium and therefore have connections with the Mreo. However, Karen and Mreo are often in dispute about fields. Between the Mreo of B.Mreo Mre Tho and the Lawa of B.B5 Luang there is a special relationship: if the Mreo lack labourers for their opium fields, they hire them from B.B5 Luang, and if they have not enough rice they also buy from B.B5 Luang, where the quali ty is the same as of Mreo rice. These notes give some insight into the way in which the Mreo fit in the interstices bet ween Law a and Karen and of the role the"y fulfill. 5.

Missions

About 20 tmsswnaries (American, French, Italian, Spanish) were said to roa m the region. On the way we passed an Italian missionary and later met the wife of an American one; she spoke fluent Lawa and made B.La'ub-Mrelan5i in one day. When I visited B.La'ub in 1964 there were 12 houses of Protestant Christians. Kunstadter remarks (1965, 27) that at the time of his visit there were about 20 Christian families in B.La'ub out of a total of about 100 families; in B.Pa Pre he noted only two Christian families. I would not have noticed the Christians in B.La'ub but for their singing in the evening. This reminded me of the Naga Hills in Assam where by singing and even more by disturbing the feasts of their 'heathen' brethren, the Christians provoked such conflict tha t the then British administration was compelled to separate the quarrellers into two different villages. Even with the Lawa, who are by no means pugnacious, the '"relationship between Christian and non-Christian is not always so good. The Christians have tended to set themselves apart (e.g. by fencing their properties) , and village leaders sometimes do not even include them in enumeration of village residents" (Kunstadter 1965, 29). In Lawa villages where Christian households increased, "a settlement had to be negotiated between the Christians and the animists . . . to maintain the solidarity of the village." By a compromise, "the Christians agreed to buy portions of the meat of the pigs or buffalos slaughtered at communal ceremonies, thus helping to share the cost of the ceremonies without actually participating directly in them" (Kunstadter, !969 A, 233) . ·;.·

244

H.E . Kauffmann

In the above-mentioned B. H::>', of the 20 Karen houses 15 have b.een Catholic since only about 1964. In B.Pae', a small house has been built for an Italian Catholic missionary who makes his appearance very rarely and, as they said with joyous laughter, for five years has been trying in vain to make converts. A Catholic (?) missionary once passed through B.G::>g Lua ng. In B.Dong, with a big Border Patrol Police school, there is no mi ssionary. To sum up, with the exception of B.La'ub, the missions do not seem to have made great inroads on the Lawa up to the present.

B. The Lawa villages I.

In general

In earlier research there was much guesswork as to the number of villages, houses and popula tion s. So we tried to establish a more accurate picture. Unfort unatel y our efforts were hampered by the absence of headmen at a district assembly. As can be gathered from Table 2 there are: 19 villages of Hill Lawa who can still be considered to be a ttached to their old culture, and 9 villages of the B5 Luang group on the high plateau south of the Lawa hills. B.B5 Luang (call ed north of the Umphai group: To' sa' m6'= oremining-people, alluding to their former occ upation) has two Buddhist wats, and there is one each in B.Khun, B. Wang G5ng and B.Na F5n. So there is a long-standing Buddhist influence. In addition the B5 Luang group is generally classified as "thai-ized" which denomination must rather be understood as "north-thai-ized", because its original Lawa culture was greatly affected by the North-Thai, Yuon or Khon Mueang whose language " is narrowly akin to Lao" (Wenk, 1959, 112, note 16), and not by the Central Thai, who are very different in many respects. In reality, the B5 Luang group is, with the exception of B.B5 Sal! and B.Tong Luang (Table 2, nos. 27 and 28) which are now 80 per cent Thai according to Khun Suchat, by fa r less thai-i zed than would appear from earlier literature. Indeed, they still speak the Lawa language and a variety of Lawa customs still pers ist. But thou~h these B5 Luan~

~

TABtE 2 The villages of the Lawii, January 1969 Lawa- name

Thai-name - - - - --

--

1- - · -

Southern Lawa I. Ban Den 2. , Yreg 3. , :Jmpha i Luang 4 . , Changm~ Man~d

u.

"l\1

,

lWfl

,

tl iJ W lrl l lc l1~

,

(:)mn~d)

5. 6. 7.

, , ,

8. ,

13. "

' '

,

'I! HHIJ!J U!W

,

'I!Hll1J ll l l l1 1~

Pa pre

•I • , umi!

M ued L5ng G::>g N5i

l-b'

,,

,,

" ,

I

~

.

, ",

,

IJ I'll1!J'

flll n! l"dV

" ,

HJl:!:

"

fl!J!1 11 l1 1 ~

~

"

Kb5ng G::>g Luang

15. 16.

,"

Pac' La'a ng Nuea

,

mJ ~

,

l:l ~ llNllnl ll

17. 18. 19.

La 'a ng T a i Dong La'ub

,

l1~ llH1~

,

,

~H

,

o:: ·~u

,

'U ll ~

•

Ua11C1'H

~ fl') '(\ lJ

' ' ~u ,

i~fHJ l •I

"

HHHJt l

"

U ~ ff:: ~ll lJ

"

fHJ H i lJV

,

Ull ffll

'

" ,

llf 1lJ

,

"

",

~u

14.

B3 Luang Group 20. Ba n B5 Luang 21. , Giu Lorn 22. , Khun 23. , Wang Gong 24. , Na F3n 25. , Mre Sa 'na m 26. , G5ng U i 27. , B3 Sal! 28. , Tong Luang

Headman

}1137m

24 11 17 17

Ping Chumphut

"

""u~

~lJY! 91

~

I , 1?i'w 11 1 ~

"

" ," "

"

"

, " " ", , , " "

Cbangwat

Amphoe

Tam bon

Maeh::>ngs::>n

Maesariang

Maesariang

"

"

" ,,

" "

"

" ,

" " "

"

( lJ IJij'1l l'l )

Changm3 N3i Changm5 Luang Tun

Northern Lawa 9. Ban Sa m 10 . 11. 12.

'lfHll iJ lJ IJ ; UCJI'l

Houses

·1- - -- -- ·

Yuang Monggri' Yia' , Ting ( ii~ ) , , :Jmmadoi

. .. .

'

Approx. altitude

Gong Tiam Di:i Jaoe (Mo Hong)

1220111

27 43 31

Un Khamjan

720m

51

Kre Ta K ham Mucangngam

"

"

.

~ )j ~liill

~

T1111J lJ H11J

Sam

1180 m

31

35 1100 lll 35 1050m 1100-1150111 46 (20 Karen) 33 9GOm 1110 ill 68 (1 2 Karen, 2 1;-15) !260m GO Bae' (Be', Pre') 24 Rang Laung ( = Ligh) 1160111 (La'haung) , Diam (= low) 1140 Ill I 969 !090 ill Nong La-ue' (La-ueg, La'::>g) I 100-1160 m 92 Hlaung Mogoei (Mogai) Ro' (b ~ ) Khrau Gog (iin )

La' (= big village) Ti:i Balae Ta' Nafiian Wang G3ng Nafi:ian Ph6phoi G::>ng Roi Mae' Sari Tong Luang

312

Kham Tui

.

1'11

.

"\ ~

" "

Chiangma i Kham Sao f \1 'li n G5n Banyayom m U'lJiJJ WIJ " Run Khunwong H I '11111~~ " Phud Tanon ~1'1 ~nm~ " Mueang Sre ngjam ;~ tH u ffw iJ Maeh:mgs::>n Mueang Pung Bau Khamh uean

L ~(J~ ti~

·~

0

IUl fllWllll

1 11 ~

Lcng Bunth a Genb iang Non Pbadn5i

1;,u

SJo Ji:iwaen

an

um11

tnm ~rH

ri'~1tio~

~tnu

" " " " Mae'ianJi (GingAmphoe) Maesariang

MaelanJi (Gin Amphoe) Maejaem

"

" MaelanJi (Ging Amph oe) Maejaem Chiangma i Maeh:mgs:.m Maelami (Ging Amphoe " " "

" " "

Chiangmai

H::id

"

"

" " " "

"

" "

" " " "

" " " Ma~lan::>i Maesariang

Maelan::>i Ba n T h ab

" " MaelanJi Ba n Thab M aelanJi

" " " B:5 Lu ang

" "

" " " " " "

SOMC: SO CIAL AND HEL! G!OUS INSTITUTI ONS OF THE

LAWA

247

villages deserve a more thorough enquiry and description I must here desist from it and concentrate on the largely unadulterated hill villages. u

These I have divided tentatively into a southern and a northern group for reasons which can only be discussed later when all the points of possible comparison have been set out. The names of the villages in Table 2 are written according to the map2 (with slight phonetic changes). The northern villages are quoted in the order we visited them. The names, in use by the Thai administration, are followed by their Thai spelling; as for the original Law a names (and other Law a words) we merely tried to reproduce a few of them in Thai script. Village = -yuang in B. B5 Luang and Umphai, but yueng in Mapae (Rangsit 1942/45, 689); in the villages 11-17 of Table 2, i.e. most of the northern ones, they said yuen. The La wa village names, as well as the number of houses and the names of the headmen, I obtained from Khun Suchat; there might be the odd error. The reading of the altitudes wa s at fir st somewhat uncertain. I adjusted my altimeter at 1305 m engraved in a big tree at the trunk-road near B.B5 Luang; of course I could not correct it en route. Now, Hallett (1890, 54) gives for B.B5 Luang 3704 fee t= ll28.97 m only, and three figures from the Military Map Department--B.Y reg/:)mphai Luang 1137 m, La' ub 1100-!160 m and Pa Pa e 720 m- showed that my results were about 200m too high, which as a consequence I deducted from my original measurements. We might fairly safely assume that the highest villages are B.Pae' at about 1260 m and B.Tun at about 1220 m, while the lowest ones are B.Kh5ng at 960 m and B.Pa Pae at 720 m; the others are between 1050 111 and 1180 m, so that the remark of M.C. Sanidh Rangsit (1945, 494): "The villages are situated at an average height of 1000 m" is approximately correct. As there has been some confusion through erroneous maps and notes, in the last columns of Table 2, province (cbangwat), district (amphoe) and subdistrict (tambon) are given for every village. Only five are in changwat Chiengmai and all of these in amphoe Maejaem; the rest are in 2) The map, Thailand 1:50 ,000 is n os. 4 66 5 IV, 46 6 6 lll , 466 6 IV . Here I want to give my best th~nks to Ltn. Bun sag ( illul'l; ll 'li in~ ) of the Military Map Department ( fi71J IIWU\'1\Hill ) wqo under Ltn . Col. Prasit Loglueang ( wu11'1 th:cr11 ~ 111m~ 5 ~), Chief of the Map-making Division from Ai r-photographs, has drawn a corrected map accordi ng to his own cartographical work in the Lawa hills. The southern part wa s dra wn in 1964, the northern in 1969 , which accounts for the differences in the drawing.

248

H.E. Kauffmann

changwat Maeh:mgs:>n, seven each in amphoe Maesariang and in gingamphoe Maelan:>i (a ging-arnphoe is a branch of an amphoe which has become too large and unwieldy). The entire B5 Luang group belongs to changwat Chiengmai, amph oe H3d, tambon B3 Luang. 2.

Details on individual villages

Umpkiii group

The name of Umphai is pronounced :::>mphai (a11ww) by the people themselves a nd it is also so written on the map. Since for many decades it was spelled Umphai by earlier research-workers, I intend to follow this practice, at least for the term "Umphai group"; similarly I do not intend to alter the tribal name into Lua', which latter is the North-Thai designation for it. The Umphai group consists of six villages with only one headman (phu yai ban, ph3 ban or gae ban, q111 ~ un1 vi vum 11 ~v unun1): Nai Ping Chumphut. He was already headman in 1962 and remained so in 1968. In 1964 he told us that he had nine deputies or helper s (phu chuai, ~,;~v) for the whole village group. Umphai is situated on a ridge extending in a westnorthwest direction. In the northeast, behind three ridges, 30-40 km distant, D3i Angga ( 'ilvvv~~m, also D5i Inthanon) is to be seen, at 2576 m, the highest mountain of Thailand. B.:::>mphai Luang is recognizable from very far by its high rang-tree (it has white flowers, uneatable fruits and is most likely Ficus sp. altissima, Moraceae). From southeast to northwest the Umphai villages are: B.Den = "at the top, the highest, the most prominent, the best one"; extravagant praise is lavished upon it thus: "in B.Den everybody is wealthy". In former years it was called B.:::>mpha i N5i (u. v;.n~w ullv= little :::>mphai). Of 28 houses in 1964 only 24 were left in 1968. The village is about a quarter of an hour downhill from B. Yreg. B.Yreg = "to branch off". Here the paths from B.Den and K5ng L3iMre Tho Luang meet. The headman resides in this village. Without the sl ightest gap it goes over into:

0

SO~H: SOCIAL AND REL IGIOU S INSTlTUT!O NS OF THE LAWA

249

B.;)mphai Luang-greater ;)mphai . The name must be a Lawa word without known sign ificance. Once a writer asserted that um meant water (Ra ngsit 1942/45, 703: water= ra-au m). This, indeed, would be very stra nge, as there is no water near "Um" phai. Women and children have to go more than half an hour do wnhill to fetch it. We had to pay 50 Satang for every bamboo of water brought up. 3 While in 1964 there were 16 houses, in 1968 only one more had been added. B.Changm3 Man5d, also B.;)mn5d, from B.;)mphai Luang haif an hour to west northwest, 18 houses in 1964, one less in 1968. Cbangm3 in Thai is potter; the significance of Man5d or ;)mn3d is unknown. B.Changm5 N3i = Little potters' village, lies just a slope down below the above. B.Changm3 Luang = Great potters' village, is not situated on the Umphai ridge but one hour distant from B.:)mphai Luang, straight to the wes t of B.Cbangm3 N5i.

.

Q

A saying goes in B.;)mphai Luang with B.:)mphai N3i (now B.Den) and B. Yreg: "We are like brothers, the three Cha ngm3 villages are on ly twigs of the tree, for everything the initial point is B.:)mphai." No wonder, as it is, together with B.Den and B'.Yreg, the bigges t samang village in the hills. :)mphai people often speak in this way: "Of such and such a thing other villages have less or noth ing, and why? Because we are great and the rest of them petty. :)mphai stands before a ll other Lawa ." This is acknowledged by many Lawa villages . In B.La' ub they said: "O ur custom is not anymore as strong as in B.:)mphai, yet still stronger than in B.Pa Pae." B.La' ub, however, does not originate from B.:)mphai; it is very old itself. In earlie r times the samangs of B.:)mphai had so much authority that they could convene meetings for deliberation with other Lawa villages; the inform an ts named about all the northern ones (Table 2, nos. 9-1 8) and said : "In those days customs were very strict, nowadays many have gone but still B.:)mphai is authoritative." 3) Still, Ran gsit 1942 / 45, 693, gi ves : om= Water in Pa Pao - Lawa and four Wa dialect s in Burma.

250

H.E. Kauffmann

It is not by accident that nearly all those who ever did researchwork on the hill Lawa called Umphai the foremost village of the Lawa: in 1935 Hutchinson wrote of "the strong-hold of Um Pai" (1935, 154), and this was taken up by Seidenfaden: "a Lawa stronghold called Umphai" (1940, 29). Similarly, Steinmann/Rangsit (1939, 173) spoke of "Umphai, the most important village of all" and Obayasbi (1964, 199) again called it "Umphai, the stronghold of the Lawa" and later (1966,

251/52: "Umphai, which is reputed to be the centre of the Lawa territory." Wenk (1965, 107) referred to the vocabulary ofRangsi.t (1942/45) "which is the most significant because it renders the language of the Umphai-U(wa, a group until today least thai-ized." In "Minority groups in Thailand" ( 1970, 939) the compiler remarked: "Umpai, where the ancient language and culture have been preserved in their purest form"; and I myself, after having visited all of the still existing hill villages, stated (1971, 139): "If we assume that once the Lawa villages shared a common cultural pattern, then at this time only the Umphai group holds strongly to ancient customs." On the other hand, it is surprising that Kunstadter, the only scholar who has lived with the Lawa for many months, mentioned Umphai only once or twice in his wealth of otherwise excellent publications; instead of Umphai he insisted on speaking of an unspecified 'Changm5' (as does Srisawasdi, 1963, 180, 182 ), until he finally identified it with "Changm5 N5i, known as 'yuang gong' in Lua'" (Kunstadter 1967, 8). The following remarks give some general aspects of the unknown northern villages. There will be more specific details in subsequent sections. B'iin Tii.u

This village of 3 I houses was totally destroyed around 1963 when 34 houses burnt down. Thereupon the village was split up into three parts: about 10 houses were rebuilt on the old village site; a new village was set up at about 15 minutes walk to the south; and a third village was built up the hill at a greater distance (which for lack of time we did not visit). From the southern quarter there is a splendid view of Doi Angga (lnthanon) in the east and over the deep valley of the Huai

(.J

SO ME SOC IA L AND RELI GIOUS INSTITUTIO NS OF THE LAWA

251

Mae I-b' (11'1 tmJtii1~ ) in the south to B.Changm5' N:5i overlooked by B.Changm3 Man5d and, quite distant from them, in a south-western direction, to B.Changm3 Luang. Ba11 Sam The sprawling houses, on posts at least 2 m high, with their high, massive and low-eaved roofs, are more imposing than in any other Lawa village. There are some gardens behind bamboo fences with flowers, vegetables, and bananas. At one place two men with a long saw cut planks very accurately, one man standing on a scaffold. hauling the blade up, the other one standing below pulling it down. The same sawing system I observed in Banderban, Chittagong Hill Tracts, what was then East Pa kistan. The people remember that they have been here for three generations; they came from another village, possibly B.Pae'. Originally they all lived peacefully together, but when disagreement arose, they split into four sections, each one disposing of a nyoe' nyu (ritual bouse).

Bau Miled Vmg

Behind the village there is a big mountain which blocks off the sun's rays other than for about three hours everyday. The inhabitants wondered why their forefathers chose this place, despite these obvious disadvantages, but said: "We do not change because we planted trees here, and as for the rest: we are still alive." Bcm F15'

The village fills the western, northern and eastern slopes of a wide and deep basin. The gables of the porches are mostly turned to the East, but there is no special system; the houses are put up as best suits the terra in. East of B.H:)' lies the D3i Luang (l'lflvmm, Thai: Big mountain) whose mountain spirit m?i anggria is revered by most Lawa villages. Ban G:Jg Lua11g

This northernmost village has 54 Lawa and 12 Karen houses, all of them on wood en posts, while two houses of H5-traders are Chinese style, !lush with the ground ; they are the only ones containing small stools,

252

H.E. Kauffmann

One of the H3 has a Lawa-, the other one a Karen-·wife. People said one of the two was a Tad (Thai?); he called himself a Mong, allegedly derived from Mongol. On the wide, irregular but proper village road of hardened loamy soil there was a cavity bristling with stakes to prevent the pigs' wallowing during the rainy season and deepening the hole more and more. At the water-place, 15 minutes below the village, only a trickle of turbid fluid was forthcoming. B.GJg Luang is the only Lawa village where pigeons are kept, more than a dozen belonging to the headman Nai Mueang Saengja m who bought them at five baht apiece in Maela nJi. Three generations ago, before the Principality of Chiangmai was definitely integrated into the Kingdom of Siam, the villagers of B.Pae' in the West, B.Kb:5ng in the East and B.GJg N5i in the South came with their suits and complaints for decision to B.Gog Luang, the oldes t of these four villages. B(m Pue'

The houses are built on both sides of a broad and steep ridge reaching far downhill with their terraces towards the village road in the middle; there are house-sites located at other places also. The waterplace is I 0 minutes down in a gorge, the water dripping turbidly as in B.GJg Luang. B'iin La'{wg Nuea (Northern La'(mg)

The village is built on a ridge; in fropt and behind are higher hills. The houses have their long sides along the road and their terraces facing generally towards the East. Two families have moved in from B.Sam. Biw La'ang Tiii (Southern L a'ang)

This smallest Lawa village of only nine houses is situated down a slope. On the left side going down, just before the upper ritual house, is a sugar-cane garden. Ban Dong

With 96 houses it is the biggest hill Lawa village (if we do not count the 139 hou ses of the widespread Umpha i group). Here is to be found quite a large school-building of the Border Patrol Police and the only

...

G

r

SOME SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF THE LAWA.

253

coconut-palm I have met with in the Lawa hills. Only in B.Pa Pie, somewhat lower than the other Lawa villages, they have planted coconut and betel palms (Kunstadter 1970, 27). Together with neighbouring B. La'ub, B. Dong is provisionally reckoned among the northern group, though these two show some traits of the southern one. 3.

Lay-out of the villages

As might be grasped from some of the foregoing _descriptions it would be exaggerated to give the Law a villages in general the geographical term of street village (Strassendorf). Obayashi (1964, 20 I), writing of a tendency to this village pattern, had only seen B.Pa Pae, B.La'ub and B.:)mphai Luang/B.Yieg, and of these none but the latter could be thus called. With the houses of this double-village lining both sides of a ridge, a kind of village road comes quite naturally into being in the middle. B.Changm3 Luang is built on an even wider ridge, and the result is a broad middle road. B.La'ub might be called a street village in its lower part, but at the eastern end the houses climb up a slope as best they can. There are several roads and paths crossing through B.Pa Pae which could by no means be regarded as a street village; it is rather a clustered village (Haufendorf) as seen from the picture in Kunstadter (1966 B, 126/27).

()

(

..

Anyone looking for street villages in the northern group might point to the old part of B.Tun laid out on a flat stretch with two rows of houses, although the new village south of it i~ spread down a weak inclination without much order. Furthermore, the long drawn out B.G::>g Luang and the two La'ang villages could conceivably be said to be a kind of street villages. On the other hand, B.Mi:ed L3ng hung over by a mountain, B.H::>' filling its wide trough, and B.Pae' with its houses stepping down a steep ridge, have their individual forms emanating from the necessity to adapt to the topographical conditions of sites chosen in former times. Funke ( 1960, 141) says correctly: "The general lay-out of the villages is decided by the shape of the ridge on which they are ~ ituated. Umpai has the form of a Ion~ stretch~d street village."

254

H.E. Kauffmann

But when he writes: "All the settlements are situated on the tops of steep hill cones" (1960, 141), then I cannot agree. The same also holds for Obayashi's remark ( 1964, 200) that the villages "are situated high up near hill tops". As described above no village is near a hill top. Some of them are situated on ridges-e.g., the Umphai group (with the exception of B. Den and B.Changm3 N5i ), the lower part of B.La'ub, B.G::lg Luang and the two La'ang villages. Possibly they settled down there quite a long time ago for "protection against attacks" (Rangsit 1945, 494 ); but there being no more danger from raiders, only a great disadvantage is left : water is very scarce. Other villages such as B.Sam, B.Mued L3ng, B.H::l', B.Pae' and B.Dong are surrounded by or wedged in between hills; B.Pa Pie even lies in the valley of a stream, so being the only Lawa village with ample wa ter supply. In conclus ion there is no defi nite pattern in the lay-out of hill Lawa villages. Be it on ridges or in depressions and valleys, everywhere their form is determined by the variety of the terrain. 4.

Demography

From the time of Holt S. Hallett's tour through northern Thailand (in those times and coming from Burma he called it the "Shan States") to this day it h::1s not been possible to produce more than superficial estimates on the number of villages, houses and people of the Lawa. One author includes all so-called Lawa, of whom the majority have long been thai-i zed; another confuses the Lawa in the B3 Luang group with the hill Lawa ; while a third makes a guess only at the Lawa in Maesariang di strict ( Changwat Maeh::lngs::ln ), for.getting the five villages in Maejaem district (Changwat Chiangmai) which after all have 209 houses. So let us take a closer look at these very varied conceptions: at Maesariang (the Burmese: Maing Loongyee), Hallett ( 1890,36) "procured the names of 33 Lawa villages" which "contained on an average 42 houses". The Ka re n villages had on an average only 20 houses; they always were much smaller than the La wa villages. Hallett goes on ( 1890, 37): "I was assured that the average number of people living in a house was seven; but even allowing only five, there would be upwards of 13,000 people" 1

0

SOME SOC IA L AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIO NS OF THE LAWii

,.

0

c

255

including also Karen and North Thai. For the Lawa alone 33 villages with an average of 42 houses is equal to a total of 1386 houses and at five persons I come to a total of 6930 La wa. The trouble is that one does not know if the B3 Luang group and the hill Lawa were included as Hallett speaks of the Law a in the Khun Yuam basin. A t any rate, it can be gathered from his notes that 80 years ago there were still more Lawa villages than no wadays and that some of them were si tuated more to the wes t, but now they are certainly all thai-ized. Gordon Young (1961 , 68, and on table p. 113) wr ites tha t " there are 43 known villages of La wa which number some 1300. or more households, averaging about 30 houses per village, and 7.0 persons per house. The total population is estimated at 9,000 persons (this may be a low estimate). The larges t village is Baw Luang, in which there are 230 household s. Few Lawa villages number less than 25 houses." As to B.B:l Luang, mentioned here only incidentally, Kerr ( 1924, 136) says: "There are seven Lawa villages on the Baw Luang Pla teau .... Of these seven villages Baw Luang. with about 80 hou ses, is the largest; another fairly large village is Baw Sali." So from 1924 to 1961, within 37 years, this largest Law a village has grown from 80 to 230 hou ses and in January 1969 it had , according to its headmaster Khun Suchat, 312 houses (or, counting seven persons per house, 2 184; counting only five, 1560 inhabitants). Wenk (1959, 108) speaks of " the Uiwa of whom the bu lk, perhaps 3000 people, lives nowadays in the hills west of Chiengma i between the Mae Ping and the Salwin", and Srisawasdi (1963, 169 ), restricting his estimate on the western part of the hills, says that "in Amphoe Maesariang alone about 3000 Lawa live sporadically scattered". Kunstadter's estimates go up to about 10,000 unassimilated Lawa in the mountains (1965, I; 1966 B, 122, 125; 1966 C, 2; 1969, 232 ). As to the number of villages, he is less consistent, as once he notes "a group of 15 to 20 traditional mountain settlements" ( 1966 A, 62) and then "25 to 30 villages scattered in the mountain s" ( 1966 B, 122). Demographic reports on single villages are scarce. Only for B.Pa Pre do we have exact surveys by Kunstadter (1 970, 2) : 51 houses with 233 people, and of I July 1967 ( 1969 B, 1): 227 people in B.Pa Pre, an d a total population in B.Pa P ~, B.La' ub and B. Dong of 1257 people.

256

H.E. Kauffmann

Obayashi (1964, 199) gave for B.La'ub 85 houses, while in January 1969 we obtained 92 houses. It is possible that in the intervening years seven houses had been added; I myself observed some men levelling the ground with a harrow for a new house site on a slope in the upper village. Of the Umphai group, Obayashi (1964, 199) reported 160 houses. In 1964 our informants told us that all six villages together had 280 houses with 2500 people; this would come to 8.9 persons per house; certainly the figures given us were much too high. At the end of 1968 we learned that the Umphai group bad only 139 houses. If we assume a figure of seven persons per house (as Gordon Young does), there would be 973 people or, at five, only 695 people. I should say the latter number is nearer to the facts. In B.Pa Pie, 233 people to 51 houses gives an average of only 4.56 persons per house; the village lost many people in an epidemic and a huge fire about 25 years ago (Kunstadter 1970, 2). Taking the 1967 figures, 227 people of B. Pa Pc£ subtracted from the total of 1257 results in 1030 people living in 92+96 = 188 houses of B. La'ub and B. Dong; the average for these two villages would be 5.5 persons per house. The headman of B.Pae' said that in his village of 60 houses there were 3-400 people; the average is 5-6.6 persons per bouse. This was the only instance where we obtained at least an approximate number of inhabitants of a village. Otherwise the headmen, though supposed to be obliged to list their people, never gave us the number of persons, only of houses. According to our information there are 19 hill villages of the Law a plus nine villages of the B5 Luang group, or 28 altogether (see Table 2). The hill villages had in January 1969 (after deduction of 32 Karen and 2 H:'> houses in B.H:'>' and B.G::>g Luang) 716 Lawa houses. The houses of the 17 families who emigrated after our tour from B.Tun and the Cbangm:, villages (seep. 244) are still included, the time of our survey being taken as a fix-point; some more houses might have been abandoned since we left. With 716 houses in 19 villages, there is an average of 37.7 houses per hill village.

0

SOME SO CIAL AND RELI GIOUS I NSTITUTIO NS 01' TB E

LA\VA

257

The main question of course is how many Lawa people live in the hill villages. We might have obtained an exact number in the district offices of Maesariang, Maejaem and Maelan:)i, but unfortunately we had no time to visit these places. So our only recourse was to decide what we considered the most likely number of inhabitants per house. While Young uses seven, from B.Pae' we got 5-6.6; and Kunstadter's figures from B.La'ub and B-Dong result in 5.5, from B.Pa Pre in 4.56. Seven seems too high, five or six would be more adequate. Still, I want to note down here the figures for all possibilities: At

"

persons per house of 716 houses: 7 6 " " " 5.5 " " " 5

"

..

5012 4296 3938 3580

hill Law a

"

"

" "

"

"

From this it would appear that the hill Law a are at the very most 5000 strong but that probably they do not count more than about 4000 or even somewhat less. Nearest to this estimate come Wenk and Srisawasdi with their 3000, while Kunstadter with 10,000 overestimated highly. Young, of whose 43 Lawa villages one should like to know the whereabouts, combines the Lawa in the hills with the partly thai-ized ones on the high plateau. As there are no figures for the B3 Luang group we cannot make a calculation. But a guess is allowed, and I should say that the grand total does not surpass 7000 who can still more or less be reckoned as La wa.

C. Socio-religious ranks 1. Samang

SteinmannfRangsit ( 1939, 173) were the first anthropologists to mention "chieftain families who descend from the Law a prince Milankha of olden times" (footnote 1: "in which families the chieftainship is hereditary"). Hutchinson ( 1939, 179) speaks of "their aristocracy Khun" or "highly placed Lawa of earlier days". Khun( yu) =lord, leader, is a Thai title. Instead of khun the Law a say samang, and this word appears for the first time in a somewhat unfamiliar form in Rev. J.S. Holladay's

258

H.E. Kauffma nn

legend of the beautiful S'mang Roh-eh who married a youth from the spirit world (Seidenfaden 1940, 34/35). ' 'It is also said that the descendants of this woman never eat dog fles h, and that is the reason that the headman of each village and his family may be the only people in that village who do not eat dogs. The headman is invariably a descendant of S'mang Roh-eh.... It is also said that no one in t he vi ll age of L'oop indulges in this particular delicacy. " The compiler of "Lawa" in "Minority Groups in Thailand" (1970, 942) has recognized that asamang girl was spoken of, and indeed the samang families do not eat dog flesh and were said in B.Pae' to abhor also roe (barking deer - 'igeng, ~~ri'~) "because the cut-off pieces of it resemble those of dogs". This rather far-fetched explanation is refuted, at least for B.Pa Pre, by Kunstadter (1966 A, 7): "The big samang .... receives a leg of any large wild game animal (deer, pig, etc.) which is shot." Funke writes (1960, 142) : "all the Lawa of the Umpai-group belong to one of two groups into which the population is divided: The 'Lua' or commoners and the 'Kun' or privileged ones. The special position of the Kun is concerned with all religious ceremonies." He adds (1960, 145): "Until the presen t time a dual sys tem, not mentioned by earlier researchworkers, has been preserved ." Wenk (1959, 114, 2nd note 1) : "Phai and Khun allegedly signify a sociological class division within the Lawa groups." He means what is in Central Thai phr~i and khun (1m', ~u ), the commoners and samangs. That this division is not a mere allegation is shown by Obayashi ( 1964, 204), the first anthropologist to finally bring forth the word samang: " In La Ub three hereditary status-ranks obtain: 1. samang, high priest, namely a representative of the royal family, descendants of a legendary Lawa king .... ; 2. lam, low Priest .... ; 3. lua, ordinary people." At a glance at these different s tatements we must remark that Steinmann jRangs it's designation of "chieftains" for the samang is not valid for the peaceful Lawa of modern times, although fo r a much earl ier period it might well have been; to this concept we shall come back later. They correctly mention thei r descent from the Lawa prince, often also called khun luang or King Milangkha. Of this dynasty the headman of B3 Luang, Nai Sau (mmn or Thai or Lawa, were champions of their people not only as absolute reigning kings but more so as heroes at the forefront of the battle-line. Seidenfaden ( 1921, 46) remarks that the ancient Lawa "set up a dynasty in Chieng Sen (A.D. !057). One of the rulers of this dynasty was a famous Khun Chuang, a mighty warrior who extended his sway to Luang Prabang and the border of Annam, and his praise is still sung by local bards in the middle Mekhong valley. But not many generations after, the Lawa were entirely subjugated by the vigorous Thai streaming down from Yunnan's plains and hills." He adds (1921, 47): "The Lawa of the 11th and 12th centuries were- at least in Northern Siam-not an entirely barbarous people; they showed a warlike spirit and possessed also some social organization." My idea is that the samang, then still recognized princes of royal blood, after the defeat at the hands of the M3n army of Haripunjaya (Lamphun ), when their people were scattered in all directions, were the military, religious and custompreserving leaders of small groups. Of these, after a long period of wandering and hardship, some finally settled down in the hills where they are still living today. Not quite in accordance with this fighting spirit of the original samang, which I have suggested, are the follo wing expositions: Obayashi (!964, 212, note 17 ) and Kunstadter (1966 A, 68, note 12) compare the big samang of the Lawa to the xJmja (pronounced choemia) of the La met in Laos. Are these two words related in some way? I do not dare to venture into their etymology. At any rate, Izikowitz ( 1951, 112/13) describes the xJmia as "priest of sacrifice", of whom there is only one in each village. "His office is hereditary in the male li ne. If he has no sons, his office goes over to one of his nephews on his brother's side" . He must "perform all the sacrifices made to the different spirits of the village", and also see to order, "so that the village spirits are not disturbed". He decides which day s are propitious for sacrifices, and "he must always be consulted first in everything that takes place within ....

274

H.E. Kauffmann

the village". Especially "when new houses are to be built .... or when a new village is to be founded, it is the priest of sacrifice who officiates as 'building committee'." [t might be that in this there is a trace of the 'village founder' who plays a role in the megalithic complex (Steinmann/ Rangsit, 1939, 165; Kauffmann 1971, 141), though elsewhere there are no known megalithic traits in Lamet culture. Whatever the case may be, it seems to me that the samang and the xamia of these linguistically and also culturally related peoples have developed along very similar lines.

2. Lam The most detailed evidence again comes from Kunstadter ( 1965, 9/10; 1966 c, 2/3): "Six groups within the population of Ban Pa Pae ... have maintained their identity as descent groups ... : the samangs, and the descendants of settlers from the villages of Mo Pae, Mo Hong, Mo Pan, Chang Maw, and La-up. The first four village groups are each supposed to have a religious leader, known as a lam, who bas an assistant. The lam is the oldest man born into his village group, and his assistant, who will succeed him at his death, is the next oldest man from that village group. Lams should be present for all important ceremonies (the communal agricultural rites, weddings, house-building, funerals), but it is not necessary that any particular lam preside at any particular ritual- the ceremonies for a Mo Hong man's house may be supervised by the lam from Mo Pae or Chang Maw, for example. At the present time the office of lam for the Mo Pan group is vacant, because the incumbent has been converted to ~hristianity. He still participates in ceremonies to the extent of singing traditional songs, and sharing in the sacrificial meal and rice liquor, but he no longer conducts sacrifices or appeals to spirits. The second oldest man .... who should be the lam of Mo Pan, has made a matrilocal marriage to a Mo Hong woman (thereby becoming a member of Mo Hong), and is therefore ineligible to be a lam." He adds (1966 C, 3): "The lams of the land-owning constituent villages also have first choice of land in the swidden area after the samang . .. has taken his choice ... Members of constituent villages which

'•

SOME SOCIAL AND 11ELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF TliE LAWA

275

do not have land must pay a small fee (one bottle of rice liquor) to the lam of the land-owning constituent for the privilege of cultivating there." Finally Kunstadter ( 1966 A, 70) states: "Lam receive a special portion (usually a section of the head) of water buffaloes which are sacrificed for some of the communal agricultural ceremonies. They also are assigned a seat of honor when visiting a house." From all this we can see that the lams in B.Pa Pae are the oldest men and the religious leaders of their original constituent village, and that their successors are the next oldest men. So it is age here, not blood , that makes a tam. I cannot find anything in Kunstadter's text that would indicate a hereditary position of the tams, while Obayashi (1964, 204) has affirmed: "In La Ub three hereditary status-ranks obtain", of which the second one are the tams. Of this village he also says that "the samang and lam play a leading part in ... animal sacrifices" (1964, 205); this is in accordance with Kunstadter's statements for B.Pa Pae. Now two questions arise: 1) Are the rams hereditary and a second rank between the samangs and the commoners, and 2) What are their religious functions ? The idea of lam becomes quite controversial if we look at other villages, where we asked for them all along our way. In B.La'ub the tams were said to be originally, i.e. since Khun Luang Wilangka's times, the assistants (one informant in B.La'ub even called them serfs) of the samangs. When the big samang wants to offer a bull for the village, he sends out tams to announce the day of the sacrifice and to collect money (e.g. one thaeb = 1 Rs. = 10 Bht.) from every house which the l'ams will deliver to the samang. This old office of lam was said "to stay in the family," so it would be hereditary (cf. B.B5 Luang below). On the other hand in B.La' ub there are three headman-assistants (Thai: phii chuai, ~~1~ = "helping men") who are also called /'am, and everywhere in the northern villages where they speak of lam they designate by this word the phu chuai. These tams being simple Lawa of no rank, in B.La' ub they doubted that even in B.Pa Pae real tam of the above description are to be found. Indeed, the l'ams in B.Pa Pae have j:}ardly much to do with the anci~nt office of the saman!J's announcer or

276

H.E. Kauffmann

herald; they became prominent elders when the constituent villages united. In B.:::>mphai Luang, the leading samang village, there are no tams (also: Obayashi 1964, 204), and even the headman-assistants are not called so. Under the head ma nship of Nai Ping Chumphut, residing in B.Yaeg, every section of the Umphai-group now has a gae bcm (ununl = village elder) with responsibilities in his own right; he is assisted by a

phu chuai. In B.Sam there is no l"iim. In B.La'ang Nuea a lam is the same as a phu chuai; he is chosen by the headman and, as the phu chuai everywhere, does not receive remuneration, only being exempt from paying taxes. The /'iim's name in this village is Nai Singh Aikhun (UluaH; li'w~u). In B. Dong there are four phu chuai, occasionally also called lorn. Quite interesting is the case in B. B:J Luang: Khun A'Eingpagwaeng is a real tam. The title Khun was certainly bestowed on him by King Rama V or VI, so it is quite modern. In B.B5 Luang they call him

.

.

Khun A 'l3ngpagwg Noi.

Sm1E SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF TilE LAWA

293

Close to the nyae' nyu, sabaig altars (here they said sambaig) are erected for the nyae' nyu spirit; the indentations on the sticks supporting the bamboo laths for putting on the offerings are said to be pure decoration (Fig. 6). Indeed, at some altars the carving is very superficially done, and at others even completely lacking. In about October/November, before harvest, in every nyae' nyu two pigs, a male and a female, are sacrificed. There is no sagang in the village.

The village has no samang.

I. yang g:J'.

•.

There are four groups :

It owns the only still standing nyae'nyu. The headman Run Khunwong acts as its ta'nag, offering as such to the spirits. The jau ngiiu, conducting the group's ceremonies, is Nai Peng.

for :

5 houses

2. yang yueag. Its families have come from B.Thuan, once Lawa, now Karen (seep. 241).

for :

5 houses

3. yang ga'.

for :

3 houses

4. Without nyae' nyu

13 houses

For the nyae' nyu spirit phi sabaig of yang g:J' ; two pigs are sacrificed in March every three years. For 2. and 3., the nyae' nyu of which have broken down, there are no more sacrifices. A group wanting to build a new nyae' nyu must sacrifice two buffaloes and two chickens from every house to the phi sabaig. There is no sagang. The last buffalo sacrifice took place when the headman was still a child (cf. p. 261 for B.Pae' ).

Ban Kh?mg

The village has no samang. There are four nyae' nyu groups, every one with a piu ngau and a ta' na8 :

294

I-I.E. Kauffmann

I. yong khr5ng labau.

This first ritual house of the village belonging to the family of the headman Pud Tanon, in a thicket upon the hill, is totally rotten (Fig. 7.).

2. yong khr3ng Ia' mue' 3. yong dro' 4. yong mumbe'

for:

1 house

for : 8 houses for : 2 houses for: 1 house

Only 12 houses have a uyoe' nyu, the other 21 houses have none. There are two broken drums in the yong khr"5ng labfiu, otherwise there is only a gong. This vilLage also has no sagang. They offer a female pig to the phi gum in the sacred grove (Thai : dong gam, limmlJ ) before cutting the rice. On the evening of this day everything is prepared for the sacrifice to the phi sabaig on the following morning. A male and a female pig are offered by all nyoe' nyu groups once yearly on the same day, and small pieces of pork are put on the dyong sabaig close to the nyoe' nyu. Here a word must be said about the sacred groves. Kunstadter ( 1969 B, 5) has remarked : "Occasional patches of uncut forests ... remain around Lua' village sites, and in forests preserved as homes for spirits." And for B.Pa Pae ( 1970, 2): "a sacred forest remains uncut on the two closest hillsides". Indeed, probably all villages (together with B.B3 Luang) have near them such a sacred grove where felling trees and shooting birds are prohibited. At B. Den a row started when one of our tour members unknowingly retreated into their unspoiled forest, and we had to pay a fine of about 30.- Baht in kind. Ban GJg Luang

There are no more samangs, and only two groups both with a j(iu ngcLU and a ta' nog : I. yong yiag, to which belongs the headman.

In the totally ruined nyoe' nyu are two damaged drums (Fig. 8).

for:

8 houses

2. yong khr' with only one drum; the other one "was thrown into the jungle because it was so loud that in :)mphai cups and plates broke",

for: 12 houses

Fig. 7 The oldest ritual house of B.Kh:ing, y ong kh6ng labau, with its broken drums.

·' I

...

Fig. 8 The completely decayed ritual house y ong yi.ag with its drums at B.G:>g Luang. of split bamboo to the right proves that offerings are still made there.

The small offering basket

Fig. 9

'·

Mueang Saengjlim , headman of B. G::>g Luang , close to the sagaug g um fo r yang yiag.

295

SOME SOCIAL AND RELIGIO US INSTIT UTIO NS OF THE LAWA

There are nyoe' nyu for 20 houses, but 36 houses have none.

.c

As in B.Kh3ng every group must yearly sacrifice two pi gs, a male and a female one, to the nyae' nyu spirit phi sabaig. About 200 m north of the village there is a glade with cross-roads in the jungle. From there 100m W.S.W. into a sacred grove is a sagang standing for the yang y'iag, and 100m from it to the N .E. another one for the yang khr:J'. Both are called sagang gum serving for sacrifices to the village spirit gum. They are about 1.80 m high with 20 em if;, cut fiat on top, and incised above and farther down with three.rings each and a simple lozenge pattern in between (Fig. 9). Ban Pae'

In the lowest part of this samang village there are five nyae' nyu, three of them in one line about 30 m long, standing rather close to each other. There is a sagang standing obliquely in front of three of these ritual houses (nos.2.-4.) for the sacrifice to their respective phi sabaig (Fig. 10). From E. to W. their names are:

1. 2.

yang mang glang t'ia (without sagang) with sagang sabaig samang ra' yang samang ra' This yang is decayed, and the drums are broken.

yang mong rang ra' with sagang mong rang ra'. There is one drum. with sagang y ong mambe 4. yang mombe 5. yang mang ra' oi (wi thout sagang) 3.

for :

8 houses

for :

6 houses

for : 10 houses for: for:

9 houses 8 houses

41 houses have nyoe' nyu, but 19 houses have none. To the phi sabaig all five groups must sacrifice pigs on the same day in August wllen the rice starts to ripen. If only one rich group were to sacrifice alone, the spirits of the other ones would be jealous and punish their groups. The sacrificer of the animals must be from the wife's side of the jau ngau. As everywhere skulls and lower jaws of the immolated animals are kept on a shelf in the nyoe nyu, but we did not see any.

.,

les (Siam Society, Bangkok) 1958, pp. 116-7. Seidenfaden, op. cit. Seidenfaden, op. cit. 1 am much indebted to the villagers of Klong Mon for their patience in dealing with my questioning, and particularl y grateful to my chief informant in this study, Mr. Boonsong Saraphan, of 40 Moo 6, Kl ong Mon, Laadgrabang.

,.

VILLAGE MO NS OF BA NGKOK

309

themselves, who however can also speak Thai. The children are addressed in Mon and usually reply in Mon. In some families they use Thai acquired in the schools to express more complex ideas when conversing with their elders. The children nearly always speak Thai to each other.9 The most immediately striking aspect of the Mon community is that the external and internal appearances of the houses are completely different from standard rural Thai houses. The Mon dwellings are not raised off the ground in the living and kitchen area, where the floor is of beaten earth : if there are many daughters in the house, the floor is smooth, but if sons are more numerous the floor does not get the attention it would otherwise receive. Some southern (Thai/Malay) houses are like this; so are many fisherman's huts beside the shores of the gulf and the huts of some Chinese vegetable growers near the capital. The cattle, always buffaloes, are brought in at night and tethered to a horizontal bar in one part of the living area. Projecting into the living area is a raised wooden platform which extends back into the inner part of the house where the family sleep. The outer area underneath the platform, usually only a metre off the ground, is used for storing. The walls are of matting, a tap or corrugated iron and the roof also of a tap or corrugated iron. The atap is bought and not made in the village. The flo or in the inner sleeping area is sometimes raised a fe w inches above that of the part extending into the living area. The sleeping arrangement is usually that the wife and husband (and, if they are living in the same house, the wife's or husband's parents), the younger male children and all the daughters sleep in the inner area, thougl~ under separate mosquito nets from those of the parents. The male children of the age of about fifteen or above sleep on the floor area projecting into the living room. In many houses a symmetry of sleeping positions was noted. 9) No analysis of the linguistic situ ation will be atte mpted here, for it would be beyond the scope of this note and the author's com petence. Readers are referred to the works of Shorto and Halliday, int er al ia. Mon is, of course, completely different from Thai , being a tonal and belongin g to the Mon-Khmer linguistic group. Mon script is again completely di fferent from Th a i script, and was adopted by the Burmese after the conquest of Tbaton in 1057 by Anawrata .

310

Michael Smithies

inner sleeping area

pa rtition projecting platform (ou ter sleeping area )

earth floor

buffalo pen

Often, but not a lways, the inner sleeping area 1s built over water a nd boats are kept beneath ; this apparently is to act as a deterrent to thieves intending · to steal boats at night. In the inner sleeping area is usually located th e main house post, whicll is not apparently accorded any special symbol ic or ritualistic standing once the house is bui lt.

Halliday, in his standard book on the Mons,1o makes no mention of the bea ten earth floor of the living area, which makes the houses quite distinct from their Siamese counterparts. Seidenfaden II states "the Mons build their houses like the Thai, only that their houses are alw ay s orientated east-west"; Halliday12 more cautiously says ''It would seem that Talaing houses ought to be so built, but the rule 1s by no means generally carried out either in Siam or Burma." Certainly in the village observed , there was no general pattern in the orientation of the houses and when asked the Mons replied it did not matter, but depended on the 1 0) R. Halliday, Th e T alaings (Governmen t Press , Rangoon ) 1917, pp. 22-23 . This is a detailed, perceptive and st ill largel y valid account of the Mons, primarily based on a study of communities in Burma but also r eferrin g extensivel y to Mon practices in Siam. 11) op. citp. 117. 12) op .citp.27 .

Fig. 1.

A Mon house by the canal , Klong Mon, built on the earth

::;

Fig. 2. An elderly Mon couple seated on a sleeping mat

;;

Fig . 3.

The section set aside for buffaloe s in a house, in which the earthern floor can be clearly distingui shed

.:.

Fig . 4.

A buffalo tied up for the night in the house

\"ILLAl>E MONS OF BANGKOK

311

land available. In all houses seen, people slept with the heads to the south or east. The Mons state that one can also sleep with the head towards the north, but never, as with the Thais, to the west, the direction of the departed. The houses are remarkably devoid of furniture or decoration. There migh t be a wooden bench and a table and chairs, often of the folding metal variety, for eating. The only decorative items, which however are basically functional, are the woven rush (T: kog, M: roh) sleeping mats, with patterns picked out in strips dyed in different colours. These are quite different from Thai mats (T: sya, M -: h;;,gao); they are not sold but each household makes them for its own use. Hallidayl 3 implies that only the women make these, but in the village observed sometimes men also make these gay traditiona l sleeping mats. Rice is stored inside the house, along with all machines for husking and winnowing the rice.

.•

The area surrounding the house is no different from a standard Thai house. The dogs and chickens stay outside at night, though when eating in the house, ch ickens sometimes run in and out of the living area, as do the dogs. A profusion of trees and shrubs surrounds the house. A particular preference was expressed for jasmine, but there was no visible evidence of this in the predominance of banana trees that were actually growing there. There is also a spirit house (T: saanphraphuum M: aUt? thii), mention of which will be made later. No pigs are kept, though there is no interdiction against eating pork. This seemed somewhat inconsistent and on inquiry it was only possible to ascertain that 'the Raaman (Mon) spirits would not like it', and 'there would be no progress if one raised pigs'. A rationalizi~g explanation was given by a younger Mon who pointed out that Muslims lived in the next hamlet and perhaps it was out of deference to their presence that pigs were not kept. The Man/Muslim contiguity dates from as long ago as anyone can remember; the area was probably settled by both in the second half of the nineteenth century. Each house has at least one large boat for transporting rice and usually two or three smaller boats for everyday transport requirements. There is no road, no piped water, no electricity and no telephone, of course, in the village. 13) op. cit p. 51.

312

Michael Smithies

Physically the Mons appear different from Thais. Women no longer in their early prime wear their hair in a bun at the back of the head, and frequently cover their heads, both in and outside the house, with a strip of cloth or towelling in the form of a turban. They also have, noticeably before marriage, a preference for very bright and often clashing colours in their dress; they have a reputation for beauty which their gay costume enhances. The men commonly wear trousers, or checkered sarongs made of silk for special occasions. Like the Thais, they sometimes wear Buddha images around their necks, particularly if going on long journeys. The turbans of the women, the men's sarongs and the tendency to be somewhat darker skinned than the Thais make it difficult to distinguish the Mons from their Muslim neighbours, and the Mons themselves say they cannot always outwardly tell a Muslim from a Mon. They have no dietary restrictions and their food is completely similar to Thai food though they also eat field mice and snakes as do northeasterners. They rarely drink tea or coffee in their houses, mostly because they seem to consider it an unnecessary luxury. Their festivals are marked not only by meal s at which all are vvelcome, but sometimes by music played on the Siamese fiddle, xylophone and Chinese harp : they particularly enjoy singing alternating refrains (M: khajeem:):m), a kind of Mon /amtad. The well-known game of sabaa is occasionally played in the village, particularly at Songkraan ( M : ata?) after the traditional releasing of fish into the canal by the village girls dres sed in their best and brightest clothes.

Saba a (M: hanee?) is a traditional Mon courtship game, played between two groups of about l5youngmen and !5 young women, all unmarried, who sit facing each other on two long benches some 10 metres apart. The earth floor between them is specially smoothed by pounding it, adding water to the earth to make it malleable, and a temporary roof structure is erected over the floor. The sabaa themselves are circular wooden discs (M: kon?hanee? ) which are either rolled, or flipped, or kicked 'depending on the set' from one side to the other across the smooth floor; the sabaa of the men are bigger and heavier than the sabaa of the women. Leaders of the men and the women are appointed and they indicate who will play in what order in each game. The women are seated first on

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

Sleeping mats outside the midwife's house

A girl with a child outside a house

Fig. 7.

The village midwife with a nephe w outside their hou se built on the ground; themidwife is wearing a piece of cloth wrapped round her hair like most elderly Mon women

·.

Fig. 8. Sab!Ja : the turn of the boys to request the girls for the return of their sabaa : the girl bending over is placing her smaller sabUa in an upright position again after the boy knocked it over with his

Fig. 9.

One set of the sab'aa when the disc is kicked with the left foot . The floor is of pounded, dampened and smoothed earth

VILLAGE MONS OF BANGKOK

313

the bench and the men aim their sabaa at the sabaa of the person t hey have selected as a partner and which is placed upright on the ground. They then go up to their part ner, whether tb.ey have hit her sabiw or not, sit on the ground, and engage in repartee. They will do this two or three times in each set, as arranged by the leader. Then there is a ramWD!J interlude, the men take up positions on the bench, set their sabaa upright and the women aim their sabaa, go up to their partner, sit in front of him on the ground, and likewise engage in repartee. When this set is over, after another TGi!lWDIJ interlude, the next set, decided on by the leaders, is played- t he method of throw ing might be changed so that for example the sabaa is balanced on the foot and thrown from the foot. The art comes less in standard bowling techniques than in th e story-telling and jokes that go with the ga me. The women are rela tively re ticent, but the men after rolling their sabaa engage in lengthy repartee. It takes from 9. p.m. to 6 a.m. to go thro ugh the whole game. The game is always played at Songhraan in April, for three consecutive nights, and might be played on two other occasions, the trudm::~::~n and SOIJnaamphra, which are primarily religious occasions. The women have to give money before the game to the owner of the place (T: c a wkM::~IJbon , M: ala ?hbj ?) where the sabiia is played. The women also have to help prepare the earth. The men do not have to give any money or help in the preparation of the place, and the game cannot take place if the men do not turn up. The women have to sit and wait for the men, who must always come from another village. No one can play unless properly dressed; the women in phfias!n, blouse and sabai, the men in sarongs and shirts. In contrast to the expenditure here, the women receive money from the men at ordination ceremonies (see below). This is an interesting parallel, as though the women needed to pay for the pleasure of finding a husband, but needed to be paid for the pain of losing, albeit temporarily, members of the male community. Traditional anthropological labels-matriarchal, patrilocal or whatever-do not take into account the characteristic fluidity of family groups in the region, current economic pressures, and the relative ease with which new homes can be erected. Mon men tend to marry (T : teiJIJaan,

314

Michael Smithies

M: bgmaw) around the age of 22 after completing military service obligations, but their brides are usually younger. The Mon young man usually chooses one of his own race; intermarriage with Thais is quite Marriage has only common, but very rare with the nearby Muslims. fairly recently been formalised and couples merely cohabited before. They marry at the house of the bride but the couple may reside subsequently either in the house of the groom or the bride, according to the agreement reached by the go-between who arranges the marriage (T : thawkee, M: ? abnwuut). There is no water pouring ceremony: the couple pray and seek their parents' forgiveness and the elders g ive their blessing. A fea st is held to celebrate th e occasion and priests attend thi s. Families tend to be numerous and ten children no t exceptional. Probably beca use of the proximity of the capital, relatively few young people wo uld appear to stay in the village, which tends to consist largely of the very old or the very young. This falsifies the resi dence arrangements of the family but it would seem that by the time a married couple is middle-aged, if not before, it has its own home, and the elders continue to live in their own homes. Generalisations of this kind are notoriously error-prone, however; in one family all the children lived in the capital and the old couple ceased to farm, but lived off money sent by their children. They looked after a grandchild whose presence for some reason was inconvenien t in the city. Family relationships, outwardly at least , are uncomplicated. Paterna l sa nction is needed for any decision of importance. There is the usua l respect for elder siblings on the part of the Y? Lmger, balanced by the greater responsibility the former have to assume in contribut ing to t he family economy. M in or wives are not kept or not admitted to, and the economic situation of the villagers probably enforces monogamy. K in are scattered in other Mon communities in the grea ter metropoli tan area though of course most are to be found in the same village. Incidenta lly, because of the closed nature of this small community, even Mon private actions become public knowledge which may accoun t for the apparently high standards of morality, particularly in their few commercial dealings .

315

Traditionally all the inhabitants of the village are rice farmers, but the proximity of Bangkok increasingly allows farmers to seek parttime jobs as carpenters or plasterers in the capital in the dry season if there is not sufficient to keep them occupied in repairing their boats

-..;

I

,!

X

X

X

.;

?aruk

)


-l 0

Land

owned by

Chuak T ay

>

"'>

C'l

z ()

;r:

>

z

0

"'1

>

-l :r, ;,..

r

> !:!:!

z

VI

'0

Mao 6

60

H. Demaine and C.J. Dixon

The establishment of a successful irrigation system calls for a reassessment of the values which produced the present system. The premium will be, in the future, not on the most reliable land, but on the land which combines high inherent fertility with ease of access to irrigation or drainage facilities. The practice of elaborate subdivision of land between heirs to ensure that each secured a share of each different type of land will be less important; indeed the very nature of the organized irrigation system may make this subdivision both difficult and undesirable as each plot becomes an integral unit of the system . This revaluation will lead to increasing pressure on the · tradi tiona! syste m. The more progressive farmer is likely to find himself frustrated by the less far sighted members of the village; this has been demonstrated in Ba n Na Chuak Nuea . Such farmers a re likely to attempt to overcome th is situa tion by buying up the land of smaller and less progressive farmers. At present, as may be seen from Table Ilia and b, the Lam Pao farm er is essentially an owner occupier. This pattern is comparable with man y other areas of the Northea st< 6 >. The example of the Central Plain of Thailand suggests tha t, as irrigation is introduced and socioeconomic values change, the incidence of owner-occupation declines. In the Central Plain the increase in renting has been associated with absentee landlords, large scale debt and loss of land by farmers.m It is hoped that the present study of land tenure patterns has highlighted some of the problems of developing irrigated agriculture. A thorough knowledge of the land tenure pattern and the organization behind it is a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of an efficiently functioning system of water distribution. The experience in other areas of Thailand where irrigated agriculture has been established serve as both a pattern and a warning. There are many undesirable side effects of irrigation and a thorough investigation of the holding pattern and organization within an irrigation area should enable measures to be taken to smooth the transition from rain-fed, subsistence agriculture to irrigated, market-oriented cultivation. 6) Chamlong Tohtong, Bw chmm·k So.-io-Econom ic :iurvey of .Vong Wai I rrigation .'h·ea, Bangkok, 1969, pp . 9. 7) Udhis Narkswa sdi, Fanners Indebtedness and R ice M arket ing in Central 'f'lza iland, Bangkok, 19 58 .

..

-~

.....

SOME MANUSCRIPTS IN GRANTHA SCRIPT ,-

IN BANGKOK- II

1

by

.J. R. Marr

In a previous paper which appeared in 1969, I discussed a set of manuscripts in the National Library in Bangkok which, through the kindness of Acharn Choosri, to whom 1 am ever indebted, I was allowed to examine and to photograph in December 1967. These MSS, written in orpiment on black paper in two forms of Grantha script which I term OG (ordinary Grantba) and DG (decorative Grantba), were sufficiently numerous to warrant more than a single paper; they are moreover of great interest being based on both Tamil and Sanskrit originals . Accordingly I first attempted a discussion of the scripts involved 2 and examined most of the texts that are Tamil in origin. They are Saiva, and are versions of hymns in Tevaram and Tiruvacakam . lt seems unnecessary therefore further to discuss the script, save

where new features have been noticed, or where preferable readings have suggested themselves. Principal among these latter is the character in the OG texts ~ which, on the basi s of the one or two instances of it in the Tamil texts I tentatively read as (ch), aspirate, since there are already two characters for unaspirated c in thi s script, one originating in Grantha, the other in TamiJ.3 A similar character in the DG texts was als o 1) After some reflection, I decided to use the same title as that of my previou s article, which appeared in /350.'15 XXXII, ii ( 1969) pp. 28 1-3 22 and plates I-V I, since this is a continuation of the examinat ion of these MSS. There may indeed be a third offering. Those who were baffled by the Tamil quotation at the head of the previous paper, see 850.\S, ibid., p. 281, might be helped by the fa ct that the text originates in a non-Indi an languag e and , romanized, run s : Gll ~uyii':iima i lc~i ay"iim ve rila"La!fu ciyu . 2) See H.S0.-\5, ibid., pp . 283-303. I wou ld like here to record my thanks to Professor E.H.S. Simmonds, Professor of Languages and Literatu res of South East Asia in the lJni versity of London, and to Mrs . Judith Jacob and Mr. Peter Bee , the lecturers in Cambodian and Tai respectively in the School of Oriental and African Studies. for their continuing interest and encouragement in this project . 3) See B50AS, ibid., pp. 287, 302, and text (b) 1.3, on p. 313. The group herein should now read Tava rudraiyya for Ta . . -. Ita aTuf cey .. -' admitttedly further removed . But the Skt. evidence is more compelling.

62

J.R. Marr

read as (ch), but it should be noted that the DG MSS do not show a Tamil-based character for c. ' It now seems much better to read this character as dr a, as it occurs in three pl aces in the Sanskrit portion of the OG MS catalogued XVII 37 (i) where it is quite unambiguou s: fol. 249, line 5 has harapucacra 2 sureiJ:.dra, clearly haraputtrasurendra ; f. 250 has surare'};_dra ; f.251, 1. 1 has madamastugaj e'};_dra for madamasta ( ka) gajendra . In thi s paper will be presented tw o of the text s in the Sanskrit porti on of the OG MS XVII 37 (i), including a puzzling passage that also occurs in the DG MS catalogued XVII 37 (v) on fol. 16.5; the tvvo versions will be shown in parallel. There will also be included an interesting text from the DG MS XVII 37 (iii) . In addition , the second part of the DG version of the Tamil text Tir uvempavai will be included. It will be recalled that the first pa rt only of this text was given in the previous article, 3 and that Ti r uv't!ln pavai occurs in the DG MS in two successive texts . Entitled Pujamuraiypo(aya iy6 a nd Piijanzuraiypotakalal?l , -these run from fols . 127-135 and 136-142 of the DG MS catalogued in the Na tional Library, Bangkok, under XVII 37 (v) . The former text represents vv. 1-11 of Tiru vempavai, the latter the remaining nine verses. Still outstanding are the two baffling Tamil texts in DG in the same MS, fol s. 143-148, (e. running straight on after the second part of Tiru vempa vai, and fols . 179-185. The former, entitled $ vatmuraiys_atha!J:.bra : naray, is unusual in being a Va i~!J.aVa text, and it embodies two lines of AqFn's Tiruppa vai, v. 1, as a repeating-unit, six times. 4 The second text so far defies identification It is entitled in DG Grantha script Pitpra(iis_i valaiy , but it is very different from the Ta. OG text under this nam e in the MS XVII 37 (i) that consists of excerpts from Te varam IV and VJI.S I) The resemblance between Ta . ca , used as a sibilant , and 5, ta., ma y throw f re sh light upon the interplay of si bila nt and de nta!s in lo anwords in Tamil : e.g. t?ici or tati for Skt d as7. 2) See BSOAS, ibid. , pp . 307- 8 and 315-319 , a lso plates IV- VI. 3) By an oversight, th is wa s translitera ted as . . . f>otayyai ; bu t see RSOAS. ibid., p. 295 . 4) For part of this te xt, sec BSO.\S, ibid. , pp . 309-10 . 5) For contents of these MSS, catalogued XVII 3 7 (i), (iii) and (v), see BSOAS, ibid ., pp. 303-4.

4

'> OM E MA 1USCRIPTS IN GRA NTHA SCRIPT I N BA NGKOK-11

The DG

Pitpratli~ivalai)!

63

is in 15 'verses' numerated successively,

and not in repeating blocks of 4 as are the 'riruvempavai-text and the Vaisi)ava one that follows it using two lines of Tiruppavai as refrain. Two 'verses' of the DG Pitpratli~iva/aiy are here given, and a solution to their source and meaning invited:

DG: XVII 37 (v) fol. 179.

entitled

pitpratu~·ivalaiy

tam mum

devaruddinane l •• •

di

Excerpt from text of? Tamil origin,

adinatiye

yapbulomurr

mikuttaruvoi

~ ilaiyadana!!3

G)

yedala!!dUI?1

'11

ranattalumvayalurp

va_!}runavuru

voravaiynury1 ran att a

lummedutp

gudaiyvileni1p

bhan

padanka!!laya

bha!!Iavos

l2l mujaiyyabhatGl

dhAJP ]' '1

oiphiirpvata!hiiya

vastupura~a

orpharp vitathaya

vastupuru~abrahma~e

brahmanesvaba sva ha

mpharpgraka~iiya

etc.

0111harp.

bhrhatk~ataya

mphatp yiimiiya

etc.

O!p.ha!).1

yamaya

Of!lhiirpga!! thavaya etc .

"

(Sou th)

gandharvaya

f. 47 o~hii iJlh

[ra) gariijyayya

orpharp.

bhrngarajaya

mphiif!1mragaya

vastu pura~a

hrahmanesviiha 2

va stupuru~abrama~e

svaha

etc.

etc.

orp.harp

pitrbhyo

oq1ha1p.

dauvarikaya

(SW)

1) Suggested reading; this note is in very small characte rs at the head . 2) Clea rly a scribe's error fo r dau 3) Notice that, as with the paiicah~ara namahsiviiya and the repeating portions of the Tamil texts, the repeating-unit here is much less corrupted, having been all the oftener repeated!

74

J.R. Marr

OJ!lhiiJ!1SVatrivaya etc. mpbii!ppuspadantiiya G>O

'1l

etc.

orp.harp

sugrivaya

oq1harp

puspadantaya

in orpbiirpjlii(tb) 2 ipaya mpbiirp 4asuraya

etc.

orpharp.

?

?

(West)

orp.harp.asuraya

etc.

f. 48 01phii'!lrogaya

viistupura~a brabmanesviiha orpharp rogayas vas tupuru~abrahmaf)- e svaha

OJ!lhiiJ!1Vii yyarave

etc.

orp.harp.

? vayavyaya6

mphiirpniiga ya

etc.

orphan1

naga ya 7

mphiif!Jmuviiya

etc.

orp.harp

mukhyayas

orpharp

bhallataya

orpbiirpbhallakatakiiya

etc .

.. (NW)

I) SK gives kusumad auta here, p. 32. 2) See BSOAS XXXII, ii (1969) p. 298 . 3) SK gives varm.JG here, ibid.

4) Initial vowel a- after anusvam . 5) SK gives so~a at this point, and roga in the NW corner-box . 6) papayak~man here , SK. This devatu is in th e box adjacent to the NW, hence th e readin g suggested here . 7) roga, SK. See note 5 al so. 8) SK has ahi here . This has apparently been omitted, for the evening order along the N side mukhy a to diti is correctly maintained in the Bkk. te xt.

7s

SOM E MA NUSCRIPTS IN GRA NTHA SCHIPT IN BANGKOK-II

o'!lhiirphamaya

etc .

orph am

so maya

Oiphiirprasacaiie

etc.

ol!lhatp

? rajne'

etc .

orpha maditaye

. .

omhiim~iiditate ~

(North)

f. 49

Oiphiirpsuvciditye orp.haJ1l di taye

brahmanesviiha v a stupuru~abrahmaT)e svaba vastupura~a

~

otpharpapayaJ

OJ!tharp.::::: apayaz etc . Ol!lharp:::::apav A~iiya Oiphiitpmari~avaiie

etc.

etc .

(NE)

01phamapavatsaya4 orpham ? parjanyayas

OiphiiJ!lSar!'vitatre

etc.

omham

savitre6

OiphiiJ!lsiivitraya

etc.

orpharp

savitraya 7

. . . .

(East)

1) /Jiwjag a, SK, p. 32. Rajlie tentatively suggested as based on Riijayak~man; see SK, ibid. 2) See BSOAS XX X!l, ii (1969) p. 30 3 (top). 3) After clit i, the sequence in the Bkk. alters; apa and apavatsa ar e inner devat as ace . SK, ibid., of the NE. 4) apavatsa: an inner d evata of the N.E. 5) Conjecture. Parjanya is the padadevata adjacent to Agni of the NE corner-box, reading clockwise. 6) Aga in appare ntly a return to t he inner devatas. 7) Inner d e·m ta, but also = Siirya, so appropriate for The East box; see SK, p . 32 diagram.

76

J.R. Marr

orpha'!lvissavate

omham

etc .

? visva

orpharp. jayantaya 1 f. 50 vastupura~a

01p.ham

?

vas tupuru~abrahma1~e

?

o~hiif!1rutadriya

brahmanesvaha

etc.

orphii'!lrutadrade~aya

etc.

svaha

om ham

mitraya 2

orp.haf)1

rudraya 3

Of!lharp

? rudraddaya

(?SE)

I) Next but one box to Agni o n the east side , reading clockwise: the last JHzdadevnt fi-name recognizable in this list. 2) An inner demta, ace . SK, p. 32 , diagram , but of the West. 3) Also a West inner devata , ace . SK, ibid.

77

SOME MAN USCRIPTS IN GRA NTHA SCRIPT lN BANGKOK - 11

..

At the beginning of this paper, mention was made of the fact that the DG manuscripts XVII 37 (v) includes under two headings the text of Tiruvempavai , the TamilSaivite poem by Manikkavacakar.I To conclude this paper, the portion that contains vv.12-20 of the poem will be given. It is arranged in exactly the same way as the first part,2 each 8-line verse of the original being treated as four 'verses' numbered 1 to 4 in Thai script, the next verse being a fresh cycle of four, and so on. Only in the last verse is the text nearly hopelessly corrupt, lines 1 to 3 of the original being omitted altogether. Moreover , this 8-line verse is represented as a cycle of 5 'verses' although less of the original verse in fact appears. Its 'verses' for the most part represent but one line of the original. The fact that the Tamil word po f2i, 'praise', commences each line seems to have proved too much for the memorizers in Thailand; four 'verses' have b=att'i at the end a s well as bAtti at the beginning, both being clearly representations of Ta. pof2i, and the occurrance of Ta. ellam in three of Manikkavacakar's lines has led to a jump-line situation whereby enta111 for ~llam appears four times although the first line of the original that includes this word is absent altogether and 1.4 of the original is repeated twice . Unlike the oth er 'verses' of the Bkk. recension, these, save the 5th., are co-terminous with one line of the original plus the extra po 12 i, only the fifth being coterminous with two lines, the last two, of the original. A concordance with the original Tamil text will make this clear : line

Bkk. 'verse'

Tiruvempavai, v. 20

1 (pOI'J:.lY arufuka nif1!.1 atiy ampatama/ar 2 p01:J:iY aru{uka niiJ:Il antaman centa~irka~

3 pou;iy ellav uyirkkun tou;amam po!:_p7itam) 4 p0'2,iY ( ellav uy irkkum)* pokamam punka{alka~ 5 pouiy e/lav uyirkkun 'iram il!aiyatika{ 6

poui (ma' '1a'1muka!J:.uh kanata) pun{arikam

7 porriyam uyyava(' ko'!faru(um pu!J:.malarka{ 8 pocriyam marka[i n'ir a~el or empavay.

+ pOI;_!_'i + pou.i + pou.i

1

1 & 4* 2 3 5

Bracketed are those portions of the original that seem not at all to be represented in the Bangkok version. The text of this, running from f.136 to f.142, line 5, is here given in full: I)

2)

It is in fact vv.lSS-174 of his 'J 'iru v ii.ca fw111 and, like the Tintvammcmai that

follows it, is in praise of Siva at Tiru vat;t!)amalai , the Hill of Fire, ref~ring to the fire -linga, the embodiment of the god as a pillar of fire the top and bottom of which could not be observed by Brahma and Vi~l).u , since it was unending. See BSOA S , ibid ., pp. 31 5-319 and plates IV- VI for the te xt and romanization of the first part of the Bkk. T irnv'ih npcrva i.

78

DG:

J.R. Marr

XXVII 37( v) fols. 136-142 .

Title: piijamu,·aiypotakalal!'·

Contains verses 12-20 of MiiJ;tikkavacakar's Tiruvemp'iivai. 1

va tt (r )abh uru vi bh uruga mya n a

(12 ) ii rtta

pi!avittayark't!~a

mat ta lirr:JSRMCT treats this whole topi c (pp. 178-180, 247, 248-249, 252 and 26 7) but sinc e kan is classified as adverb occurring as Modifier in the Verb Phrase (pp. 8 3, 9 1 and 161 ), the relevance to problems of substitution and non-plural ity is not brought out. However, the example (p. 184) that is of most interest to this investigation, pay-tha:n nii:m kan may

(Shall we go and have a drink of water? ) is among "initiating sentences which are non-cataphoric " (p. 18 3). These may look to be "non-initiating and anaphoric in fo rm" but they "cannot be related to any cataphoric sentence." The appeal to "context of immediate percepti on" (Chapter XIIT, p. 26 3) resembles my appeal to a recognition of different 'existential' worlds.

;

~.10DERN

Im kab naaj deeq ---- ~ naaj dam inaa pbr:S:>m kan illustrating Dam's meeting with (Rv ) a partner and bam;s arriving along with (Rr) a partner respectively.

There follows a diagram to map out the consequences of iP and Rr usages and the restrictions upon the's or p' choice and the 'p only' alternative. It will be seen that the four categories set out in the diagram are numbered. This is a convenience to make reference to the categories in the discussion that follows somewhat easier. The large squares that frame groupings of the categories are intended to show the successive stages of specialization called forth by the differences between the world of dialogue and the world of narrative. Thus, though the category marked (!) is intended to have a certain primacy as illustrating the fundamental process at its simplest, the categories numbered @ , ® and @are not intended to show any historical order of derivation. The most that can be said is that category @ requires a step or two more in explanation than do the other two. To recapitulate: the "fundamental process at its simplest" is that a reversible but not necessarily reciprocal sequence x R y may be rewritten as x R kan without any restrictions on the singularity or plurality of x, and (save for the provision of a verb to make up a predicate where necessary) without any requirement that R be either RV or Rr. With this in mind as the exemplification of category (!), the diagram should be intelligible. 40) In some such context as baa~thii naaj dam ca-phob kan thaa mii weelaa waa~ where the speaker and addressee know who is meant by kan and who it is that has the spare time, eg. 'Perhaps Dam will meet me / us / you if hel l/ we / you have any spare time.' or with naaj dam as second Person address 'Perhaps you'll meet me / us / them, Dam, if you / l/ they have any spare time .'

Peter Bee

128

World of DIALOGUE

(

Subjdt (S or p)

--f-'L '" --,:

/1

I

I

/

'R

"/

....

/

Subject (s or p)

~~r , ',::

\

/

I

\ \

"'

\ * / \ \ World of NA RRATIVE I - - - - - , -- --'-:------.... \ / ~ I1 ' General partnerships ____:;;. I : /

/

/

:

/

/

-- '' \.

Rv /)/ ',

/

/ I*

0

"

I

1/

/ ~

I

or \.

/I

. . . - - - -- - -- - - - -/

/

/'\.

Vlhe re R may be eitl~er

/

'

... \

'

/

1

//

, _ _,/

/

/

\

Sentence JC

" \A ]lr ~~an

any x & y (p only)

•

/

________,"'----'

!>,__

•

"" ', "0 "

H,)mugcnc ous pluralities /

I

/

I

I

/ /

/

/ /

.+I I

~

:

I

ll')V: kan

SubJeCt (p only)

1_.n_

l

'

"-

__ .,

1 1

I

I

-·'

®and ® begin processes of specialization. The former dwells on the fact that x R y resembles a sentence with a pattern N V N, the fir st N of which is always the Subject and the second N is predicated upon the basis of some kind of understood partnership and may thus undergo substitution by kan that renders this second N implicit

KA N IN MODERN STANDARD THAI

129

rather than explicit. The latter dwells on unrestricted possibilities of participation for x and y as joint fillers of any IC 'slot' in a sentence, not merely the Subject slot. Viewed in this light, therefore, ® might really be called a specialized case of ®. We deal with ® first, however, because it shows up another dichotomy. In those sections of the diagram

(with the s h a p e + - ), in which the word kan is paired

• with reference to no other IC of the sentence but the Subject, there is a spli t revealed by the ability or inability to tolerate singularity of Subject. R r may take either singular or plural, whereas R v must go one step furt her in specialization and take only plural. In category® (with the shape ~------.-m 'Dam and cheese like to eat banana!' IC analysis can take care of this. So can transformational grammar (e.g. TSAO: GT 12 and 13, pp. 37-38). Ringing the changes on these alternative presentations, however, is very important for explanations of the specializations of kan set forth below.

130

Peter Bee

1st step:

Subj' R r kab Subj" ..... V . . ...

2nd step:

Subj' ..... V ..... R r kab Subj"

3rd step:

l

Subj' ..... V ..... R r kan (exclusively case @) or

Subj' & Subj' ..... V ..... R r kan (typically case @)

The second step leads, by substitution of kan for kab Subj", to the category ® formula in step 3. The category ® formula in step 3 requires some explanation, however. The question arises: what is Subj" doing in the Subject slot, or in the sentence at all, if kan is supposed to be substituting for it? The whole process might be explained by simplifying the account of what is really taking place and by writing out a general formula thus : x R kab Y & Y R kab x

and then by substitution x R kan ' & y R kan"

and then by re-arrangement as x & y R kan' & kan"

The suggestion of an origin for the Thai phrase kan Jt? kan is obvious. The suggestion also is made, however, that the second kan (i.e. the ..... & kan" ), being homophonous in actual utterance, is nearly always dropped, leaving us with the 'joint' or double-item formula for sentences using kan under the terms of category ®. This double-item plurality and the application of it to the Subject slot in particular is important in explaining the ultimate specialization found in category @). Recalling that kan Je? kan is normally reduced to one kan only, we may add the remark that reduplication or linked reiteration (xx or x & x) are not normally available as devices to convey notional plurality in Thai. With the exception of certain nouns (deg-deg 'children' and hlugIfmg 'one's children', for instance), nouns and pronouns that are not specific as to singularity or plurality must be content with a single unmarked form for singular and plural alike. Category @exploits this state of affairs and not only reduces two hypothetical occurrences of kan to one but also does so for two hypothetically individual Subject items too.

KAN IN MODERN STANDARD THAI

131

In order to do this, of course, the individuals must be homogeneous. Another way of putting it is to conceive of each noun-word as a named set that thus will obey the elementary rule for the addition of sets: for any set a, a+a= a. Returning to our nouns, which we continue to term x, we may set down formulae with each 'individual' x or set-member marked in the same way that we previously marked each occurrence ofkan. Keeping track of x in this way allows us to account for the two important ways in which category@ presents itself : as unison plural kan (e.g. deg !VII) kan, 'The kids are running along with one another'); and reciprocal plural kan (e.g. deg tii kan, 'The kids are fighting each other'). It remains to be said that the R-process in category @ must find expression in the main verb and, hence, we might expect R v to be entered as the main verb in our formulae. Reversibility in this category, however, will be assumed to reside in the word kab rather than, necessarily and inherently, within the meaning of the verb. If, for instance, we stress the meaning of the verb tii as 'to hit, to smack or beat' rather than 'to fight', then it is not reversible in implication. Verbs like nig 'to love' and kliad 'to hate' and so forth do not have inherently reversible meanings either. We therefore write V or V Obj for the relevant predicate nuclei in our formulae . (a) unison kan- V is intransitive: x' V kab x" & x " V kab x'

re-arranged as x' & x" V kan" & kan ' reduced by addition of sets to x V kan The re-arrangement we have, of course, met with in category ®. The additional factor here is homogeneity: x' and x " are, ultimately in actual utterance, destined to be unitary x . (b) either unison or reciprocal-V is overtly transitive: x' V Obj kab x" & x" V Obj kab x'

reduced by the above procedure to x V Obj kan

132

Peter Bee

Context and collocational plausibility must decide whether the Object is itself singular, and therefore in common for the transactions done by bothx' andx" (e.g .... m:.l:.liJ phracan kan, ' ... gazed at the moon together'), or plural and 'shared' severally (e.g .... jiq nog kan, ' ... shot game together') as it must also decide whether unison or reciprocal interpretations are appropriate. This latter issue is a vital one for presentation (c) of category @) : (c) reciprocal with double homogeneity -w here Object is x too ! x · V x" kab x " & ...... etc. cannot be reduced to x ' V x" 1•an & . ..... etc. because the predicate of Subject x ' , i.e. V x", cannot, as it stands, constitute a predicate permissible by reversibility with x" as Subject too: we cannot allow x" V x". We must therefore postulate a convention whereby the hypothetical predicate V x" kab x" may undergo a special, partial substitution and become V kan ". This is in order to preserve the reversibility of the transaction at the cost of removing specific mention of a ny Object. By observing this convention, therefore, the formulae come down once again to x' V kan " & x" V l•an' and by reduction as before to x V kan. The upshot of this ordering of priorities-reversibility at the cost of overt mention of Object-is that, as regards notional interpretations of the formula x V kan where V is a transitive verb, the supplying of an Object may or may not be homogeneous with the Subject, an ambiguity th at can be resolved only by context.42 A demonstration of this at its mos t paradox ical can be found in s uch sentences as 42) The sentence ,,

t

~

i.l

....

c:i.,,

ll\lll fltJlJ fllll •Jll flU 1~ v n ulJll!lYJ\.1

for example, may turn out no t to be about people who have met each other but, clearl y from the context, it ma y have to do with discoveri-ng (caa) pearls in shellfish, i.e. 'But there lun·e been people who've come across some.' as is borne out further . "4 tl " :LI ll t' q, lil '"'