Patterns and Illusions: Thai History and Thought in Memory of Richard B. Davis [2 ed.] 0958902917, 9780958902915

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PATTERNS AND ILLUSIONS THAI HISTORY AND THOUGHT Edited by •

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Gehan Wijeyewardene and E.C. Chapman •

Published by The Richard Davis Fund and Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University

Issued under the auspices of Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 1992

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Publishedby

Ine Richard Davis Fund and the Department of Anthropology Research School of Pacific Studies The Austrahan National University Canberra Issued under the auspices of .

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore . AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieva ^smitted m any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the nri Richard Davis Fund or its nominee Richard Davis Fund

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*^^og^^^in-pu^ation data:

Richard B. Davis.

Thai history, and thought in memory of

Includes bibliographies ISBN 0 7315 1408 4.

J-■ History. 2. Thailand - Social life and customs. I-Wtjeye^ne. Gehan. 1932- . n. Chapman, E.C. (Edw^ Charles). HI. Davis, RichardB., 1943-1981. IV. Ric^d Davis Fuhd. V. Australian National University. Dept, of Anthropology. VI. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 959.3

51-1

Central and Northern Thailand

Acknowledgements Many individuals have been of assistance in the production of this volume. The major editorial work was done in the Department of Anthropology, RSPacS, ANU and the editors wish, particularly, to thank Judith Wilson and Paula Harris for the performance of this task and Margaret Tyrie for the preparation of the manuscript. Cover. The house of the late Noi Inta Muangphrom in Nan province m which Richard Davis lived. Photograph by Richard Davis. Design by Nicole La Praik, Graphic Design, ANU.

CONTENTS Gehan Wijeyewardene

Introduction: a scholar among the patterns and illusions of Thai studies

1

PATTERNS OF THE ECONOMY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Peter and Sally L. Kunstadter

Paul T. Cohen

Christine Mougne Peter Hinton

Population movements and environmental changes in the hills of riortherti Thailand Irrigation and the northern Thai state in the nineteenth century Survivors and accumulators: chan^g patterns of pa miang Meetings as ritual: Thai officials, Western consultants and development planning

17 57

73 105

PATTERNS OF THE MIND

1. Beer B.J. Terwiel 2. Language Donald Gibson

Gehan Wijeyewardaie Anthony Diller

3. Myth Ananda Rajah 4. History Nerida Cook Craig J. Reynolds

Laupani and Ahom identity: an eihnohistorical exercise

127

Notes on traditional beliefs in northern Thailand concerning the causes of 'Bitot’s spots' {Xerophthalmia') and their treatment Kinship extension: some modifications in the north Thai terminology The 'extra Y* in northern Thai script

169

Transformations of Karen myths of origin and relations of power

237

A tale of two city pillars: Thai astrology on the eve of modernization The plot of Thai history: theory and practice

279

181 199

313

333

Index

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Patterns and Illusions

Though Davis was extremely knowledgeable about Thailand in^gener^ and the Tat-speaking peoples, it was almost 1 Tai-speakers of northern Thailand, people he referred to as the 'Muang', that he wrote. He concludes his monograph, Muang Metaphysics, themselves are not of a particularly reflective or plulosophical,temperament. Although they are Buddhists, ^dering the ultimate nature of things. But m their n^ths and ntual there is an implicit metaphysic wWle^fmitional patterns are necessaX to existence, m the last analysis these patten^e

Introduction: A Scholar Among the Patterns and Illusions of Thai Studies Gehan Wijeyewardene The Australian National University

Richard (Dick) Davis was bom in New York in 1943. He took his first degree in 1965 at the University of Virginia. He has spent some time in, France and it was probably then he discovered his natural talent, and the requisite capacity for hard work, which led to his mastery of foreign languages. This must have played some part in his decision to-volunteer for the Peace Corps and his acquisition of extraordinary fluency in Thai., Dick was not unaware of his accomplishment, but acknowledged it with modesty. After his intital training he spent four years working for the Peace Corps in Thailand, mostly in Nan Province. He worked for the Provincial Education Office in Nan and was responsible for setting up and supplying Hmong schools in the province. He made many close friends during this period, and these he was to keep for the rest of his life. He also turned his formidable language learning skills to the acquisition of northern Thai (kham milang'). By 1967 he"was preparing instructional material on Kham Milang for other Peace Corps volunteers, with particular emphasis on the variations in the language between provinces; When his period with the Peace Corps came to end, in-1969 Davis went back to a village in Amphur Sa, with the intention of doing systematic anthropological fieldwork. It was during this period that he learned the northern system of writing, or at least acquired the final polish to his previous knowledge, from the gentle, learned old man to whom he never ceased to express his gratitude, Noi Inta Muangphrom. Noi Inta died in 1980. In 1970 Davis was

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

awarded a scholarship to the University of Sydney and he was to spend the rest of his academic life in Australia. In 1972-73 he spent another year in Amphur Sa, and in 1974 received his PhD. The first four years he spent in Canberra, first as Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, and then in a teaching position in die Department of Prehistory and Anthropology. During these years he proved himself as a teacher of great skill and enthusiasm. Many of the students from that period remain passionately devoted to him and to his memory. In 1978 he took up a position as Lecturer in the Department of General Studies at the University of New South Wales. It was not the position he would have liked to have had, but economic conditions were bad worldwide and university jobs were scarce. His task was to provide some general education for professional and science students, whose education was otherwise thought to be too narrow. Dick channelled all his enthusiasm, his love of jazz, of film, of Southeast Asian ethnography and genral anthropology into his courses, but by its very nature the job could not give him back what he so desired from teaching. For many years Dick Davis had suffered from a serious disorder which increasingly interferred with the way of life he chose and intended to live. Leaving his affairs in meticulous order, he died in June 1981 of his own choice. He was cremated, with Buddhist rites, in Sydney.^ •

Richard Davis as Anthropologist Ten years after his death it is clear that Richard Davis's contribution to the study of Thailand will be seen as that of a traditional, general anthropologist and ethnographer. This is not to suggest a limitation in this contribution; rather, it was perhaps his greatest strength. The understanding of a language and culture was to him the primary task; the contribution to comparative understanding, the final aim, was dependent on the former. 'There are,' he always seemed to say, 'people out there with different languages, different cultures, different lives; these we need to know about.’ His two major works, A Northern Thai Reader and Muang Metaphysics, illustrate this general anthropological commitment. The other major pillars of general anthropology - archaeology and human evolution - did not play a large part in his professional life, though his final paper. The Ritualization of Behaviour', does suggest he may have moved towards a greater interest in the physical and physiological nature of human beings if his career

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INTRODUCTION

had been allowed to continue. And, as the title of this volume suggests, even his more conventional work-suggests a questioning of cultural premisses. The papers of this volume represent an Australian homage to a greatlymissed, dear colleague and friend. Only Gibson and the Kunstadters of the contributors were not part of the specifically ’Australian’ part of Davis's life and work, though they, too, shared close personal and intellectual relations with him over many years. The Australian flavour is of course entirely appropriate. Apart from his undergraduate years and the Peace Corps period of his Thai experience, his working life was in and from Australia, and I am sure that the three contributors mentioned above understand this and will take no offence. 1 should also mention that the Australian contribution reflects his association with the two universities — The Australian National University and the University of Sydney. He researched and wrote his PhD thesis in Sydney and spent most of his teaching years at The Australian National University. This volume, therefore, also commemorates his association with these universities and their long involvement with research in and on Thailand and Tai-speaking peoples.

Patterns and Illusions The citation from which we take the title of this book must have had considerable meaning for Davis, for in the same year that he submitted the thesis which was to later become Muang Metaphysics, he concluded his paper in Ethnology with the same words (1974:23). In the posthumously published paper The Ritualization of Behaviour’ he seems to have sourced the 'illusion' to human, and pre-human, anxiety:

Human beings are heirs to the vestiges of a pre-human propensity to ritualize their behaviour in response to anxiety (1981:111).

Again, was it only chance or sheer mischief that led him to choose as the final reading in A Northern Thai Reader an extract from the Kham Miiang version of the Ramayana {Ramahiari), an extract dealing with the birth of Hanuman; or was it the continuing, sceptical insight into the nature of the cultural product?

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GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

... the woman gandharva went [and] danced in every way for Prince Parameshvara to see. When Prince Parameshvara saw, he fell .so excited his semen flowed out. When the woman gandharva saw [this], she reflected to herself that it was unfitting for the semen of the lord king to fall to the earth. So the woman caught [the semen] in her hand, wrapped it in banana leaves, [and] travelled with it over the continent of Jambu. The woman saw the blind mother of Onggot and Varayasha lying on her back with her mouth open. So she poured the semen into [the blind woman’s] mouth [and] down her belly. So then [the blind woman] became pregnant and gave birth to Hawlaman [lit. 'wrap-leave-pregnant'] (1970:75). The illusory aspect of patterns could, of course, constitute a series of Chinese kaleidoscopes - one dissolving structure within another. The Davis statement of 1974 is a description of the Mflang ethnography ~ the northern Thai recognize that the patterns they so cathect in their ritual are made illusory through their myth. But this is merely the middle tube of mirrors between his own personal illusory refractions and that which he seems to be suggesting characterizes the human'condition itself.

The Ritualist We now know that the ritualist in the 1981 paper is an analysis of himself. The sense of mischief that must have induced him to use the 'Birth of Hanuman' text in his Reader leads him in the posthumous paper to write: 'Let me now describe a ritualist whom I came to know quite well while doing fieldwork in northern Thailand.' The man is called 'Nan Thep'. Thep' is thewada and naan^ is the northern title given to a monk who has left the order. Davis was known to his friends in Nan province as naai mddi, the latter word meaning 'dew*. Davis gives to Nan Thep an 'anal personality', which is defined as involving a 'conflict between the pleasurable experience of evacuation and the necessity of withholding this experience in response to the commands of adult figures', this being 'acted out’ in adult life 'as discipline versus rebellion, or as retaining versus giving or producing' (1981:108). [Nan Thep's] interest in traditional Northern Thai culture is remarkable, given his relatively young age for a ritualist (he is in his early 30s) ... is welleducated, urbane and holds a fairly senior position in the public service in

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INTRODUCTION

Bangkok. In his mid-20s he had been instructed in ritual lore and the use of ritual texts by a village elder, to whom he refers as his 'father*. (His own father died when he was 17.) His mentor had permitted him to make copies of his own ritual texts, on the condition that three times a year the young man performed a ceremony to pay respect to the texts, to the powers inherent in them, and to the spirits of those past teachers who transmitted the texts through successive generations (1981:109). Davis goes on about this character at some length and then asks:

Why does this man continue to perform a calendrical ritual in hqnour of spiritual beings in which he, by his own admission, does not even believe? ... The only anxiety he alleviates is the uneasiness which would result from not performing the ceremony. This is the neurotic paradox of ritual ... (1981:110).

I have felt that I should have recognized the subject of this case study when I first heard the paper read at a conference in 1980. Though much of it .is recognizable with hindsight, thwe is one detail which is a give-away, but which probably was not in the version he read. This is the sentence: 'He makes trips on which he drives on every single road in a district and which he meticulously records on maps’ (1981:110). This hobby of his when a youth in Virginia was something we had talked about and I am certain he had discussed with others.

The Theory of Ritual The paper itself is not a success. I would certainly share many ideas in it, but there is too much stress on anality as a source of ritual and ritualistic behaviour as a human phenomenon. But it does, I think, help place his other work within his view of himself and of the world. His view of himself as a ritualist gave him great sympathy for the ritual life of the Khon Milang and allowed him to see the manner in which they related ritual to myth and to their view of the ultimate reality; and, finally, he and the Khon Miiang are part of a universalislic theory about ritual, but also, by implication, much else. In an obituary I wrote for the Journal of the Siam Society I tried to show, with the example of the treatment of the structural opposition between male and female, the manner in which this is elaborated in the Mtiang ethnography and in

5

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

Mflang society. Though I did not there draw attention to the movement of a

pattern into illusion, perhaps,we may now see how this happens.

... let us consider his treatment of the male/female opposition. It first arises out of his discussion of so-called northern Thai matriliny. He presents the ethnography to bring out the fact that though domestic and kinship relations are largely structured through women, they are subordinate to an overwhelming ideology of male dominance — itself articulated with other antinomies of northern Thai culture, such as the high and the low. senior and j junior. This problem, or set of problems, is again taken up at the end of the ; bookrwhen he discusses the aspects of clan and domestic rituals, and the final ’ re^t is a complex presentation of the way in which the symbolic, structur^ dichotomy between male and female interacts with other such^ symbolic dichotomies, is woven into ideology, and finally emerges as political action (Wijeyewardene 1984; 244),

The dichotomies on which the patterns of ritual arc based, become complex and interwoven as the ritual life moves into secular and political action, and succumbs to the vagaries of'the real world. All finally disappears into the transience of Buddhist philosophy or the grand theories of anthropology. Modem theories in anthropology which suggest that culture itself could be a construct of the anthropologist, or of the carriers of the culture, for political or other purposes, would not I think, have appealed to Davis. Patterns, or ■structures’ and 'illusions' were part of the data. The anthropologist himself could become part of the data, but that was because of the common humanity of the bearers of the culture and the student of the culture. I do not think the relativistic notions inherent in, say, some theories of discourse would have greatly appealed.

Papers on Change and Development

The papers in this volume were not written with Davis’s comments on ■patterns and illusions' in mind and we should keep clearly in view the individual intentions of the authors. The papers have been grouped together representing, first, those having to do with topics of change and development, and, second, those having to do with modes of'thought. There are borderline cases: for instance, Peter Hinton's paper on the ritual of meetings could quite easily have been considered as belonging in the second category, and Terwiel's paper on the

6

INTRODUCTION

brewing of beer might be considered as dealing with a traditional activitj^pf great domestic, economic importance. To comment, very briefly, on these papers on change and development: Cohen looks at the relationship between the northern Thai political system in the nineteenth century and irrigation-based rice agriculture. The theoretical point he wishes to make is that there was no deterministic relation between the two sets of phenomena, as has been suggested by some theorists (not necessarily or primarily with respect to Thailand), specifically Karl Wittfogel. The Kunstadters consider two contrastive ecological adaptations in the hills of Thailand: the sedentary swiddening of the Lua' and the migratory system of the Hmong and other more recent,migrants into the region. They show how population growth and other changes during and since World War 11 have made both systems unworkable: the Lua' can no longer maintain a system of production which had lasted many hundreds of years and the Hmong are increasingly being settled in permanent communities at lower elevations. Peter Hinton discusses the ritualistic nature of interactions in the recent culture of development projects. This paper begins with some of the propositions made by Davis in his posthumously published paper. Christine Mougne looks at the application (and demise) of lowland social and economic patterns from the rice-cultivating lowlands to the fermented tea industry of the hills, as Khon Miiang villages move to take advantage of economic opportunities. If we were to try to put these four papers in context, one major point that needs to be made is that they deal with north Thailand in the two centuries since the end of Burmese rule in Chiang Mai and the present day. Each one of them establishes one or more patterns, and these turn out to be not so much 'illusions', but as essentially transient. 1 Swiddens and Migration The Kunstadters deal with the oldest of the patterns: the Lua' swidden adaptation in the lower hills of the north, and their 'feudal' relationship with the lords of Chiang Mai. The claim is made that this pattern was established before the re-assertion of Thai (Tai) rule and had prevailed 'for many hundreds of years’. The data the Kunstadters present are quite impressive and one is particularly struck by the description of the manner in which Lua' elders assess the ecological

7

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

status and viability of their fields. In the absence of evidence to the contrary we must accept that this ecological pattern was of great antiquity, but the pattern of political relations which gave accepted tenure of their land is not so certain. The grants of silver plates to Lua’ communities did give them recognition by Khon Mflang rulers, but we have no evidence of what relations w^e with the Burmese. We also know, for instance, that the region suffered from endemic shortage of population and much warfare was concerned with the forcible movement of population by the victors. Were the Lua'*protected from such policy and if so why? Hiese questions must be raised when we consider the social structures,of northon'Thailand over time. The documented changes the Kunstadters record for our-fhost recent period are quite spectacular, and probably devastating!- But perhaps we should keep in mind the possibility that all structures were transient, however immutable they may have seemed to participants at the time or to observers looking back over history, 2 Irrigation Cohen deals with the nineteenth-century push by aristocrats in Chiang Mai to declare irrigated land 'royal', extend irrigation and exact quite disproportionate quantities of rice as rent. Cohen argues that these actions were largely triggered by population growth, especially in the ranks of the aristocracy, who had to be maintained by thfeir leaders as part df their factional strength. Cohen quite clearly sees this as a transitory pattern, created in the circumstances of resettlement after the liberation from Burma and before the full weight of rule by Bangkok was installed. Again Cohen’s paper should be placed in the wider historical context of irrigation in northern Thailand. I have argued elsewhere that the pattern of city, waf and irrigation system is present as material remains across the northern Thai landscape — the product of a long history of moving settlement (Wijeyewardene 1985). Cohen's data are a small segment of this history and demonstrates that any manifestation of the use of these material remains could be highly particularized and specific. The point he makes that the social structure could constrain the technology is one well taken.

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INTRODUCTION

3 Tea There is a similar point to be made about the paper by Christine Mougne, which looks at the strategies of a particular village community at a particular period in exploiting the fermented tea (mzang) industry, just before the industry itself seemed to be doomed by the change in. taste. As Mougne recognizes, and as van Roy (1971) earlier discussed in some detail, miang is old in the region, and there is strong reason to believe that much of it was cultivated. Just as in the valleys there is a distribution of ancient habitation (irrigation system, city and wat) waiting for new occupancy, in the hills, too, there is a legacy of ancient cultivation, ready for human exploitation when required. Van Roy argued that there is a shift from miang to tea (for drinking) when required — and this too seems to be a widespread pattern. Etherington and Forster have recently confirmed this region,as the'^place of origin of tea, writing: ’The oldest known and largest tea bushes in the world have been discovered in the forests of Yunnan’ (1991:16). It is interesting that what they refer to as Tu'er tea' is a compressed tea, slightly fermented, but drunk, not chewed; perhaps a forerunner, or collateral, of miang. As each of the authors has shown, the point to be made is that the patterns of the economy are instituted, develop and change, and though we may- rightly think that some of the changes of our own time are quite unprecedented in the history of the region, it is also perhaps salutary to contemplate the fact that the patterns and the changes occur within an environment, both natural and man­ made, which has some interesting patterns of its own.

4 Developmental Committees Peter Hinton’s paper turns the development theme on its head. At one level, he appears to be.saying, the realities of economic development are rituals performed by groups of people-with no referent in the world in which peasants live and die. They are patterns, or illusions, in- the minds of development experts and Thai bureaucrats. Harking back to the Davis paper, he suggests that the ritual of the.meeting allays everyone's anxiety. It is a fitting transition to patterns of the mind.

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GEHAN WDEYEWARDENE

Patterns of the Mind The frontiers of development are always, perhaps by definition, identifiable and the frontiers of the environment force themselves on our consciousness as they appear to close in on our lives. The frontiers of the mind are always beyond our reach, and though the papers here are all situated in the middle ground of human thought, they cover a variety of topics that ihakes it difficult to encompass them within a short introduction.

1 Beer As suggested earlier, Terwiel’s paper probably allows the best transition from the previous discussion. The context within which the author looks at the traditions of Tai-beer-brewing is the contemporary political situation of the Ahom, a Tai-speaking people living in Assam. The Ahom have requested the Government of India to recognize them as a separate people, not as a group of lowland Assamese Hindus, and thereby give them the rights of autonomy which other'recognized groups now have. In their submissions they have often used the argument that they brew and consume beer, ritually forbidden to Hindus. Terwiel asks if beer in the Tai world does constitute a distinguishing characteristic and, in an exhaustive enquiry, establishes that Ahom beer-brewing and consumption is significantly different from that of any groups with whom they have "been in contact, but in f^t is strikingly similar to that of all Tai-speaking groups for whom evidence is available. One of the quite striking aspects of this investigation is the cultural persistence of an unexpected sphere of activity. Contemporary discussion in anthropology aften turns on the viability of the very notion of culture and the evidence of its 'construction' in the pursuit of economic and political advantage. The Ahom raised the issue of brewing for just these reasons, but Terwiel shows that the claims are entirely legitimate. There is much evidence that in the adjacent areas of Southeast Asia cultural traits associated with particular ethnic groups (to the exclusion of others) are largely illusory. Here an illusion has emerged as an identifiable pattern, proving once again that far-reaching gen^alizations about cultural data are extremely hazardous.

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INTRODUCTION

2 Language The papers by Diller, Gibson and Wijeyewardene have, in rathe^i^fferent ways, to do with language. Of these, Diller’s paper is a major contribution to the study of the history of Thai (and Tai) writing systems. Focused on a small group of symbols, particularly the symbol called 'lustral Y’, Diller revises notions about the history of ’Southwestern Tai' writing systems. Though the paper demands some technical linguistic terminology, it is well worth comprehension by non-linguists, even if only because it treats. among other things, the subject of the ‘construction’ of language history for national political ends. Gibson's paper looks at a set of beliefs (and their expression) connected with a vitamin' A deficiency disease, night-blindness (xerophthalmia), thereby bringing to our attention again problems of academic interpretation raised by the anticipation of scientific discoveries by folk experience. Though Gibson does not raise the issue, anthropological readers must consider the issue of the validity of symbolic interpretations of ethnographic material. The concerns of humans and human communities are largely empirical, or practical; symbolic structures may be designed-specifically to achieve these ends, or may be inferred by analysts investigating such beliefs and rituals from the outside. These comments also apply to Wijeyewardene's paper, which presents some changes in the application of northern Thai kinship terms and looks at them in relation to inferred total terminological structures. 3 Myth Ananda.Rajah's paper is concerned with Karen myth, and together with that of the Kunstadters, helps balance the book by stressing the multi-'ethnic nature of the population of Thailand, just as Terwiel's represents the Tai outside Thailand. jThis is not to suggest that the importance of these papers lie in this token representation.) Because Rajah's paper was largely written after the decision on the book’s title, in many ways, it most clearly represents the theme of the book: the thickening of Karen myths of origin as each new gen^tion and new interest interprets them for their own purposes reveals itself as insubstantial, as tenuous as the links between ’... the Christian Karen ... separated from other Karen who live by traditional knowledge ...' But this in itself is a paradox. How can we be sure of the ’traditional' nature of this

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GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

knowledge? Though Rajah would not, I think, want to claim his paper as a post* modernist critique, it suggests a*valuable deconstruction (perhaps 'unpacking') of more traditional anthropological categories applied to a body of ethnographic 'texts'. It remains however to ask whether representations of this material may only be judged on the elegance of the narrative, or as suggested in the conclusion, as ever-more-refined techniques for the application’ of power by a section of the Karen community over the rest. Rajah's paper should be looked'at in parallel with the historical papers, to which we now turn, particularly that of Reynolds. 4 History The papers by Reynolds and Cook belong together for a number of reasons. In this book they stand out as being concerned with history, and the history of central Thailand, and therefore of the heartland of the Kingdom. The two papers are interesting because, one is by an anthropologist (Cook), who deals with her subject with great historical expertise, and the other is by a historian (Reynolds) who treats the history of Thailand from what lias become a very specific anthropological point of view. Cook's paper deals with an aspect of King Mongkut's creation of modem Thmland^ his compromise, or integration, of traditional astrology and Western astronomy. The paper, in fact, is an accouht of the creation of a wholly hew pattern of thought that has persisted into our own time. The implication of Reynolds' argument is that it is illusory to think that 'history' as’ written is an account of what actually happened; there are only the patterns that each generation, interest group or individual historian creates. In this paper he is particularly concerned with written history as 'plot', a story. The philosophical import of this is that the individual is reinstated as the creator of meaning; there is no inexorable process of any kind creating history, only the individual scholar telling a story. To put this in a context both wider than Thai studies and academic history, Reynolds is a warrior against the forces of the enemies of narrative, of story-telling, a warrior against the forces of KattamShud (Rushdie 1991).

12

INTRODl/CnON

Conclusion Though Richard Davis contributed much to the study of anthropology and Thailand, he did not have the time to fulfil the task for which he was well prepared. Among other things, he has left with us a large collection of northern Thai manuscripts only one of which has so far become available to the public (Aroonrut and Wijeyewardene). These manuscripts were not meant for publication, but were material for deeper analysis of the belief and ritual systems of the Khon Miiang. One hopes that in time they will be put to good use.^ I might also mention here that the card index which he created primarily for the writing of Muang Metaphysics has now been converted into a Hypercard stack for the Apple Macintosh and is available on The Australian National University computer network (1991) and soon more widely through the Australian Academic and Research Network. From time to time he had also worked on the translation of the Ramahian (see above), but this was not completed, and he does not seem to have left any of his work on this except for the fragment in A Northern Thai Reader. However inadequate it may be, this book covers most of the fields in which Davis showed an interest Though he did not write much on development, it should be remembered that he spent a great deal of time during his Peace Corps years actively working on development projects, and later used his expertise to teach other members of the Corps the northern Thai language. Some of these materials exist in mimeograph form. Though it is hue that there is no paper specifically on northern Thai ritual, Terwiel and Gibson, in different ways, deal with aspects of ritual in Tai life - and, most important, Nerida Cook’s paper is about a ritualist who operated on a massive scale. I should also draw attention to the fact that a few years ago some of us brought together a collection of papers on northern Thai spirit cults as a tribute to his contribution to the field (Cohen and Wijeyewardene 1984). The directions in which Thai studies and studies of the Tai are going are exciting, but will also become increasingly challenging. As Reynolds' paper indicates the extent of scholarship in Ihai is now so great'that the field can no longer be one for the foreign dilettante scholar. There can be no doubt that Davis was one of the great professionals of Thai scholarship in his generation, and for his work, as for his life, the contributors to this book will always be grateful.

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GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

Notes 1 These four paragraphs are taken from an obituary written for The Siam Society (Wijeyewardene 1984). 2 The tone of this word distinguishes it from the name of the province. 3 It is with great pleasure that I am able to report that Professor David Wyatt is now. using these manuscripts in his work.

References Aroonrut Wichienkeeo and Gehan Wijeyewardene (eds and trans) 1986 The Laws of King Mangrai. Canberra: The Richard Davis Fund and the Department of Anthropology, The Australian National University. Cohen, Paul and Gehan Wijeyewardene (eds) 1984 Spirit Cults and the Position of Women in Northern Thailand. The Anthropological Society of New South Wales Mankind Special Issue No. 3. Davis, Richard ,• 1970 A Northern Thai Reader. Bangkok: The Siam Society. 1974 Tolerance and intolerance of ambiguity in northern Thai myth and ritual'. Ethnology 13(l):T-24. 1981 TJie ritualization of behaviour'. Mankind 13(2): 103-112. 1984 Muang Metaphysics: A Study of Northern Thai Myth and Ritual. Bangkok; Pandora. 1991 Card Ind^x HyperCard stack, Canberra: The Australian National University.

Etherington, Dan and Keith Forster 1991 'Some observations on Yunnan’s tea industry’. Thai-Tunnan Project Newsletter 12:16-21. 5 Rushdie, Salman 1991 Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta. Roy, Edward van 1971 £cozwn«’c Systems of Northern Thailand: Structure and Change. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

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INTRODUCTION

Wijeyewardene, Gehan 1984 'Richard B. Davis'. Journal of the Siam Society 70 (1&2): 242-46. 1985 ’Great City on the River Ping: some anthropological and historical perspectives on Chiangmai'. Political Science Review (Chiang Mai) 6: 86-112.

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Part One

Patterns of the Economy and the Environment

Population Movements and Environmental Changes in the Hills of Northern Thailand Peter Kunstadter and Sally Lennington Kunstadter Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California

Introduction This paper discusses changes in land use and environment in the hills of north-western Thailand and assesses the role of migration along with administrative centralization, population growth, techno-economic development, and commercialization as related to these changes. The long list of factors to be analysed implies one of the conclusions: the role of migration in environmental change depends on interactions with a number of other variables. The northern borderlands of Thailand have become notorious in recent years as a portion of the infamous Golden Triangle, the source of much of the world's illicit opium, produced, according to the stereotype, by 'nomadic forest­ destroying hilltribes'. Opium production is only one facet of the varied highland economies of the area. Several different land-use systems exist there, each of which is associated with particular patterns of migration and interaction with the environment*

Editors note: At the authors' request ‘Northern Thai' and Northern Thailand' are used as ethnonym and territorial name. Elsewhere in the volume the corresponding terms used are 'norihem Thai' khon mUang, 'Khon Muang' and 'northern "niailand'.

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Traditionally the Northern Thai highlands have been sparsely populated by , subsistence farmers of several ethno-Iinguistic groups, whose basic staple crop is swidden (dry, upland) rice. Their small dispersed villages until the 1960s or 1970s have been remote, but not isolated from administrative and market centres of the densely settled, intensively cultivated irrigated lowlands. The socio­ economic and political systems of the lowlands, however, have had little direct influence on the highland environment until recently. Traditional highland land­ use systems extensively modified the highland environment, but before the population explosion which followed World War n these changes seem to have involved a relatively homeostatic balance between population, resource use, and environmental regeneration. Migration, at the low levels of density prevailing before 1940, was used more or less consciously to maintain this balance under systems of land-use which were little changed in the highland villages for several hundred years. What might be called ’the traditional period’ came to an end around the turn of the century. The feudal relationship between these villages and the Northern Thai princes was abolished when the Bangkok-based government of the Kingdom of Siam annexed what is now the northern part of the Kingdom, claimed all of. the highlands as Royal Forest, imposed head taxes, and gradually imposed a series of administrative and cultural changes. Because the highlands were loosely administered for a number of years, many of these changes, other than the head

tax, had little direct effect until after World War n. Japanese military movements across Northern Thailand between 1942 and 1945 were a dramatic prelude to the profound changes in population and economy which gathered momentum in the decades which followed. In the highlands change became evident mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. Schooling for highlanders was begun by the Border Police in the early 1960s. Concert^ development efforts under the Hill Tribes Division of the Department of Public Welfare, Royal Highland Development projects. Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Project for Drug Abuse Control began about 1970. A series of bilateral projects (Thai-German, Thai-Australian, etc.) directed at highland development began in the late 1970s (Tapp 1989). Starting in the 1960s, and increasing rapidly in scope in the late 1970s, the Royal Forestry Department began extensive reafforestation projects in areas which had

18

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

long been used for swiddens. The most far-reaching change of this period has been the building of roads into and through the highlands. This has vastly increased the flow of lowlanders to the highlands, modifying the traditional patterns of population movement and altering the basis, scope and techniques of land use. By the 1980s the highlands had become an area of increasing population flux and the highland environment was subject to rapid degradation, with replacement of forests by grasslands in many areas. In the 1970s and 1980s a very high rate of natural population increase, continued small-scale migration of highlanders from -Burma and Laos, and accelerated movement of lowlanders into the highlands have all contributed to destabilization of man-environment relationships (Kunstadter 1980; Kunstadter et al. 1989). Changes in the lowlands in the past three decades have been even more rapid. Control of a few major diseases (smallpox, malaria, and to a lesser extent, tuberculosis) was associated with very rapid population growth after World War n. Starting in the 1960s, modem birth control came into widespread use in the lowlands, and population growth rates fell dramatically in the 1970s (Knodel, Chamratrithirong and Debavalaya 1987; Kunstadter 1983). Road building started earlier in the lowlands and proceeded faster than in the highlands. Low-cost minibus transportation networks proliferated and greatly amplified the volume and range of daily population movements for marketing, education, and participation in the urban (and sometimes rural) labor force. Large-scale irrigation projects and the commercialization of agriculture have been associated with the rapid and wide spread of multiple cropping. The combination of rapid population growth and the increase in the inherent value of land, associated with improved transportation and multiple cropping of marketable crops, led in the 1970s and 1980s to the rapid growth of landless rural dwellers who have only partially been absorbed, as commuters or migrants, into the urban-based industrial labor force. Use of highland resources (for example, firewood, construction materials) by local lowlanders increased as lowland supplies were exhausted. Demand increased in the lowlands due both to population growth and to supply the needs of new fuel-intensive activities such as tobacco curing. By the end of the 1980s some local lowland people, along with commercial and governmental interests, look upon the highlands as the

19

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

major remaining frontier for relatively low-cost expansion of agriculture and other land-extensive activities. At the same time, national and international demand for highland forest and mineral resources has grown, with a consequent increase in competition for these resources.

Environment of Northern Thailand Northern Thailand is an area of relatively narrow valleys, at an elevation of 200-300 metres above sea level, separated by steep or rolling hills, ranging up to Thailand's highest peak. Doi Inthanon (2600 metres). The climate is markedly monsoonal, with a rainy season from June to October, a cool dry season from November to January, and a hot dry season beginning in February and lasting until the onset of the rains.-The amount of rainfall depends both on elevation and on position with respect to the southerly winds which bring moist air from the Bay of Bengal or the Gulf of Siam and the South China Sea. Early showers are sometimes accompanied by violent thunderstorms, but most of the rain falls after the monsoon winds are established bringing a steady flow of moist air. Cloud cover in the highlands is almost continuous during the rainy season. Frost is vCTy rare in the lowlands, but occasionally occurs during the cold season at the highest elevation and in low-lying places in the highlands which catch the flow of cold air from surrounding hills. Prior to clearing for agriculture, the lowlands and foothills were covered by deciduous dry dipterocarp forests containing teak and other valuable species. At high elevations, mixed deciduous-evergreen forests were found, and above them was the montane evergreen forest. In most places the natural vegetation has now been extensively modified by human activity: clearing for irrigated fields in the lowlands, logging in the foothills, forest fallow swiddens in the lower highlands, ’ and swiddening with grassy revegetation at the higher elevations. In recent years increasing areas of the highlands have been converted to more or less permanent fields or tree-crop plantations, including large-scale monocrop forestry plantations and small-scale cash-crop orchards. Most of the broader lowland valleys have been fairly densely settled for hundreds of years by irrigated subsistence rice farmers, living in nucleated villages surrounded by their irrigated fields. Landless villagers used nearby foothills for bush fallow swiddening (Chapman 1978), and often burned off the

20

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

grass and brush on slopes in the middle elevations (roughly 300-700 metres) in order to facilitate grazing of water buffalo or cattle and for ease in gathering forest products such as mushrooms or bamboo, thereby encouraging growth of fire resistant sp?cies. Population growth was limited by disease, especially malaria, whiph wqs not controlled until after World War. II Teak concessions were granted by the Royal Thai Government at the end of the nineteenth century for harvest of mature teak trees with limited reafforestation. Most of the lumbering was carried out in the relatively dry middle elevations which were not suitable for agriculture and were sparsely occupied. Higher elevations were sparsely settled for many centuries with villages of ethnic minority ’hilltribe' shifting cultivators. Lua’ and Karen, whose villages were usually located between 700 and 1200 metres, practised a conservative rotational forest fallow form of swiddening in which fields were cultivated for a single year, then fallowed for nine or more years, allowing regeneration of secondary forest (Kunstadter 1978a, 1978b). A few Lua’ and Karen highland villages developed extensive irrigated fields in the mountain valleys over a hundred years ago (Hallett 1890). Other 'hilltribe' groups (Hmong, Mien, Lahu, Lisu) began entering Northern Thailand from neighbouring Burma and Laos in small numbers toward the end of the nineteenth century (Smyth 1898). They generally moved into unoccupied land above the Lua' and Karen, at elevations of 1000 metres or more, where they cleared the forest and farmed in one place until soil was exhausted or fields were overcome with weeds (Geddes 1976; Keen 1978). As of about 1950, lowland valleys were fairly densely settled by ethnic Northern Thai; middle elevations were being cleared of teak, but unoccupied; higher elevations were occupied by scattered hilltribe villages, mosj of which were surrounded by swiddens and various stages of secondary forest regrowth; the remainder, generally at higher elevations, were actively clearing primary forest and abandoning used swiddens to grasshnds. Although the railroad had reached Chiang Mai, there were very (ew roads, other than wagon tracks, into rural areas. As malaria and other infectious diseases such as smallpox were controlled, beginning in the late 1950s, population growth accelerated, first in the lowlands and then in the highlands. Paved roads reached major towns in the early or mid-

21

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

1960s, and by the early 1970s a rural road network began to spread throughout the lowlands, and into the highlands. Population growth, ease of movement, and expansion of the market economy (including expanded lumbering, mining and commercialized agriculture) led to rapid destruction of natural forests and appearance of numerous other environmental problems in the 1970s and 1980s (rapid runoff and erosion from formerly forest-clad slopes, loss of species diversity as forest resources were exploited and habitat was destroyed, pollution from toxic agricultural chemicals and mining wastes, etc.).

Traditional Land-Use Types in Northern Thailand: Lua' In this article we tvill describe two basic types of land-use by non-Thai people in the highlands. The first, and oldest in this area, is practised by Lua' and Karen, and is characteristic of the majority of highlanders. This is based on the subsistence swidden cultivation of dry rice on communally-held land by residents of permanently settled villages. The second type, practised by Hmong (Meo), Yao (Mien), Akha, Lahu, Lisu, etc., has traditionally been based on cultivation of one or more subsistence crops (usually swidden rice and often maize as well). People practising this system are relative newcomers in Northern Thailand, having begun to settle there only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, moving in small numbers from areas of larger population concentrations in the highlands of Laos and Burma. Northern Thailand has seen a succession of smallscale migrations over at least the past 500 years and these are among the most recent arrivals. Hmong have tended to settle at first in between established villages, or at higher elevations which are not well suited for swidden rice, but which may be well suited to poppy. Lua', speakers of a Mon-Khmer language, are recognized by Northern Thai as the autocthonous people of the North who were settled in the valleys and probably in the mountains when the Northern Thai moved in and began to spread through the lowlands 500 or more years ago (Kunstadler 1965, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1978a, 1978b). Lua’ living in the lowlands were assimilated, and their descendants have become indistinguishable from the descendants of the early Northern Thai. Lua' living in the highlands established feudal relationships with Northern Thai princes. In return for nominal payments of roofing straw (kha, or Imperata grass), orchids, homespun cotton blankets, etc., they were granted the

22

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

right to their village lands, to self-government and to exemption from military service or corv6e conscription (Nimmanahaeminda 1965). As residents of the sparsely populated hills between the Northern Thai of the Ping Valley and the Burmese of the lower Salween and Irrawady valleys, they served, as buffers or, more rarely, as military scouts and spies for whichever of these lowland groups was more powerful. They also were caravaneers, carrying trade goods between the more highly developed lowland centres of commerce. Their traditional cultivation system involved the annual cutting of a block of secondary forest within which the swiddens of all vilbge households would be made. Such blocks were cut on a regular cultivation-fallow cycle which brought the villagers back to the starting point after 10, 12, or more years. Land was considered to belong to the village. Overall management of the rotation system was in the hands of the village elders, who determined whether a swidden site was ready for recultivation, organized communal sacrifices to the spirits of the forest which was being cut for cultivation, settled disputes which might arise between village households regarding allocation of swidden plots, and organized the villagers to control the spread of fires which might bum within the village's area reserved for cultivation. Households were the land-using units and use rights to land were transmitted through the male line. Households paid tribute to the chief priest {samang), whose lineage they traced back to one of the ancient Lua' princes of the last Lua' king, Khun Luang Wilanka, who formerly ruled in Chiang Mai. In general only the descendants of village-founder households could use village-owned swidden land, but under special circumstances the chief priest might accept tribute and allow a new household to join the village. This was done at the Lua* village of Pa Pae, for example, many generations ago. Some villagers from the Lua’ village of Chang Maw inadvertently killed a water buffalo belonging to the samang Qi Pa Pae. In compensation, the samang Qi Chang Maw sent a number of Chang Maw households to live at Pa Pae and pay tribute to the Pa Pae samang. This event took place when population was relatively scarce and the value of people was high relative to the value of land. Descendants of many of these households still live in Pa Pae and still pay tribute to the current samang, and in return still have access to the diminishing supply of Pa Pae’s village swidden land.

23

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Folk tales indicate (Kunsladter 1965) that Lua' were once the exclusive inhabitants of a range.of mountains lying to the west of Chiang Mai and the Ping valley for a north-south distance of 200 kilometres or so. Around the middle of the nineteenth century small numbers of Karen moved into these hills, either single men or small household units. A few of the men married into Lua' villages. Others requested and were granted permission to cut swiddens in areas between Lua' villages. In return they paid one-tenth of their annual rice crops to the Lua' elders of the villages whose traditional field sites they were using. These Karen followed a land-use system which was similar to, though not as conservative as, that of the Lua'. Their population grew rapidly, doubling every generation at a time-when Lua' population was growing slowly, if at all. Karen now vastly outnumber Lua' in these hills. The original Karen settlements have spawned daughter villages, and at the middle elevations, preferred by both Lua’ and Karen, no space remains which is not regularly cultivated (Kunstadter 1978a, 1989). The traditional land-use system of Lua' villagers, such as those living at Pa Pae, was carefully controlled and consciously conservative (Kunstadter 1978a, 1978b). This system of farming was still in operation when we first began to study the Lua' village of Pa Pae in 1963, but by 1981 it was under severe stress and changing rapidly.In the old days, village elders carefully inspected the annual swidden block to see that forest regrowth at the site next due for cutting in the normal field rotation had been adequate, and that the area had not been burned over recently by an accidental forest fire which, they believed, would reduce soil fertility available for their crops. After inspection and substitution of another site if necessary, the elders allowed village householders to begin cutting their fields. Elders had the religiously sanctioned authority to reallocate swidden 'site-use rights, as appropriate to the changing composition of village households. They could also settle disputes between villagers over use of a particular swidden plot. Villagers cut smaller trees leaving a 75 cm stump. They left a few larger trees, from which they trimmed most of the branches, standing in the fields. Most of these trees survived the swidden fire, and coppice regrowth aided in the rapid regeneration of the forest after harvest.

•2A

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

Traditionally Lua' did not cut the forest on the tops of major ridges which tend to have shallower, sandier soils than the lower slopes and which are more subject to erosion than the lower slopes. They also preserved vegetation along water courses and at the headwaters of major streams in order to reduce the^^ger of erosion. They left the forest uncut on the borders between swidden bjpcks to act as a fire break. They also preserved the vegetation around villages in pjrder to keep the villages cool. At a greater distance from the village they maintained forests as sources of construction materials, and other forests were reserved as the dwelling places for spirits. The uncut trees probably served as seed sources for forest regeneration, as well as shelters for wildlife. Villagers used these forests as sources of emergency supplies in time of famine and as temporary shelters from attack. Lua' customs required all village households to help fight accidental fires burning in fallow swiddens and to help control the annual swidden fire. They cleared and swept a firebreak around the slash, and started the swidden fire burning around the edges of the swidden block so the fire would bum inward and not spread to adjacent fallow fields. Lua' farmers carefully laid unbumed logs along the contours of the hill fields to retard erosion. They built frameworks for viney plants in the small water courses within the fields, again with the effect of slowing the water flow and reducing erosion. Their planting sticks made only shallow indentations for the rice seed. As the crops started to grow, villagers used an L-shaped blade to cut or scrape the weeds from the soil surface, rather than digging them out. Only a single annual crop was planted. Weeding stopped a few weeks before harvest and vegetation regrew rapidly from the tree stumps even in the dry season. .Plant cover was fairly complete by the start of the rainy season following cultivation, and the opportunity for erosion or exposure of bare soil to the baking rays of the sun was minimized. This system modified the natural vegetation by. selecting tree species tolerant of repeated cutting and burning in the swiddens. Grazing of domestic animals also probably affected species composition, at least close to the villages. The overall effect was to develop and maintain a series of plant assemblages at different stages of the cultivation-fallow cycle which, in addition to the cultivated varieties, contained a very large number of uncultivated species used for food.

25

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

fibre, construction, medicine, grazing, etc. Use of the environment in this way allowed Lua' villages to remain settled within the same village territory for many hundreds of years (Kunstadier 1978b). Customary patterns of population movement played an important homeostatic role in this system (Table 1, Part 1). Migration between households at the time of marriage and household fission to regulate the number of married couples within a single household kept the household land-using units relatively small and relatively uniform in composition. Ideally the household was supposed to contain no more than two married couples: parents and their youngest married son. Older married sons were supposed to move out before or soon after their younger brother married. Rules of patrilocality were customarily disregarded if a household had no sons. In this case a son-in-law would be incorporated as a full member of the household, enjoying and inheriting land-use rights as a member of his wife's household, rather than those of the household into which he had been born. The relative uniformity in size and composition of Lua' households may have inhibited the growth of household-based factions which could have challenged the authority of village elders to reallocate use rights to communallyheld swidden land as appropriate to the needs of the village households. These customs were in contrast to those of Karen, whose system of village leadership and control of village lands was weaker. Frequent contests for authority in Karen villages led to village fission and movement of a section of the village to a nearby unoccupied area. This type of event was voy rare in Lua’ villages. As we shall see, the contrast is even stronger with Hmong, where large extended family households are the'rule-and where there is no overall village control of land resources. Outsiders, that is, those not bom into or married into the village, were traditionally excluded from access to Lua' village lands. 'Individual villagers traditionally could not sell or rent land to outsiders. These restrictions controlled the growth of the village population. Moreover, individuals or households unable or unwilling to conform to' village standards because illness or some other domestic disaster made them too poor to keep up with the continual round of required offerings to the spirits were encouraged to leave the Lua' village and to settle in Karen villages or in the lowlands where standards were less rigid. Those who violated marriage taboos, and those who were accused of harbouring

26

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

I ! i J

particularly malevolent spirits were also forced out of the village. These customs tended to maintain a more homogeneous community subject to the sacred and secular rules of behaviour which were enforced by the village elders. Giveti the subsistence basis of the village economy, there were few opportunities or motives to accumulate wealth or to invest for increased production. Silver, in the form of jewellery and coins, was the major store of

f b !

value, along with large domestic animals, especially water buffaloes. The principal agricultural product, rice, could not be stored very successfully for more than about one year. Because of its bulk it was difficult to transport to market

I

'

and convert to cash. Silver and buffaloes (before the days of irrigated fields) were both used primarily as items of prestige. Buffaloes, in particular, were slaughtered on important ceremonial occ^ions, especially to contribute to the prestige of their owners at weddings and funerals. Silver was the major form of bridewealth and brideprice, and sometimes was buried with its owner. These customs,.along with the poorly developed market, tended to even out the economic level within the village, and inhibited the conversion of more forest to fields than could, be used for subsistence production. Such social customs, along with the techniques employed for farming, suggest that the traditional Lua' system was conservative of resources and relatively homeostatic in nature, and that customs regarding migration contributed to this homeostasis. By contrast, traditional Karen religion is more individualistic and requires little or no participation in village-wide ceremonies, and Karen village leaders have little ability to control the use of bnd (including the use of fke) by village members. There is even less traditional attachment of Hmong households to specific plots of land.

Traditional Land-Use System of Hmong in Thailand Hmong in Thailand represent the leading edge or pioneering segment of a large ethnic group which has been expanding for many hundreds of years out of their original homeland in China and into northern.Vietnam, northern Laos, ^d since the late 1800s, into Northern Thailand (Geddes 1976; Smyth 1898)..Living in small, remote, impermanent villages at higher elevations, they had little contact with administrative authorities until the 1960s. Hmong came to, the attention of Thai officials who feared that they might be subject to communist

27

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

subversion because in the late 1960s and early 1970s Hmong were heavily involved in both sides of the war in Laos. They were also of interest to international agencies because of their production of illegal opium. Because of these concerns, Hmong in Thailand became the subject of a number of relocation schemes and development projects designed both to integrate or assimilate them into Thai society, and to substitute non-narcotic crops for opium poppies (Cooper 1984; Lee 1981; Tapp 1989). As a result of all this attention Hmong also came to be the basis of an inaccurate public stereotype for all hilltribes as potentially subversive opium-growing destroyers of the forest. Hmong spread gradually throughout the higher mountains of Northern Ihailand. Their traditional economy mixes subsistence fanning of swidden rice with maize as feed for domestic animals, plus cash cropping of opium and sometimes raising pigs for sale. They often consume more rice than they grow and make up the difference with cash purchases. Their swidden farming methods involve complete clearing, removal of tree stumps and deep hoeing of the soil to control weeds and renew fertility in soils subject to rapid leaching of nutrients. Where possible, they continue to cultivate the same plot for several years. Fields are abandoned when soil fertility and crop yields decline or when weeding becomes too difficult because of the invasion of dense stands of Imperaia or Saccharum grasses. Traditional Hmong villages were impermanent collections of households which gathered around fertile field sites. The size and composition of a Hmong village depends on the local availability of land, rather than on descent from a common set of founding families. Hmong households select and clear field sites in small or large patches which are seen to be promising in terms of soil fertility, existing vegetation and, in some cases, access to labour and subsistence staples from nearby villages of other ethnic groups. Hmong living in the same village do not attempt to clear coherent blocks of forest. Swiddening by Hmong is managed by individual households rather than on the basis of whole villages. Households are generally very large in comparison with those of Lua* and Karen, averaging well over ten persons and in exceptional cases reaching a total as high as eighty-nine persons in a single economically operating household. Hmong households usually contain two or more nuclear family units, ideally including a man, his wife or wives, their unmarried children

28

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

and the families of their married sons. These households generally split up when the father dies, although a group of married sons may continue living and working together, or a married son may move off with his wife and children to seek his fortune elsewhere. Traditionally, Hmong households or nuclear family units within households came and went as they wished, provided they could find land for cultivation. The high degree of mobility of Hmong households, although considerably reduced by government regulation in the late 1970s and 1980s, has had profound implications for land management. Use-rights to a particular plot of land may be transmitted by inheritance within the household, but generally there is no clear pattern of field rotation, as among the Lua'. Land, once abandoned, may be claimed by someone else. In general, Hmong have acquired land where no one else has been living or farming, but occasionally they have attempted to buy land or have threatened or used force to acquire land. As suggested above, Hmong traditionally were not concerned with the problems of regeneration of forest or conservation of soil. They made little attempt to control swidden fires which might escape and bum into abandoned fields or §iles of future swiddens, nor did they control erosion by restricting swidden cutting in erosion-prone locations and lining the contours of hillsides with logs, as do Lua'. Hmong swiddens under cultivation are exposed to the effects of sunlight and rainfall throughout the several years under which they are cultivated. Seed sources and stumps from which trees might regrow are removed from the fields, and little thought was given (at least among the pioneering swiddeners) to problems of maintaining a permanent land base for use of future generations. The assumption seems to have been that there was an unlimited supply of land over the horizon which would meet the needs of children and grandchildren. The outstanding environmental effect of the Hmong cultivation system is the replacement of forest by fire-tolerant grass species. Where human population density is low, as it was in Hmong-occupied areas of Northern Thailand for the first half of this century, and where fields are small and well separated from each other «and work^ for only a short time, the forest may regenerate within fifty years or so, growing in from the sides of the abandoned swiddens and gradually •shading out and suppressing the grasses. Where popubtion density is too great.

29

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

where fields are made too close together and where accidental fires are allowed to bum over the grassy secondary vegetation, the chances of natural reafforestation are diminished. Migration has been the traditional solution to the problem of access to fertile land, but, except in areas with no population growth and low population density, the system cannot be viewed as homeostatic. Hmong work on a system which temporarily concentrates population on the land, extracts the benefits of accumulated soil fertility and then moves to a new site to repeat the process.- In recent decades at least, the cash-based portion of their economy has allowed and encouraged accumulation of wealth. Raw opium is readily produced and compact, it can be readily stored and is used as a medium of exchange. Deliberate efforts at increasing household size, for example, by encouraging multi-family households and polygyny, apparently relate to at least the ideal of using a large household­ based bbour force to increase the household’s worth. Commonly, strong economic differentiation exists within villages based on success or failure in the cash segment of the economy. These practices appear to encourage extraction fironi, rather than self-renewal of their environment (Kunstadter, Podhisita and Kunstadter 1987; unpublished data from survey of 198 Hmong communities in Thailand, 1987).

Twentieth-Century Changes in Land-Use Systems: Lua* The village economy of highland Lua* began to change slowly, but fundamentally, in the first half of the twentieth century. No single event marks the end of the traditional Lua' farming system. Rather, a series of changes with immediate and long-term effects have resulted in fundamental modifications of the way in which Lua' and other highlanders relate to their environment, thfeir ability to control their own environment, and the role of migration in their interaction with the environment. Important changes have included the end of feudalism and the annexation of Northern Thailand with highland areas incorporated into the Kingdom as Royal Forests (end of the ninteenth century); the introduction of a head tax and the beginning of wage work opportunities for highlanders (early twentieth century); the introduction of irrigated agriculture in highlands (1930s in the area around Mae Sariang, earlier in some other areas); direct experience with modem machinery (World War H); the end of smallpox and

30

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

control of malaria (1950s and 1960s); schools in the highlands (early 1960s); the conversion of substantial numbers of highlanders to Christianity (1960s and thereafter); increased substitution of market goods for local products to meet basic needs in food, clothing, shelter and fuel (late 1960s); the construction of a dry-season road network in the highlands (1970s); reafforestation in the highlands (late 1970s); and transistor radios in the highlands (late 1970s). Accompanying these changes, which have reached more or less directly into highland vilbges, has been die gradual, pervasive penetration of the highlands by a variety of national and international socio-economic systems. The earliest of these to -have significant environmental impact was the natm-al resource companies and the international markets with which they interacted (lumber, minerals). They extracted natural resources using highlanders as wage workers who received only a small fraction of the worth of these resources on the national or international markets. The extensive reafforestation projects in the highlands, undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s, are aimed at supplying these ;narkets and have taken over large areas formerly devoted to swiddens. Commercial farming in the highlands (for example, cabbages) is beginning to have a similar effect The penetration of exogenous socio-economic systems into the highlands has generally involved only very small-scale population movements, but the environmental consequences of these movements have been greatly amplified both by modem technology and by the voracity of the consumer markets. In terms of land use by highlanders, the earliest significant change in both technology and access to land was the introduction of irrigated agriculture. At Pa Pae, for example, lowland Northern Thai were invited in the early 1930s to teachthe techniques of wet-rice cultivation, including the making of terraces, building of dams and digging of irrigation ditches, and the rituals and concepts of ownership associated with irrigated rice farming. Thereafter, wet-rice fields were gradually expanded at Pa Pae, and at nearby Lua' and Karen villages. Unlike swiddens, irrigated fields could be officially registered in the name of an individual and could be bought, sold, or mortgaged, rather than being considered to be communal property. Field owners could conduct their own rituals associated with wet-rice farming and did not require the participation or consent of village religious leaders.

31

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Development of irrigated fields requires much more labour for clearing, levelling, dyking, damming and ditching than is required annually for a swiddeh. Irrigated fields also require more expensive tools and equipment, including draft animals, as compared with the simple hand tools needed for swiddening. Although irrigated field sites were at first almost free for the taking, not every household was willing or able to make the necessary investment in labour or in draft animals. After irrigated fields were developed, they markedly increased productivity per unit of labour and, compared with the amount of land used in a complete swidden cycle, per unit of land (Kunstadter 1978a, 1985). Unlike swiddens (at least in the days before population pressure became noticeable) irrigated fields had value, while swiddens were still a more or less free good available to all village members. This difference between swidden land and irrigated fields eventually led to increased carrying capacity for the village agro­ ecosystem. This also made possible persisting economic differentiation within the village (through permanent allocation of valuable land resourced, accumulation of capital and productive investment). Indirectly, the development of irrigated fields weakened the authority of village leaders, who had no ritually backed control over cultivation of irrigated fields and no ability to reallocate them. Opportunities to sell irrigated fields also led to the possibility that non­ villagers might own land within the customary village boundaries. By the mid1960s the concept of selling land was being extended to village swidden land. A few customary use-owners (those who had ample irrigated fields, or opium addicts desperate for a little cash) began selling their swidden sites to outsiders despite the objections of other villagers. The end of feudal relations between Lua' villages and the northern princes, which was occasioned by the annexation of Northern "niailand, was interpreted by Thai authorities to mean that the villages no longer had any legal backing for their traditional claims to village lands. Having lost their status as landlords, Lua' villagers could no longer collect rent from Karen who cultivated swiddens within those lands. Expansion of Karen and eventually Hmong populations in what was traditionally Lua' land could no longer even theoretically be controlled by Lua' or any other villagers. For Pa Pae villagers this led to continual nibbling away at the edges of their village territory and, in the late 1970s, loss

32

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL'GHANGES

of an entire year's swidden block to a neighbouring Karen village. By the 1980s this loss of traditional controls had led to conflicts between highland groups, between highlanders and lowlanders, and between swiddeners and the timber­ cutting activities of reafforestation concessionaires. Similar conflicts have occurred between lowland villagers and concessionaires who were granted lumbering rights within lands traditionally used by lowland villagers for gathering forest products or for watershed protection. Also lost with feudalism was the reinforcement given by the feudal lords to a conservationist ethic. In the early 1960s, some of the older Lua' men still remembered that advice on conservative swidden farming techniques was an important part of the princes' instructions to the villagers when they went to pay tribute. By contrast, until very recently Thai authorities took no interest in highland agriculture, and when they did pay attention to it they simply considered it as a universally destructive and illegal invasion of the Royal Forest. Viewing all swiddening as illegal, they decided not to enforce traditional village land boundaries or to intervene in disputes between highlanders over access to swidden land. As a result of this administrative vacuum, more aggressive groups, such as Hmong, were able to take over land from more conservationist groups, such as Lua', without administrative interference. Highlanders, like everyone else under administrative control of Thai authorities in the early 1900s, were required to pay a heavy head tax in cash. There was very little cash and no wage-work opportunities in the subsistence­ based highland villages. The need for cash pushed many subsistence farming highlanders, especially young men, into seasonal migration for wage work in the lowlands, both in agriculture and lumbering, and eventually in mining and other relatively unskilled occupations. Lumbering was expanding on a commercial basis in the lowlands and foothills as a result of concessions granted, mostly to foreign firms (Bombay-Burmah Company, Borneo Company, etc.). These concessions were greatly increased after the annexation of Northern Thailand. For Lua' and Karen highbnders this was the beginning of an institutionalized conflict between the need for cash, which they could get primarily from wage work, and the need to preserve for local use the natural resources, which were bqing extracted primarily for someone else's benefit in the process of the wage work.

33

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

This conflict has further weakened the authority of village leaders to control uSe of the village resource base. The years since World War H have seen many important changes for the highlanders of north-western Thailand. These include dramatic population changes, especially the rapid natural increase associated with declining death rates; changes in the methods of transportation and associated niarketing practices; and the increasing pressure on land, both from population increase and as a result of the growing demand for land by government and quasi-govemment projects (especiallyreafforestation schemes). A smallpox epidemic at the end of World War 11, for example, had devastating effects in the highlands, as well as in the lowlands, as seen in the deficit in the cohort bom 1945-1949 in census age distributions; but widespread vaccination stopped transmission of smallpox thereafter. Malaria was controlled in the 1950s, with a drop in mortality from 500 per 100,000 population in Mae Hongson Province to about 5 per 100,000 in the 1960s. These changes in mortality, combined with uncontrolled fertility, led to growth in the lowland population at well over 2 per cent per year until the widespread use of modem family planning in the 1970s, when population growth fell precipitously (for example, Knodel, Chamratrithirong and Debavalaya 1987). Malaria control reached highland villages such as Pa Pae late in the 1950s. Starting in the 1950s, highland populations began to grow rapidly by natural increase (Kunstadter 1978,1983), but with major differences between groups. Death rates among Karen and Lua', for example, remained relatively high, while they fell sharply among Hmong (Kamnuansilpa, Kunstadter and Auamkul 1987; Kunstadter 1983; Kunstadter and Kunstadter 1990) so that even at the end of the 1980s the 'hilltribe’ population continued to grow very rapidly (annual growth rate estimated at about 2.9 per cent by the National Statistical Office, 1989). Further local population increase resulted from the movement of small numbers of Hmong into the area around Pa Pae in the early 1960s. People of the north-western Thai highlands were first exposed to modem machinery during World War 11 when the Japanese crossed and re-crossed these hills on their way to and from Burma. Highlander men were conscripted to build a highway across the mountains to Burma, and some of the villages were bombed. Before the war, much of the trade (in which highlanders participated as

34

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

caravaneers) was carried on with Burma whose markets were closer and easier to reach than the markets of central Thailand or even Chiang Mai. It was only .a two- or three-day walk from Mae Sariang to Papun compared to six days across the mountains to the road-head south of Chiang Mai. British coinage (Indian rupees) predominated, as did colonial manufactured goods (for example, cloth, dyes, needles, etc.). Teak from this area used to be floated down the Salween to markets in Burma for export, rather than being carried across the mountains into the Thai market After World War II the entire trade and transportation picture changed rapidly. Thai authorities were anxious to define their northern borders and to exploit the nation’s resources in the post-colonial era. After years of post-independence, ethnic-based conflict within the Union of Burma, the Burmese closed their border with Thailand. By the late 1950s the major lumber company in the area had opened a dry-season road across the mountains to haul teak from the valley of the Yuam to the sawmills of Chiang Mai. An all-weather government highway was completed along an ancient caravan route in J.965. Fast, low-cost motorized transportation connected Mae Sariang with Chiang Mai. Caravans became redundant, and Mae Sariang was quickly integrated into the Thai marketing system. A profusion of consumer goods from all over the world became available in Mae Sariang, leading to increased demands for cash among highl^ders including Lua’ villagers of Pa Pae, who had previously existed only on the margins of a cash economy. Kerosene had begun to replace pitch-pine torches in the early 1960Si'and by the mid-1960s highlanders were substituting plastic for traditional wrapping and waterproofing materials, and they were beginning to buy rubber­ thong sandies or plastic shoes, rather than go barefoot or wear hand-carved teak clogs. Transistor radios helped to broadcast the urge to consume. By 1980 such modem fashions as electronic ^vatches, sunglasses, jogging shoes, warm-up pants and be-sloganed t-shirts (‘Yamaha’, 'Cambridge University', ’Snoopy’ and 'Charlie Brown*) had reached Pa Pae. These were not just a conspicuous sign of modernized consumption, but also signalled deep-seated environmental and local economic changes (the loss of land traditionally used for cotton swiddens, the decline, in local weaving, the increased opportunity cost of home-made as

35

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

opposed to purchased clothing, and increasing participation in modem world-wide consumption styles). By the late 1970s the local flow of trade with Burma had reversed. Mae Sariang became a staging point for unofficial trade across'the border. Cattle', minerals and lumber move into the Thai market, and manufactured goods from Thailand enter the black market in Burma. Although some of the trade is directly related to ethnic rebellions in Burma, the highlanders' role as caravaneers and petty traders has been taken over by truck drivers and lowland entrepreneurs. In the 1970s the government, using heavy machinery, often supplied by foreign development agencies, began to construct a network of dry-season roads to connect highland development centres. These roads made it much easier for government development workers to move in and out of the highland villages. They also often caused substantial erosion, and opened these villages (and the land surrounding them) for exploitation of highland resources and markets. For example, with the opening of the road to Pa Pae in 1979 a buyer arrived for aromatic Cinnamomum tree bark which is used in the manufacture of joss sticks. He also established-a small temporary shop to sell a variety of consumer goods' (matched, candles, canned fish, etc.). This was the first time a market was available in the area for such a bulky and low-cost commodity. The result was that Pa Pae villagers and Karen from nearby villages stripped the bark from trees of the appropriate species within a kilometre or so of the road-head, regardless of future use of the fallow swiddens where the trees were growing. In places where road transportation has been longer established the Royal Forest Department has assigned large areas to-concessionaires for reafforestation. Regardless of traditional use for swiddens or reserved forests or even prior designation of the area by the government as nature reserves, these areas are stripped of marketable lumber, clear cut, burned, and planted to pine or, at lower elevations, teak. These are in effect monocrop plantations with a twenty -to eighty year cultivation cycle. Highland villagers employed as wage workers claim they cannot make enough money to support their families at the level to which they were accustomed with subsistence swiddening. Lowlanders (usually single men) are recruited to work on these projects, and some of them become squatters or homesteaders in the highlands. Thus, this form of development has simultaneously decreased the carrying capacity and increased the size and diversity

36

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

of the population. Such reafforestation schemes have involved tens of thousands of hectares of traditionally swiddened land. Highland villagers are also losing their land to spontaneous non­ governmental development. Since the mid-1970s much of the land on both sides of a 20 kilometre stretch of the highway to Mae Sariang has been put into cabbage cultivation. Most of these Helds were traditionally used for rice swiddens by Karen villagers. They have now been taken for permanent year-round cabbage farming by lowland entrepreneurs who use organic and chemical fertilizers to maintain soil fertility. Wage workers include both local villagers and lowlanders who are brought in for the purpose. Data are not yet available to indicate the long-range environmental consequences of this form of land use or its effect on local carrying capacity, but the change in pattern of control is apparent. Additional strain is being put on highland resources by the increase in grazing of large domestic animals, especially water buffaloes. These were traditionally allowed to graze freely, either in dry-season fallow irrigated fields, or in fallow swiddens. The large increase in number of irrigated fields in the highlands has led to a growth in demand for draft animals. At the same time, land shortages in the lowlands make grazing more difficult and cosily there; lowlanders have begun grazing their animals in the hills, often in partnership with highland villagers. This is leading to conflicts between grazing and use of fallow swiddens for the collection of such useful minor forest products as roofing straw (Jmperata cylindrica), which was once plentiful in early stages of fallow swiddens and has now become scarce. Grazing water buffaloes, attracted to the green crops and plentiful water, also break through the fences sunounding dry­ season crops. Changes in wild highland fauna have resulted both from hunting or fishing pressure and from habitat modification or destruction. Most large game animals (Asian rhinoceros, tiger, wild cattle) disappeared from the area shortly after World War II, apparently as a result jof the improved weapons that became available at that- time. Species such as wild boar, barking deer and bear have survived until recently in forest and fallow swiddens, their diets occasionally supplemented by raids on cultivated swiddens. These species now seem to be vanishing as hunting pressure increases and refuge, habitat is lost. Large fish were once caught in profusion in highland streams, but fishing now yields only fingerlings, probably

37

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

as a result of over-fishing and, more recently, from the use of poisons and pesticides in the streams and the reduction of dry-season water flow. The human environments of the highlands have suffered visibly from over­ utilization and habitat destruction. The land-use system of Lua’ villages, such as that of Pa Pae, have been increasingly out of control of the villagers and their ' leaders, and dqjend on an ever-declining resource base. Between 1967 and 1981 at Pa Pae there was a decline of about 45 per cent per capita in the amount of Pa Pae village land available for swiddening. This resulted from the growth of the village population at about 3 per cent per year and from the loss of land to rapidly growing neighbouring villages, to development projects and to road construction. As regards swiddening, the local responses were to decrease the length of the fallow period from nine to eight years, to make smaller swiddens, to make swiddens in smaller patches rather than in coherent blocks and, for some households, to stop swiddening entirely if they were able to rely on irrigated fields. By the 1980s village leaders were no longer able to control the time of swidden burning, and this made it much more difficult to prevent fires from burning out of control. Village customs concerning the use of village resources could not be enforced with ritual sanctions as in the past, in part because those villagers who had converted to Christianity were no longer constrained by these rituals. By the 1980s at Pa Pae, the overall loss of rice production from swiddening seemed to have been compensated for by increasing the amount of land under irrigation and increasing the crop yield of irrigated fields. Total rice production seemed to have kept pace with population growth at Pa Pae (which in 1967 had surplus swidden land and areas which could fairly easily be converted to irrigated fields), but there were clearly visible environmental consequences of these changes. The amount of uncut ’reserved’ forest had declined. The quality of forest in fallow swiddens had apparently declined due to heavier pressure from swiddening, grazing, fuel collection, and the taking for sale of such minor forest products as tree bark. The amount of water available from streams in the late dry season had declined both in quantity and quality, as a result of the lowered capacity for water retention in the denuded watersheds and the higher use of irrigation in the dry season. By the early 1980s the limited amount of water

38

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

available for dry-season irrigation was already constraining dry-season cropping, and the dry-season domestic water supply was threatened. Migration out of the village has continued sporadically, but by the 1980s there were several alternatives to migration as a response .to problems which would have made people leave the village in the past (Table 1, Part 2). Village development projects, funded by the central Government, which are administered by district or lambon officials, at least in the vicinity of Pa Pae, have offered wage-work opportunities without requiring the villagers to leave their homes. This has, provided villagers with cash which they might otherwise have had difficulty earning, even though the projects had no discernible effect on increasing agricultural production. Conversion to Christianity .has allowed households to stay in the village which otherwise would have fled to the lowlands because they could not afford the burden of animistic sacrifices. In the 1980s emergency government welfare measures allowed villagers to remain in the highlands after a disaster such as a village fire. Thus some of the ’push factors' were alleviated, at least temporarily. The relaxation of forces which push highlanders into the lowlands seems likely to be temporary. Because wage-work opportunities within the village are limited to the availability of government funds (and thus come and go depending on political changes in Bangkok) and because further expansion of irrigation will be limited by the amount of suitable terrain and the amount of water, it is apparent that even for the population of a village as fortunately located as Pa Pae, that without creating employment opportunities or a successful cash­ cropping system, people are being driven by chronic rice shortages to migrate to other places (especially Mae Sariang and Chiang Mai towns) and to seek other ways of making a living. The next stage of 'development' at Pa. Pae apparently will be the imposition of reafforestation projects in fallow swiddens. This will remove these portions-of village land from the control of the villagers, and make them unavailable for swiddening in the future. Judging.by experience elsewhere in the .highlands, the wage work available from the reafforestation projects will not support as many people as were being supported by swiddening. The sight of such reafforestation projects in the neighbourhood of Pa Pae, along with the unregulated extraction of lumber from village lands for development projects, has demoralized some villagers to the extent that they are now cutting as much leak

39

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

as they can for their own use. They know that this is a violation of the law and of village traditions, but they also know that teak will soon be totally unavailable for them. Accelerated migration out of the highlands is already taking place from some nearby highland villages. In the 1960s, settled Pwo Karen swiddeners from the mountains 20-30 km south-east of Mae Sariang were practically never seen as visitors to town. Only two or three of them worked in temporary jobs around Mae Sariang by the end of the 1960s. Already at that time studies had shown that their agricultural situation was deteriorating due to population increase, and by the early 1980s there was a steady stream of Pwo Karen households moving to ‘the outskirts of Mae Sariang or coming to town to seek temporary employment in the dry season. Some Pwo Karen from this area have been reported to have moved as far as 200 km away, seeking farm land. Others, choosing to remain in their villages if they can, are attempting to make at least a show of converting their swiddens to permanent cultivation by fencing and •planting fruit trees, hoping thereby to keep them out of the hands of reafforestation projects.

.Consequences of Recent Changes in the Hills: Hmong In addition to factors affecting the Lua’ population, Hmong in Thailand have been affected by several recent changes: sustained rapid population growth; involvement in insurgency and extensive resettlement schemes; involvement in opium production and the control of opium production in the late 1980s; government control of villagers’ movement; and the conversion of forested land to fields. Hmong population in Thailand has grown rapidly since World War II due primarily to very high sustained fertility and a rapid decline in mortality (Kamnuansilpa, Kunstadter and Aumkul 1987; Kunstadter, 1983; Podhisita, Kunstadter and Kunstadter 1989) and secondarily to continued small-scale migration from Laos and Burma (Kunstadter, Podhisita and Kunstadter, unpublished data 1987). Population growth was accommodated by establishment of new Hmong settlements spreading from their point of entry at the end of the nineteenth century in Chiang Rai, Nan and Loei, along the mountain ranges of Thailand's western and north-eastern borders. The frontier of unoccupied

40

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

highlands began closing for Hmong only in the late 1960s when the leading edge of the Hmong advances reached the margins of the mountains overlooking Thailand’s central plain. By the late 1980s when modem contraceptives were used by about two-thirds of lowland Thai couples and almost as high a proportion of Lua' couples in Pa Pae, less than one-third of rural Hmong couples were using family planning. For the most part those doing so were responding to their perceptions of limited access to land, and only secondarily to the increased cost of raising children in the modem world (Podhisita, Kunstadter and Kunstadter 1989). Because Hmong population and that of similar groups grew so rapidly in recent decades and because there are no more large unoccupied areas into which they can move, Hmong settlements have become more dense. Large areas of montane forest have been replaced by grass- or bamboo-covered abandoned swiddens. As population grew, these areas have coalesced so that spontaneous regeneration of the forest has become even slower, even in the absence of further disturbance. These areas, as well as the fallow swiddens of Lua' and Karen villagers, have been targeted for reafforestation. Some Hmong villagers, especially in Nan, Chiang Rai, Phetchabun, Phitsanulok and Tak provinces, were involved in insurgency from the late 1950s until the 1970s. One government response was to relocate Hmong villages into areas, usually in or near the lowlands or on roads, where they could be more easily controlled and provided with infrastructural services (schools, health facilities). In the late 1980s, Hmong were being moved with the announced purpose of preserving forests or watershed areas, especially within the boundaries of national parks which were created after the Hmong settlements had bben established. Some Hmong communities have also relocated spontaneously or requested relocation in order to improve their access to roads or other facilities. Very large proportions of the Hmong population have been resettled in the affected provinces. Opium production and sale were outlawed in 1957, but demand for Southeast Asian opium began to increase on the local and world markets in the 1960s, and this was reflected in an increase in demand for land by opium-producing groups, including the Hmong. This, combined with growth in population, led to conversion of ever-increasing expanses of forest to active, fallow or abandoned

41

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

swiddens. A strategy of crop substitution was introduced in the attempt to control opium production in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as to stabilize land use. This policy failed to have much effect because the substitute crops often had no ready market and were more perishable, of higher bulk and of much lower value than opium. Most of the substitute crops required more land, and gave lower yields while requiring higher or more permanent investments (for example, through use of tree crops requiring applications of agricultural chemicals and irrigation) than did opium. Simultaneously, the development projects themselves have often taken some of the best land around the villages for demonstration or pilot production plots, and have encouraged migration to project sites by lowland officials and wage workers. As among the Lua', except for health projects, there has been no systematic effort to recruit and train Hmong to work in other than day-labour positions. This implies that the staffing and control of the projects will forever remain outside the hands of the villagers whom they are supposed to benefit The government began to enforce its ban on opium production by destroying the standing crops in about 1985. By that time the ban could be implemented in many villages because of the great improvement in dry-season road networks. More or less simultaneously, the government began enforcing its long-standing ban on the cutting of forests for agriculture and a policy of restricting movement of Hmong villagers to new or different sites. Stabilization of Hmong village settlements and an increase in governmental services, for which village headmen often serve as intermediaries, may have strengthened the position of Hmong village head men. By the late 1980s they exercised their strength, not now in regulating land use, but with regard to disputes in such matters as marriage and divorce. The land-use consequences of resettlement, the ban on opium cultivation and restrictions on cutting forested land have been extremely variable, depending on the quantity and quality of the land which is available and on access to markets and transportation for their products. In areas where land is plentiful and there is good access to market, as at Chedi Kho* in the well-watered foothills of western Tak province, Hmong farmers now grow maize as a cash crop, and employ Thai tractor drivers to prepare fields and illegal Bangladeshi workers to supplement their household labour supply for cultivation and harvest. Their economically

42

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

successful adaptation to relocation is being threatened by relocation of additional Hmong from further south in Tak-Province onto land which had already been allocated to the first relocatees. By contrast, some resettled communities, such as Huai Yuak and Takhian Thong in Nan, are on poor land with poor road access. Their condition restricts them to production of‘subsistence crops with high labour inputs required to clear and cultivate grass- or bamboo-covered fields. Farmers from some of the resettled communities, such as Pa Klang in the lowlands near Pua District town of Nan Province, commute seasonally to fields near their,former highland villages, or to fields several hundred kilometres-away in Tak province. As a response to restrictions on cutting of forests and growing of opium, many Hmong villagers from Huai Phung Mai in Mae Hong Son commute seasonally to fields in Chiang Mai Province which are located near an all-weather road, thereby allowing them to move their bulky perishable cash crops to market. Farmers from other communities commute seasonally to opipm fields which are out of sight of government authorities. As compared with other highland groups a fairly large proportion of Hmong have purchased pick-up trucks, often purchased with profits from opium sales during the bumper crop years.of the early 1980s. Combined with the expanded network of roads in the highlands, these have made it much easier and faster for Hmong to commute to farms at a great distance from their home villages, to transport their produce to market, and to seek goods and services which are not available within their communities. A few Hmong have given up farming entirely and have jnoved to the lowlands to become middlemen or retailers in the sale of highland farm products or crafts from Hmong villages or from refugee camps (Kunstadter and Kunstadter 1983). Many Hmong have been quick to anticipate the probable imminent collapse of their traditional economic system as a result of government controls on opium , cultivation and swidden farming, and to appreciate that by lowland standards life as a highland farmer is not easy. Increasing numbers now feel it is necessary to-have a modem education as a means of economic mobility and they recognize they must go (or send their children) to the lowlands for an education which will allow them to compete successfully for lowland jobs. The majority of Hmong students hope to get government jobs and say they want to return to the highlands as doctors, nurses, teachers or agricultural development workers.

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PETER and SALLY L. KXJNSTADTER

Because this is a recent phenomenon it is too soon to say if the majority of those who are successful in getting such skills will resist the lure of the lowlands.

Summary and Conclusions Lua’ and Hmong in Northern Thailand represent extremes on the range of traditional land-use systems based on non-mechanized, non-chemicalized technologies. Both of these systems had profound environmental consequences and migration was essential for the maintenance of both. The Lua' system conserved land resources and required occasional temporary or permanent outmigration of some villagers under conditions of extreme stress. This system allowed villages to remain in one place for several hundred years. The Hmong system consumed land resources and involved continual movement of population to new sites when old sites were exhausted. Both systems are now subject to pressures from an accumulation of changes over the past one hundred years which seem likely to overwhelm or transform them. The traditional Lua’ system, through carefully regulated use of village lands, developed and maintained, within walking distance, a series of environmental types in which the villagers could find most of the resources required for their subsistence. Restrictions on entering the village population limited access to village resources. Growth of village population was also controlled by forcing out non-conformists or less successful farmers. The authority of village leaders to control village resources was supported by a series of sanctions against villagers who violated land-use rules. Villagers who violated social taboos were forced out of the village. The Lua' system is similar to that found in many areas with 'closed corporate communities' before population growth exceeds the capacity of the local resource base to support the population with its traditional technology. To a lesser extent, by occasionally disregarding the rule of patrilocal post-marital residence, population was redistributed between highland villages. Social differentiation within the villages was controlled by rules which regulated household composition, restricted the transmission of rights to land, and which prescribed forms of wealth redistribution. Conservation of fallow fields for future use was not an essential feature of the Hmong system. Villages were temporary assemblages of households where land

44

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

was available, not self-perpetuating land-holding units. Migration traditionally allowed these non-conservationist cash+subsistence swiddeners to find new land, and thus to maintain their socio-economic system in ever-changing locations. Their kinship system allowed them to establish co-operative relationships wherever they might find distant relatives. When their fields were too infertile or too hard to weed, Hmong farmers abandoned them and moved to new forestcovered sites, leaving behind them a series of grassy patches which might eventually return to secondary forest. Hmong could use the proceeds from their cash crops to buy what they did not produce for themselves, including staples such as rice. They could hire labour to expand their production and increase their exploitation of land beyond that which was necessary for their subsistence. Aside from its involvement in the market economy, the Hmong system is probably similar to that of pioneering populations in a variety of environments. The accumulation of direct and indirect effects of a series of exogenous changes over the past one hundred years has made it impossible for the traditional systems to persist. Abolition of traditional administrative systems weakened the ability of Lua’ village leaders to control access to and use of village resources. Post-war control of diseases and relief from other disasters allowed populations to exceed the carrying capacity of traditional land-use systems. External markets for highland resources and products led to extraction of these resources regardless of traditional ownership and management practices. Needs for cash, spurred by the recent proliferation of manufactured goods on local markets and by the progressive failure of subsistence production systems, is driving the highland villagers into participation in the destruction of their traditional environments. Economic development has led to the introduction of new technologies, and these have often accelerated the pace of environmental change. By the late 1980s the hills of north-western Thailand were in crisis for many people living there. A complex of worries weighed heavily on their minds: population growth, environmental deterioration, the loss of traditional lands to other population groups or to development projects from which they get no direct benefits, restrictions on cutting the forest and growing opium, changes in land-use systems and the possibility of decline in standard of living or being forced to move as a result of these conditions. For several years in the late 1980s we found it impossible to enter a highland village, whether as an old friend or as

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PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

a complete stranger, without these topics being raised spontaneously by villagers within the first few minutes of conversation. They had become aware, as they were not a decade before, of the linkages between the various facets of their lives. By the end of the 1980s their traditional land-use systems, which had persisted for many generations, were no longer suited to their circumstances. These changed conditions have provoked many different kinds of responses. At least in some areas where services are available, highlanders have begun to limit family size through the use of modem birth control. Many parents began to see the potential of education as a means of escape for their children from the drudgery of highland fanning, even though most of them recognize they cannot afford the expense of the necessary education. Where terrain and water supplies are available, many Karen and Lua' are developing small irrigation systems. Some now double crop where waler is available and there is a market for the dry­ season crops. Many swiddeners have been forced to shorten fallow periods and use less suitable sites. Some Hmong have lengthened the period of cultivation of swiddens. In a few areas farmers have begun to apply fertilizers to maintain soil fertility of highland fields (where economically justifiable in terms of access to market). Migration, either within the highlands to less densely settled spots or to an entirely different type of environment in the lowlands, is one among several options. Development projects have, in some cases at least, temporarily alleviated situations which in the past would have led to migration (for example, wage work on village development projects may relieve the need to move in order to find a job). Simultaneously the development process has introduced new motivations for migration (for example, the desire for education). This suggests that the current migration patterns and their environmental consequences may be highly localized or even individualized, depending on local circumstances. Nonetheless it may be possible to make some generalizations from the data we have presented. Rural-to-rural migrants have tended to replicate their traditional patterns of land use. Such migrants have often made major impacts on the environments into which they moved. Consequences seem to depend on a combination of the density or size of the population that moves, the detailed knowledge they have of the environment into which they are moving, the technology which they

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POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

employ, and environmental ethics influencing their use of that technology. In some cases, such as illustrated by the Lua* system, a conservationist system may evolve which encourages self-renewal of the environment and allows long-term permanent settlement with little change. Recent natural increase of population and expansion of the market economy have undermined the conservationist ethic and its associated self-renewing land-use system, even in the absence of much migration. As contrasted with subsistence use of the land, commercial land use (whether for agriculture, forestry or mining) as a motive for migration is generally associated with detrimental consequences for the environment. Environmental degradation seems most likely when commercial motives are combined with powerful modem technologies in unfamiliar environments. Because the resource acquisition systems of modem urbanized societies are worldwide, physical migration of popubtions is no longer necessary for widespread environmental modification. The fate of tropical forests, such as those in Thailand, is today largely determined by decisions of international lumber companies, the markets of the lumber sellers, and the concession-granting agencies in the capital cities, not in the forest or by the forest-dwelling people.

Acknowledgement This is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented for the conference on Consequences of Migration in Asia and the Pacific, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, 25-31 August 1981 (revised 1989). Research on which this paper is based was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (1963-64), National Science * Foundation (1966-1970), National Geographic Society (1963-1965; 1966-1969). Additional support was received from Princeton University, the University of Washington, and the East-West Center. Work in the early 1980s on Lua, on Hmong students and on Hmong in lowland markets was supported largely by (U.S.) National Science Foundation grant BNS 79-14093. Research on Hmong population and economic changes in the late 1980s was supported primarily by grant 5RO1HD22686 from the (U.S.) National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Opinions expressed are those of the authors.

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Table 1: Part 1 Traditional Patterns of Lua’ Population Movement: Out of Village

Motive £cr Movonent

Method of Travel

Access to village resources

Commute

Market, pay tribute

Walking

Courting

Walking

Marriage

Walking

Inability to cope

Walking

Violation of incest taboo

Walking

walking

Destination Who Moves

Cultivated and fellow swiddens, forest, stream Mae Sariang, Papun, Hot Lamphun, Chiang Mai Nearby Lua' villages

Season Diiration

Volume

All able bodied villagers

AU seasons, daily

High properdon of villagers

Adult men, some women

Dry season, a few days or weeks

Small

Alternatives to M □vement

Bachelors After harvest, before planting, daily Nearby Lua' Maidens Afler villages harvest, before planting, lifetime Nearby Poor After Small, households harvest qxsradic Karoi villages, orthose or after or low­ hit by disaster, lands fire, until dironic recovery illness or permanent Lowlands Households Whenever, Small, in which permanent sporadic violation took place

Small, every year Small, ^xnadic

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

Traditional Patterns of Lua' Population Movement: Out of Village (cont)

Motive fcr Movement

Method of Travel

Destination Who Moves

Avoid ejndemic

Walking

Swiddens or forest

AU who could

Avoid anned raiders

Walking

Consol­ idated Testified villages Nearly villages

Everyone from some villages Adults, relatives healers, Lua', Karen, other

Traditional Walking ceremonies P&ddling

Walking

Courting

Walking

Marriage

Walking

Avoidance Walking (farmed intruders Traditional Walking ceremonies

Lowland and other highland villages Nearby Lua* villages

Bachelors

Season Duration

Volume

Alternatives to Movement

Whenever, Large, until end sporadic of epidemic Early 19th century, permanent Mostly Small dry season, d^ Mostly Small, dy sporadic season, one day After Small, harvest, every before year planting Small, After harvest, sporadic before planting Early Rare 19th

Nearly Lua* villages

Maidens

Unfortified villages

Everyone

Nearby villages

Relatives, Mostly healers. dy mostly men

Small, sporadic

49

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Recent Patterns of Lua’ Population Movement: Out of Village

Motive for Movement

Method of Travel

Destination Who Moves

Commute Cultivated by walking and fallow swiddens, forest, stream, irrigated fidds Market, Walking, Mae Sariang administrative walk to mad. Chiang Mai vehicle rainy Nearby Courtship Walking Lua* and Karen villages

Access to village resources

Marriage

Walking

Inability to cope

Walking

Violation of incest taboo

Walking

50

Nearly Lua' and Kaen villages Mae Sariang suburbs Lowlands

Season Duration

All able All bodied seasons, villagers daily

Volume

Wage work High proportion in village. of villagers crafts (rare)

Dry Increase season, in recent occasionally rainy season, a few days Bachelors After Small, harvest, every before year planting mate

Adults, older children

Alternatives to Movement

Ejqranded marketing years in village Change rules of exogamy to increase

selection in village

Maidens Mostly Small, and between sporadic bachelors harvest and planting Conversion Pcx)r A^ Small, households harvest, sporadic to permanent Christianity Government welfare Household Whatever Small, in which permanent sporadic violation took place

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

Recent Patterns of Lua’ Population Movement: Out of Village (cont)

Motive fix Movement

Method of Travel

Avoid epidemic h^th Avoid Walking amed laiders Seek Walking, temporary vehicle wage work

Walking, Seek permanent vehicle wage work M^ical Walking, vdiicle care

Walking, vehicle

Destination Who Moves

Forest; town

Nearly Karen villages, mines, Mae Sariang Mae Sariang or other Mae Sariang or Chiang Mai

Traditional Walking ceremonies

Mae Sariang Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Bangkok Newby Lu'a villages

Buddhist' Walking, ceremonies vehicle

Mae Sariang

Christian Walking, ceremonies vehicle

Nearby villages. Mae Sariang

Education

Season Duration

Volume

Alternatives to Movement

Government public measures Government AU WWE; Large, police; villagers insurgency rare self defense Mainly After Increasing Wage work in village, unmarried harvest. development young before projects adults planting, days or months Young moi. NonSmall, rarely seasonal, increasing women permanent Traditional Patients Whenever Small, and duratkxi increasing medicine. village relatives of treatment health worker Male and School Small Only female year primary students grades available in viUage Relatives Mostly Increasing dry season, days Adults, Mostly Small * young dry season. adults dajs Christians, Mostly Iixxeasing all ages dry season. dt^

51

PETER and SALLY L. KUNSTADTER

Table 1: Part 2 Recent Patterns of Population Movement; Into Lua’ Village

Motive fir Movement

Method of Travel

Destination Who Moves

Season Duration

Volume

Alternatives to Movement

HBi

Hl '

1

Access to Walking, village vehicle resources (land, lumber, bark, minerals) Marketing Walking, (cattle, rice. vehicle dry goods, etc. Administrative visits

Courtship

Walking

Marriage

Walking

Education

Walking

Medical cate

Walking

>. I) j

*

F

I

's’

S2

Nearby Karen villages. lowlands

Adults

Nearby Karen and Lua’ villages, lowlands Vehicle

Adults

Nearby Lua* and Kaiwi villages Nearby Lua’ and Karen villages Nearby Karen villages

Nearly Karen villages

Mostly Rapidly dy increasing season, some permanent loss of land to outsiders Mostly Increasing dy season, dsys

Lowlands Adult males days Bachelors Mostly dy season, daily Maidens Mostly and dy bachelors season, permanent Students School mostly year. males mostly daily Patients Whenever, and daily relatives

Dry season.

Increasing

Small, sporadic Small. sporad^

Buiki schools in Karen villages Large if Build health services centers in are Karen available villages Small

POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

Recent Patterns of Population Movement: Into Lua’ Village (cont.)

Motive fir Movement

Method of Travel

Development Vehicles, projects walking

Official ceremonies

Vehicles walking

Destination

Lowland (government officials) nearby villages (construction workers) Lowlands, nearby villages

Traditional religious ceranoni^es

Walking

Buddhist ceremonies

Walking, vdiicle

Lowlands

Christian ceremonies

Walking

Research

Walking, vehicle

Lowlands, some foreign, some local villages Foreign, lowlands

Tourism

Walking, elephant back, vehicle

Nearby villages, lowlands

Foreign, lowland

Who Moves

Season Duration

Volume

Alternatives to Movement

Government Mainly dry Increasing officials season, few construction stationed workers year round

Royalty, Mainly government dry officials, season, nearby days villages Relatives Mainly and dy ffiends season, d^ Buddhist Mainly monks, '. Wittfogel’s theory focused on the organization of labour in relation to political structure and most subsequent studies have followed suit (see Bennett 1974, Hunt and Hunt 1976, for summaries of this literature). However, Friedman's recent work returns to the question of irrigation and surplus. Wittfogel’s thesis that functional management needs of large-scale irrigation

62

IRRIGATION AND THE NORTHERN THAI STATE

gives rise to a bureaucratically centralized state is described by Friedman as a form of 'vulgar materialism', or, more specifically, 'technological determinism' (1974:63). A critical weakness of Wittfogel's thesis is, according to Friedman, 'his reliance on the most concrete aspect of the data, that is irrigation itself, rather than on more abstract properties of technology' (1974:462). Here Friedman emphasises the importance of the concept of 'production function', that is, agricultural output in relation to labour input (1974:462, 463). He rejects any deterministic relationship between production function and social structure. The characteristics of the production function are crucial in determining the way in which a social system can develop as well as setting the limits of the development' (1974:463). That is, the production function of a given technology should be sdQn as a set of potentials and limitations. The potential of irrigation (as the most extreme form of agricultural intensification) is that population density can be increased manifold without lowering productivity. Irrigation is not necessarily more efficient than shifting cultivation but it is a technology that permits a very dense population and the expansion of absolute surplus. If some of the surplus is convCTt^ into fertiliser, etc., relative surplus may also be increased (1974:463). Thus''fiydraulic agriculture allows for an unprecedented development of stratification and control to the extent to which surplus, absolute or relative, can be increased and appropriated by non-producers' (1974:463). The production function also limits internal social development. 'The "bureaucratic state" tends ... to expand in such a way that a combination and extension of cultivation to less productive lands ... cannot support the same or increasing demands for surplus. The result of this contradiction between the forces and relations of production is the breakdown of the state' (1974:463). Furthermore, the.relationship between technology and social structure is one of 'reciprocal causality' (1974:447). For example, the internal properties of a social system may cause an inflation in the demand for surplus which, in turn, will affect agricultural productivity. Thus, with specific reference to irrigation-based societies, Friedman states: 'Expansion of power (in the already formed state) entails expansion of social surplus which entails expansion of the agricultural system and the development of maximal intensive farming' (1974:462). It is this aspect of the iniersystemic relations between social structure and irrigation that I find most relevant to my analysis of state control over irrigation in northern

63

PAUL T. COHEN

Thailand in the nineteenth century. The state assumed con^l over irrigation in some areas in order to increase rice production .and extractable surplus, not because of any technological and managerial necessity. Furthermore, I suggest that the expansion of state control over irrigation in this period was caused by an inflation in the demand for surplus by the aristocracy which must be explained in terms of social and historical factors. One reason for the increased demand for surplus rice was the proliferation in the number of aristocrats in the nineteenth century. As a result of the depredations of Burmese armies the Chiang Mai valley had for a long period in the eighteenth century remained almost uninhabited. In 1796 Prince Kawila (son of the ruler of Lampang, Caw Fa Chaikaew) initiated a campaign to re-establish Chiang Mai as a city and repopulate the Chiang Mai valley, and there was a substantial growth in population during the nineteenth century.^ This

demographic trend also affected the aristocracy, whose numbers increased unchecked because of the absence of a 'declining descent rule' (Jones 1971:2,9) limiting the number of those who could claim aristocratic status. Yet, aristocratic birth did not ensure wealth, power, and prestige. This depended on an appointment by the ruler to an administrative position and its accompanying prebend and there was intense competition within the expanding aristocracy for these limited number of positions (Calavan 1975:54). This rivalry took the form of factional struggles between close kinsmen of contenders for the position of the ruler (Caw MOang). These struggles were aggravated by the vague rules of succession and became particularly intense between about 1846 and 1870. When Caw Inthanon came to power in 1870 he attempted to expand the resources under hisxontrol so as to provide an income for the increasing number of aristocratic kinsmen of his faction and to assure their continued political allegiance. Calavan states’ that during Inthanon's reign ’major attention was given to developing-the distant frontier areas and the less accessible areas of the countryside’ (1975:61). For this purpose he appointed aristocrats to administer certain rural areas on a prebendary basis. One such appointment was Caw Mahawong who was sent to administer part of Saraphi district, which presumably comes under the category of 'less accessible areas of the countryside’. Caw Mahawong was both a first cousin and a son-in-law of Caw Inthanon (Calavan 1975:62). It also seems that it was a matter of status honour for those who obtained one of these positions to

IRRIGATION AND THE NORTHERN THAI STATE

support their less fortunate kinsmen. Thus Caw Kham Khong, who held no administrative position, was supported by his elder brother. Caw Mahawong (Calavan 1975:106).^ The expansion of royal land as a means of supporting aristocrats also occurred in the delta region of central Thailand. The granting of royal land here, especially in the fifth reign (1868-1910), says Tanabe, 'seems to have served principally as a relief measure for a distressed nobility’ (1978:73). Some of the rice collected by aristocrats (or revenue derived therefrom) was probably passed on to the ruler. This was certainly the case with Caw Mahawong's prebendary position, though Calavan does not indicate the proportion retained. I suspect it would have been high given the need of aristocrat administrators to feed retainers*^ and, possibly, the need to obtain some revenue from the sale of rice. The situation was probably different in San Pa Tong. Here no aristocrats were appointed to act as administrators or royal stewards. Most of the rice collected as rent from royal land would have been passed on to Caw Inthanon with about ten per cent retained by commoner officials^ .who supervised royal land. What did Caw Inthanon do with rice collected from royal land supervised either by aristocrats or commoner officials? According to Prani Sirithon, Caw Inthanon’s successor. Caw Inthawarorol (1898-1911), obtained about 20,000 ihang^ of rice each year from royal land (1963,11:109). He doesn't indicate the area of land owned but the volume of rice suggests a rent base of only a few thousand rai. Most of the rice from royal land was used to feed kinsmen and officials. These were most likely dependents who lived in the royal palace or in the city and lacked riceland to support themselves. Significantly, Prani adds that Inthawarorot did not sell much rice (mai khoi dai khai thawrai). There is no evidence to suggest that Caw Inthanon’s situation differed much from that of his successor. Both rulers would have been affected by the substitution, in 1883, of the rice tax for a cash tax on riceland of a half a rupee per rai. This would have eliminated the rulers’ traditional source of rice for the support of large numbers of retainers, forcing them to turn to royal land as an alternative. Furthermore, during both reigns there is no evidence of a sizeable market for rice comparable to that in the-delia region of central Thailand. Exports of small quantities of rice across the border to Burma began in 1910 (Anan 1984:109). Rice was not sent to Bangkok until the railway reached Chiang Mai in 1921. This initiated a boom

65

PAUL T. COHEN

in the production of glutinous rice for export to the Netherlands East Indies, Japan, and China (Economic Conditions in Siam, Reports 1934,1937). In fact this new and profitable market prompted a number of aristocrats in the north to invest in the construction of irrigation works so as to bring new land under wet­ rice cultivation (Prani 1963, 11:294-295). However, until the advent of the railway the rice trade was confined largely to the north. This intra-regional trade was a response to wide variations in yields which were due to local differences in soil fertility, rainfall, and irrigation facilities. Moerman reports that at the end of the nineteenth century peasant traders from Chiang Kham (in Chiang Rai province) transported rice by oxen for sale in Phrae (1975:159) and Hallett reports the-export of rice from Phrao to Fang and from Payao to Lampang in the 1880s (1^90:366). Yet, at this time the market for rice was very restricted. Moerman says that ’the small market for Chiangkham's rice was perhaps the greatest single limit on the scale of the trade. The only customers were consumers... in the "old days” it was hard to sell rice’ (1975:166,167). However, Moerman does note that the Chiang Kham traders made occasional large sales to British lumber concessionaires, though he adds that ’even these large sales did not dispose of an entire caravan's load' (1975:167). It is plausible that some rice from royal land was directed to this market. The Borneo Company and the Bombay-Burmah Company began extensive logging operations in the north in 1889 and 1892 respectively (Chusit 1981:46) and by the end of the century they had thirty-seven teak concessions between them (1981:43). These companies used agents to recruit Khamu from Laos.^^ Probably several thousand were employed at any one time and they all had to be housed and fed. Suthep states that 'the timber business in the north had vital effects on the northern social and economic structures. Food and other material supplies for the companies’ operations increased rice and other material productions. As a result the peasants were induced to produce more agricultural products for cash, the chaos^^ started to develop as large-holders of land ...' (1983:21; my emphasis). Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the reliability of this statement as Suthep does not indicate the source of his information. As far as my own research is concerned I can say with certainty that during the 1920s 5,000 tang of rice from royal land in San Pa Tong was sold to the Borneo and Bombay-Burmah companies which then operated teak concessions in Hot district

66

IRRIGATION AND THE NORTHERN THAI,STATE

to the south. The royal land here was owned by Caw Kaew Nawarat, the last Caw Miiang of Chiang Mai. Similar opportunities existed in the 1890s and it seems likely that Caw Inthanon would have seized upon these. There is no doubt that Inthanon constantly sought new sources of revenue. He had lost a number of lawsuits to teak companies (due to mismanagement of forest leases) and to settle these he had to borrow 400,000 rupees from the Siamese king (Chulalongkorn) in 1873 (Ramsay 1971:89; Rujaya 1983:14); his control over trade,,was diminished considerably by the British, who forced him and other aristocrats to alow British subjects (for example, Shan) the right to trade freely in the north (Anan 1984:51); after 1883 he had to share the cash revenues from rice taxes with Siamese officials; and finally he needed to fund an extravagant life-style and a propensity to display his wealth ostentatiously, such as the building of a new palace at the end of the 1880s at a cost of 100,(XX) rupees (Brailey 1973:461). So, the accumulated evidence suggests that some of the rice from Caw Inthanon's royal land was sold to the British timber companies. It is possible too that some was directed to other buyers in the north. However, the market for rice would certainly have been small and this probably explains the limited expansion of royal land and limited scope (geographical and technological) of state-controlled irrigation in the nineteenth century. By comparison, state intervention in irrigation this century has been much more extensive. By the 1920s the communal irrigation systems were beginning to reach the limit of their capacity. The commercialization of agriculture (including multiple cropping) had led to an increased demand for surplus and, consequently, to the irrigation of marginal land through the use of technology and capital not available to local communities.

Conclusion This study lends support to Friedman's rejection of any deterministic relationship between technology and social structure. Irrigation, as a highly intensive form of agricultural technology, provides a set of potentials and limitations for the development of a social system. Conversely, social structure may have ah influence on technology. Thus, in northern Thailand in the nineteenth century, internal characteristics of the social system caused an increased demand for suiplus rice. This was extracted by the intensification of

SJ

PAUL T, COHEN

cultivation through state-controlled irrigation on royal land. Nevertheless, the small market for agricultural surplus precluded state intervention in irrigation that was geographically extensive and on a scale beyond the technological’and organisational capacity of local communities.

Notes 1 This is a non-standard area of riceland surrounded by bunds. A standard rai is equal to 0.4 of an acre and 0.16 of a hectare. I refer to the standard rai in the following text 2 One tang of unhusked rice weighs about 15 kilograms. Probably the land of headmen who, Calavan says, were exempt from corvde obligations and could thus accumulate more land than they could work themselves (1975:129,138). The Lua' are speakers of a Mon-Khmer dialect who inhabited the Chiang Mai valley before settlement by the northern Thai in the thirteenth century. The Shan speak a Tai dialect. This community had been moved here as war captives by the Chiang Mai ruler from Muang Pu’ in the Shan state of Chiang Tung. 5 By 1830 the population of Chiang Mai state (comprising Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chiang Saen, Phrao, Fang, Mae Hong Son) was about 50,000 (Brailey 1969:25). Hallett’s later estimate for 1890 for Chiang Mai state was. 700,000 (1890:98), though this is most likely excessive given the official 1919/1920 census figure of 655,000 for the same region (Le May 1926:85). Caw Khamkhong's dependent situation in Saraphi was similar to that of Caw Comcan, who was the brother of Caw Kaew Nawarat, the last ruler of Chiang Mai (1911-1932). In spite of his high birth. Caw Comcan had no official position. Nor did he have any control over royal land. He was supported from one tract of Caw Kaew’s land in San Pa Tong. Caw Kaew also built him a small country residence (khum) where he was able to wile away his time gambling with local people. Calavan notes that Caw Mahawong had a number of slaves (1975:123). 8 This was the customary percentage in San Pa Tong. 9 One thang of unhusked rice weighs about 11 kilograms. 1® This traditional lax in kind was reinstated for a brief period, i.e. between 1890 and 1892 (Rujaya 1983:22). The riceland tax was introduced by the Siamese to help finance a greater administrative presence, 11 The Khamu are a Mon-Khmer speaking people and in Laos they number about 100,(XX) (LeBar 1967:65). Le Bar says that recruitment began in the 1880s

68

IRRIGATION AND THE NORTHERN THAI STATE

or 1890s and that 300 to 400 were recruited each year. But he does not give a total for any one time. Harvey (quoted in Grands^f 1976: 131) says a typical logging company in Burma employed about 3,500 permanent and 5,(XX) seasonal workers. Chao or Caw means 'lord' or 'aristocrat*.

References Aroonrut Wichienkeeo 1977 Kan wikhro' sangkhom Chiang Mai samai Ratana Kosin tuan ton tarn ton chabab bai Ian nai phak nua [Chiang Mai Society in the Early Bangkok Period: an analysis based on northern Thai palm leaf manuscripts]. MA Thesis, Department of History, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Benett, J.W. 1974 'Anthropological contributions to the cultural ecology and management of water resources'. In Man and Water: The Social Sciences and Water Management. L.D. James (ed.). Lexington: Center for Developmental Change and University of Kentucky Press. Brailey, NJ. 1969 The origins of the Siamese forward movement in Western Laos, 1850-92. PhD thesis, London. 1973 'Chiengmai and the inception of an administrative centralization policy in Siam'. Southeast Asian Studies, 1 l(4)-(March):439-468. Bruneau, M. 1968' 'Irrigation traditionelle et modeme dans le nord de la Thailander L’exaniple du Bassin de Chiengmai’. Communication d I'Association des Geographes Francois, pp.1-12.

Calavan, S.K.M. 1975 Aristocrats and commoners in rural Northern Thailand, PhD thesis, University of Illinois. Childe, G.V. 1954 What Happened in History. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

69

PAUL T. COHEN

Chusit Chuchart 1981 Kan kamndd rabob setakit thun niyom kap krathop thi mi tosangkbom chaw na n aai. The movement /—> ai subverts the 'sex' feature. It is worth mentioning here that in central Thai aai is always a derogatory term.^^ However, in Sipsongpanna (Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, PRC), among the LU, i and aai are perfectly polite terms and could well be glossed as 'Mr' and 'Mrs'. Hartmann, in discussing the use of 'syllabic m', citing S. Weroha, writes that in the Tai La community-of Chiang Kham in north Thailand ipoHitm^xz used by children up

191

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

to the age of about four when they shift to mpt^mme. Otherwise the usage seems much closer to the northern Thai than it is to the more formal Sipsongpanna usage (Hartmann 1979:102-3).^ The final set of usages comes from the rural situation, and is not, I think, a recent phenomenon.^^ This has to do with the way in which a whole age group

changes the manner in which its constituents address each other. A group of people who used to address each other as or aai/pi, now adopt, even among themselves, the terms lungipa. The rationale behind it is quite clear. When a system operates with charged terms, and there is no doubt that the prefixes aili are emotionally charged, it becomes extremely difficult to arrange relations with the younger generation. When older members of the community are referred to, they must be refened to in the terms used by the younger generation. Those same people then cannot be talked about in the presence of the younger generation in inappropriate terms. It is interesting, however, that the problem is not resolved by using the respectful terms aailpi (as^was the case in our discussion of urban usage). There is some process of age-grading in operation and in time this group of people will address each other as mi... (grandmother/grandfather) unless the central Thai terms ta/jai come in as replacements. The usage derives originally from a leknonymy, but in its actual use cannot be so characterized. Another aspect of the process (or of a similar process) may be seen in an urban milieu. Parents in the presence of their grown children refer to themselves as polme (father/mother) and may address each other as po manlme wan’(literally, ’its father/ils mother*). Perhaps as an extension of this usage even couples without children may address each other as polme; this is an intimate usage which is, specifically, neither urban nor rural. The final usages arise out of parents, and other household members, using polite particles appropriate to the sex of the child, but, when the adult is of a different sex, not appropriate to the adult. Thus mothers, in particular, use the polite particle khrap when talking to their sons between the years of about two and ten. As the children grow older the patterns of speech assume the patterns normal between intimates. But from time to time older women will address young men as luk 'child*, and use the male polite particle. The explanation given is that the young man is of an age with her own children. One must

192

KINSHIP EXTENSION

suspect that gratuitously drawing attention to this age difference, with a stranger, involves an element of flirtation.

Conclusion Two types of extension may be identified from the literature on kinship terminology, though there may well be others. In the first place extension takes place along a genealogical grid. In the analysis of such systems rules of deletion, substitution etc. are identified and applied to genealogical strings which reduce to terminologically identifiable core units (for example, Lounsbury 1964). The assumption is sometimes made that these reduction rules somehow represent extension rules in use, that is, emic rules. As an example, extended kinship, in a sociological sense, would apply if a person recognized his/her father's father's son's son as a relative. In English usage this is a category of 'cousin'. In many terminological systems this relative would be called by a term which had as class focus 'brother’. The deletion rule that would apply in this case would delete the middle items, 'fatha-’s son's’, leaving 'father’s son', which of course is equivalent to 'brother'. Much of the argument concerns the 'psychological reality' of this process. My suggestion would be that there is an evident gradation of conscious awareness of such rules. In some cases there may be no awareness at all. The other type of extension involves the application of distinctive features to a genealogical network in which specific links may or may not be known. Further extension is possible which eliminates the necessity for a genealogical network. The data presented above broadly give examples in which particular distinctive features are eliminated to accommodate sociological exigencies. Thus a northern Thai who decides that a particular individual is to be addressed as aai need have no idea of a genealogical link between the two persons. The implied steps in arriving at the d^ision are as follows. He or she may decide that the man concerned is younger and has a certain social, kinship-like (this a concept which may be readily expressed in the language) relation. However, the use of the term nong (which is what the decision of relative age entails) would be inappropriate, because that would involve a claim of superiority. Hence the word aai must be used. The other is also placed in a sociological quandary, though not a very great one. If he were an inept stranger, he could very well decide the reciprocal of aai is nong and therefore the first speaker should be addressed as

193

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

such. This would of course be a solecism. The speaker must be addressed as pi or aai depending on sex. The logic of the terminology gives way to sociological necessity. The point that must be made is that this high-level mapping of terminology to sociology does not invalidate the identification of structural form at:a lower level. These data 1 think show that there is no necessity for the logic of a system to be consistent at all levels. My major theoretical point is to draw attention to the hazards of assuming the inevitability of sociological interpretation of kinship terminological systems in the sense that there is a relatively simple mapping of reciprocal roles and/or statuses to reciprocal terms. In fact, the sociology is extremely complex, involving the life histories of the persons, the social environment (for example, whether urban or rural), the impact of social and cultural change and the individual’s social skills and awareness. Under all this lies a logical system of which the term, or pair of terms, at issue, forms a part.

Notes 1 'Distinctive feature' is a technical term borrowed from phonetics. In the study of kinship terminology it refers to characteristics such as 'sex' and 'relative age' which determine the kinship term used by one individual for any other. Jeremy Kemp, starting from a rather different point of view and stressing the 'moral' imperatives*of kinship, following Fortes, makes the mirror image of this point. He concludes his essay:'... kinship is far too valuable to be limited to the facts of biology! Its extension and metaphorical usage, notably in the handling of patron-client relations and those approximating them, performs an important role in introducing a greater element of commitment and trust into an otherwise competitive and unstable area of social relations' (1984:67). 3 One of the simplest examples of a 'Klein group' is the set of rules that govern the multiplication of plus and minus quantities, where the multiplication of two positive quantities or of two negative quantities gives a positive product, while the product of a negative quantity and a positive (or vice versa) is negative. In an ideal descriptive system every kinship position with respect to any individual would be identiHed by a unique term, or a unique combination of terms; for example, father's father's brother.

194

KINSHIP EXTENSION

5 In a typical 'Hawaiian* system (which may not be that of any system in Hawaii) all relatives in a particular generation are referred to either by a single term or a single pair of terms. The terms 'higher' and 'lower* are ambiguous in this context. In my usage the lowest level is. that of unconscious logical structures; the highest level, the sociological and political allocation of roles. One account of the Dravidian terminology will be found in Yalman 1962. The term 'northern Thai' is ambiguous in the linguistics and ethnography of the ’Tai-speaking peoples’. The term ’Khon Miiang' will therefore be used for the people’and 'Kham Miiang* for the language. Dick Davis used the term *Miiang’ to represent both, but this usage has met with a certain resistance. I should point out that the consonant represented by 'kh’, in the Tai dialects of north Thailand are usually unaspirated *k'. It may not be entirely consistent, but it is convenient to use the central Thai form. 5 This is not a complete account of the terminology. Benedict presents an extensive version of Thai terminologies (1943) and Kemp gives a representation of an eight generation spread (1984:59). The following abbreviations are used: m = male, f = female, e a elder, y = younger; F = father, M= Mother, B = brother, Z = Sister, P = parent. Sb = sibling; S = son, D a daughter. Ch =child. Some of the theoretical implications in the use of this term have been, in my opinion, needlessly controversial. It seems intuitively correct that one’s 'real' father is the 'focus* of that class of people one may also call father. There are many controversial issues here, but most of them are only of concern to students of kinship, and are not relevant to the paper presented here. Some of them are discussed at greater length in Wijeyewardene n.d. 12 Kemp (1984) has an extensive discussion, with which I am generally in aCTeement, on these topics. 1* Narujohn (1979) has criticized many previous discussions of these terms. I have referred to this disagreement in Wijeyewardene 1986:144-45. 15 A translation of this song appears in the Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter No. 12, March 1991. IJ These terms were central to the discussion in Wijeyewardene 1968. 1 The likelihood that this is a central Thai (Bangkok) innovation is strong. The transcripts of conversations in the remarkable account of massage parlour girls by Suleemarn Narumol (1988) has numerous instances of this usage. The

195

GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

language of these conversations has indications of Kham Mtiang influence, but the general impression is clearly of central Thai usage and vocabulary. In Kham MQang these two words are distiguished by tone and vowel length and di. aai in central Thai is traditionally written with a long vowel and a falling tone, though pronounced with a short vowel. Though the Royal Institute Dictionary recognizes its meaning of ’elder brother’, it assigns it solely to the system of birth order names. All other meanings given have some negative impEcation (1982: 901). In north Thailand it is always pronounced with a long vowel and a falling tone, and is contrasted with the prefix ai - a short vowel and low tone. I may add that some of the shifts to 'syllabic m’ that Hartmann discusses do occur in the Kham Miiang with which I am familiar e.g. ba 'aw ('don’t take', ’don't want*) is often heard as m 'aw, but I am not familiar with mor, mme. I count it a lapse on my part that it was not picked up in the original fieldwork My inadequate explanation is that it escaped my notice until my own cohort had moved from being parents to grandparents.

References Barbui, Marc 1970 'On the Meaning of the Word "Structure". In Mathematics' in Michael Lane (ed.) Structuralism: A Reader, pp.367-88. London: Jonathan Cape. Benedict, Paul K. 1943 'Studies in Thai Kinship Terminology'. In Journal of the American Oriental Society 63:168-75.

Burling, Robbins 1963 Rensanggrii: Family and Kinslup in a Garo Village Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1965 'Burmese Kinship Terminology’. In E.A. Hammel (ed.) Formal Semantic Analysis Special Publication of the American Anthropologist 67(5: part 2) pp.106-117. Menasha, Wisconsin: AAA.

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KINSHIP EXTENSION

Cohen, Paul & Gehan Wijeyewardene (eds.) 1984 Spirit Cults and the Position of Women in Northern Thailand. Mankind (Special Issue 3) 14(4). Djamour, Judith 1959 Malay Kinship and Marriage in Singapore. LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology no. 21. London: Athlone.

Hackett, William Dunn 1953 The Pa-0 People of Shan State, Union of Burma. PhD thesis Cornell University. Hartmann, J.F. 1979 'Syllabic m in Tai-Lue and Neighbouring Tai Dialects'. In T.W Gething and Nguyen Dang Liem (eds) Tai Studies in Honour of WUliam J. Gedneypp. 97-108. Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics no. 6. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Kemp, Jeremy H. 1984 "The manipulation of personal relations: from kinship to patron­ clientage'. In Hans ten Brummelhuis and Jeremy H. Kemp (eds) Strategies and structures in Thai society, pp.55-70. Amsterdam: The Anthropological-Sociological Centre. University of Amsterdam. Leach,. Edmund R. 1961 Pul Eliya, a Village in Ceylon: A Study of Land Tenure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1964 The Structural Analysis of Kinship Semantics’. In H.G. Lunt (ed.) Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists pp.1073-93. The Hague; Mouton. ^^^iguists, Morgan, Lewis Henry 1870 Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge no. 218.

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GEHAN WUEYEWARDENE

Musgrave, J.K. 1964 ’Burmese' in Ethnic groups of mainland Southeast. Asia -'^e'fj Haven: HRAF Press, pp.38-44.

Narujohn Iddhichiracharas 1919 Bamboo Village: A Northern Thai frontier Community. Ann Arbor. University Microfilms International Nash, Manning 1965 The Golden Road to Modernity. New York: John Wiley.

Royal Institute of Thailand, The 1982 Dictionary. Bangkok: Aksomcharoenthat. Suleemam Narumol .1988 Nang ngam tu kracok [Beauties in the glass cage]. Bangkok: Thammasart University, Thai Kadi Institute.

Swift, Michael 1965 • Malay Peasant Society in Jelebu. LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology no. 29. London: Athlone.

Wijeyewardene, Gehan n.d. Kinship: an Essay in its Logic and Antecedents. Typescript. 214 pp. 1968 'Address, Abuse and Animal Categories in Nohhem Thailand’: Man 3(l):76-93. 1986 Place and Emotion in Northern Thai Ritual Behaviour. Bangkok Pandora. Wilson, Peter J. 1967 A Malay Village and Malaysia: Social Values and Rural Development. New Haven: HRAF Press.

198

The 'Extra Y' in Northern Thai Script Anthony Diller The Australian National University

Richard Davis in his Northern Then reader provided an admirable introduction to the northern Thai script tradition. His work — a thoroughly original and pioneering effort — remains an important guide in interpreting northern Thai writing in terms of phonetic accuracy and detail. This modest note is intended as a tribute to Davis’s important contribution to Tai linguistics and philology.^ The inventory of fifty northern Thai (henceforth Lan Na^) consonants given by Davis in the Reader includes four separate symbols, relating to present-day Nan palatal continuant sounds [fi] and [yl, one of which has no single corresponding letter in Standard Thai. The latter 'extra Y' symbol (called here.for convenience 'lustra! Y' — for .reasons noted below) is the focus of discussion in later sections. As we see, the appearance of this symbol raises interesting questions and also points to several answers in the history of Southwestern Tai writing systems and in establishing sequences of diachronic sound changes in these languages. In particular, suggestions by Coedfes and others as to the development of Lan Na and Sukhothai scripts would appear to require some revision. In the following sections we take as axiomatic conclusions of Gelb (1952) as to the necessity of distinguishing superficial forms from systematic functions in any analysis of orthographic change or innovation. Discussion below presupposes that an adequate analysis of a single symbol, such as 'lustral Y’ as it appears in written sources, must take into account several sets of wider relations. There are factors relating both to reconstructed earlier Tai phonology and to systematic orthographic practice's and conventions. For example, to note that lustral Y was formed by adding a 'tail' to a 'normal Y' is only a preliminary

ANTHONY DILLER

observation. One must go on to ask: What were the purposes or functions of 'added tails' more generally in the particular orthography? How did the symbol pattern contrast with others in its articulatory category? How would those contrast relations map onto phonological reconstructions? Finally, historical and cultural factors relating to writing practices need to be taken into account as well. As we see, a reasonable hypothesis can be supported on the basis of all of these factors taken together.

The 'Traditional' View of Sukhothai Writing In what could be called the traditional account of the spread of Thai scripts (for example, Prasert na Nagara 1985; Chit Phumisak 1983). the fourteenth century Sukhothai writing system holds a key position in the development of several (but not all) Tai script traditions. Sukhothai writing, in the traditional view, was based on contemporary late Khmer-Pallava and perhaps also Hariphunchai Mon-Pallava prototypes: many letters of the two scripts being quite similar in form (Naina Prongthura 1984:14; Dhawaj Poonotoke 1983:21, 24). But Sukhothai script also showed substantial innovations, both in what is traditionally the first example — the Ramkhamhaeng Inscription — and in other writing of the Sukhothai corpus. To the modern reader, innovations will undoubtedly be most strikingly evident in Inscription 1, dated AD 1292 and ascribed to King Ramkhamhaeng himself in the traditional view (Griswold and Prasert na Nagara 1971). As is well known. Inscription I's innovative system of 'on-line' i- and u-vowel signs is not to be found in subsequently dated sources.^ However current impressions of 'relative strangeness' need not lead us to overlook important innovating features shared by Inscription 1 and by most others dated subsequently in the fourteenth century Sukhothai corpus. Here 1 indicates some innovations (that is, changes from contemporary Mon and Khmer systems most likely to have been prototypes), (see Naina Prongthura 1984:14). These are shared by the majority of the fourteenth century Sukhothai Tai inscriptions, including Inscription 1.

200

THE EXTRA ’Y' IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

1 Innovations (i) Compound representation [glottal-stop + Y]. This is regularly used to represent a particular set of items, including (cognates of Modem Thai) yil; ‘stay’, yu’:n 'stand', yaw 'house', etc. (cf. Modem Thai spelling with 'o:'-nam' of jU; 'stay'; yd: 'don't'; yd:ng 'sort, kind’; yd:k ''want'. See discussion below.) (ii) SuperHcial innovations in letter shape: The Sukhothai form for the letter Y is a clear simplification of plausible prototypes: earlier scripts show two connected 'U-like' units; Sukhothai script, only one. (b) the symbols for the velar nasal [ng) and palatal aspirate [ch] represent clear and bold reversals of Khmer (and/or possibly Mon) prototype forms: Sukhothai letters are turned around 180 degrees with respect to all contemporary Khmer and Mon samples‘presently available to us. (c) The form of the symbol regularly representing [n] also departs markedly from Mon and Khmer prototype scripts. (iii) A separate single symbol for the vowel pronounced (now, at least) as [o:] both for Tai items and also for Indic-provenance vocabulary. This symbol was written (as now) preceding its associated consonant. Qn Mon and Khmer prototype scripts [o:] is routinely a compound vowel, .either written as a discontinuous before-and-after configuration somewhat resembling that used to represent [-aw] in Modem Thai or else as the sign for [e:] along with a superscript loop above the following consonant — the latter arrangement being characteristic of 'late' Khmer Pallava scripts and a plausible basis for innovating the Sukhothai [p:] through joining of the two components.) (iv) A separate representation for the low vowel [ae:], created by doubling the symbol for [e:]. This vowebrepresentation is not found in prototype scripts. (The sound unit was probably either absent or not phonemic in Old Mon and Khmer.) (v) A special complex three-component representation created for the diphthong [u’a]; in some texts this.is simplified to two components in the presence of a final consonant

201

ANTHONY DILLER

Creation of three new symbols to complete the full range of Tai labial contrasts; namely, those giving rise to Modem Thai (p], (b], [ph], [f]. The latter two are each with paired high-tone-class (sU:ng) and low-toneclass (tdm) counterpart letters. Sukhothai symbols for (what are now, at least) Ip], [fl/[high-class] and [f]/[low-class] were clearly created systematically by raising as a looped 'tail' the rightmost vertical sides of pre-existing symbols, that is, those symbols respectively representing (what are now, at least) [b], [ph]/[high-class] and [ph]/[low-class]. (vii) Similar analogical creation of low-class [s] {so': s$:) by modification of [ch]/[low-class] (cho': chd:ng: again, giving these symbols their modon values). (viii) Minimal use of vertical ligatures («cept occasionally for -r-), but instead consistent use of horizontal cluster representations, both for Indic and for Tai-provenance vocabulary. (There is good evid^ce that items perceived as clusters or functioning so phonologically were regularly respresented by an iconic ’close juxtaposition’ of vertical symbols.)

(vi)

Although the majority of presently known Sukhothai inscriptions are written in the ’Cbssical Sukhothai' (henceforth SK) writing system, characterized in part by the innovations in 1, nonetheless other scripts were clearly in use in the Sukhothai area. Orthographic variation, pluralism and experimentation appear to have been the tolerated situation in the fourteenth century. The notion of functional differentiation of scripts is also important. As one method for writing Pali, monks at Sukhothai clearly used the Mon alphabet very much as it appeared in Hariphunchai (Lamphun) at. about the same time. A functional differentiation of writing systems is evident in the Sukhothai ’golden palm-leaf text of 1376, first brought to general attention by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab.'^ The gold sheet in palm-leaf shape is inscribed with three lines the Tai language in SK, followed by a brief Pali invocation written in the Mon-based system. Khmer script — presumably an SK prototype — was widely used in the Sukhothai area to write both Pali and Khmer.^ Interestingly, Khmer letters with specifically Khmer writing practices (for example, subscript cluster representation, etc.) were also used to write Tai, thus in some sense competing with SK. In the Chainat area similar examples have been found dating from

202

THE EXTRA T' IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

about 1400; a few of innovations of [1] are introduced into this otherwise Khmer writing, presumably to represent Tai phonemic contrasts.^

The 'Sukhothai-Centric' View of Lan Na Orthographic History In the traditional view, Sukhothai-like writing became established in the Lan Na area in association with Buddhist activity. This is evidenced perhaps in an inscription found in Phrae — up the Yom River from Sukhothai — commemorating a chedi established in 1339 (Inscription 107). More overtly, the Wat Phra Yu'n inscription of Lamphun (1371; Inscription 62, or Lamphun-38) refers to missionary activities of a scholarly monk from the Sukhothai south. The method of writing on these inscriptions, and of some six-others in the area, is quite similar to contemporary writing of the Sukhothai area proper (Kannika Wimonkasem 1983:20). Starting with an inscription dated 1411 (Inscription Lamphun-9, originally from Phayao) a somewhat divergent type of Sukhothai-like script is documented in the Lan Na area. This is referred to as Fak Kham (hence forth FK) script >fdk 'tamarind pod', probably referring to the script’s somewhat tapering letter shapes) (Kannika Wimonkasem 1983:187). FK was used to write Tai on over a hundred inscriptions in the Lan Na region for the next 150 years and sporadically thereafter.^ The content of these inscriptions is almost entirely a matter of

bearing witness to monastic land grants or to the donation and dedication of Buddhist buildings, images and relics. In the traditional account of Thai script development, FK writing has been considered a straightforward subsequent development of SK. Indeed, it shares with SK virtually all of the major systematic innovations from plausible Mon or Khmer prototypes, for example most in 1 (see Naina Prongthura 1984:14; Prasert na Nagara 1985:87). The only real inventory change relates to l(i) and its relation to lustral Y', which is discussed below. In Lan Na, after 1420 and especially during the reign of King Tilokaracha, there was reportedly a refreshment of the Theravada tradition through direct contact with Lanka. Missionary activity appears to Have spread FK writing to Nah by 1427, to Keng Tung by 1451 and to other northern centres. FK was used

203

ANTHONY DILLER

to write Tai-language texts on stone, but — save for brief invocations — apparently not to write Pali scriptures. As noted above for Sukhothai and as was undoubtedly the case in the Lan Na area as well, a script which is best referred to as '(Hariphunchai) Mon’ from its earlier cultural roots was commonly used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to write Pali texts, for example, Buddhist scriptures written on palm leaves.^ In terms of presently available evidence, the first attested and dated ’innovative' use of this script to write a text in a language unambiguously Tai (instead of Pali or Mon) is &om 1465 (Prasert naNagara 1985:87; Penth 1973). This is a full half a century after the first documented appearance of FK in the Lan Na area, and close to a century after the appearance-of SK there. The 1465 text is in the bilingual Pali-Tai dedication of a Buddha image of Wat Chiang Man, Chiang Mai; other early uses are similar, with Tai language material quite restricted. As Penth has surmised (1985a), there undoubtedly must have been attempts prior to this to write Tai using Mon and/or other Indic scripts; however, for the present at least, conclusively dated examples of earlier Tai texts in such scripts have yet to be found; see below.^ As Mon script came to be used to write Tai more regularly — first on'bronze images (and palm leaves?) and considerably later on stone inscriptions — certain SK innovations were introduced. The obvious immediate provenance for these innovations (but of course not for other features of Lan Na writing) would be . local FK; that is, through a progression SK > FK > LN (that is, Lan Na, and so forth). These innovations would appear to be just the features required to supplement the Mon-based writing system in order to represent efficiently Lan Na Tai phonemic contrasts, especially the vowel representations indicated in 2 below. Slightly later other innovations appear to have been introduced into the Mon-based script from local FK (as one presumes), for example, symbols for the ’missing* Tai labials. The latter addition was done through systematic 'raised-tail* modifications in a manner exactly analogous to l(iv); in this case it was the FK (and SK) method of extra-letter creation — not superficial letter shape — that appears to have been utilized. The SK system of tone marking (rather erratically applied in Sukhothai, save on Inscription 1), was used sporadically in Mon-based writing of Tai in the Lan Na area from at least 1514 (Naina Prongthura 1984:101).!®

204

THE EXTRA V IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

2

Vowel representations

Attested

1465 1538 1548 1591 • 1646

FK (/SK) innovation in LN

vowel [ae:] vowel [o:] diphthong [u'a] consonant [sj Qow class) full labial series

Compare

(iv) (iii) (V) (vi) (vi5

At this point, with the innovations mentioned above, one might refer to Classical Lan Na script: that is, to the (Hariphunchai) Mon writing system somewhat-adapted for the writing of Tai through the introduction of several selected modifications from FK (and thus ultimately, in the traditional view, from SK). Other FK/SK innovations were not appropriated (for example, letter shapes and horizontal clusters: l(ii), (viii)).ll It is interesting that these latter rejected innovations represent relatively superficial features that — unlike the modifications actually appropriated — do not relate directly to any constraints imposed by Tai phonology.^^ Although LN, the Lue script of Chiang Hung and Khoen script of Keng Tung can be considered close variants of one another, this is not true of all Tai scripts in the area north and west of Chiang Mai. What is now usually called Shan script clearly presupposes a Mon base, but with an intermediate Burmesclike stage intervening. Also, Ahom script would appear to have a provenance from Mon varieties other than the particular form of Hariphunchai Mon eivine rise to LN.^^ ®

The 'Lan Na-Centric' View of Lao Orthographic History ■■ As mentioned above, during the reign of King Tilokaracha (r. 1441-1487) FK script was carried westward and is documented and dated for Keng Tung by 1451. Piribably Mon-based writing, originally for Pali texts, was also emphasized in this missionary activity. This would account for the LN-Iike Khoen script of

205

ANTHONY DILLER

Keng Tung. It seems highly likely that both scripts — LN and FK — and their writing practices also travelled eastward at this time to Lan Sang (or Lan Chang, based in Luang Prabang), as well as to Lan Sang's dependenciesJ"* The latter included the Wiang Chan (Vientiane) region and what is now the Thai-north-east, in particular, the Loei-Nongkhai-Nakhon Phanom areas adjacent to the Maekhong River. What is now the Thai North-east had been the previous locus of considerable Khmer inscriptional activity, the latest surviving examples of which are five inscriptions firom the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181-1219) in the Korat-BuriramSurin area. Dhawaj Poonotoke (1987:33) calls attention to the substantial hiatus — both in lime and in space — from these Khmer inscriptions to the first Tai ones in the central Maekhong area. It is a matter of some 300 years from Jayavarman VIPs reign to the first evidence of Tai writing in the area: inscribed bases of Buddha images (perhaps originally from elsewhere) dated 1490 (Wat Sisaket, Wiang Chan) and 1503 (That Phanom, Nakhon Phanom) (1987:21).15 Dhawaj interprets the hiatus — as well as numerous formal features of this first Northeastern Tai writing — as a clear indication that there was not any continuity or even tenuous local linkage with the earlier Khmer type of writing (that is, excluding an indirect provenance through SK/FK). The most obvious continuity, in fact, is with Lan Na scripts and writing practice. Both the FK and LN systems appear together in the central Maekhong region from the earliest documentation of Tai writing in that region. In fact, in one of the earliest brief statuary texts (1503) the two styles would seem to-be mixed in the same sentence (Dhawaj Poonotoke 1987:228).^^ A stone inscription of Tha Bo, Nongkhai, can be confidently dated by astronomical means to 1507; it is written in a type of FK (i.e. in what has come to be referred to as Thai Noi’ or — more recently — Thai Isan' script). The inscription catalogued as Nongkhai-11 (Wat Phadungsuk 2), a FK text of Phonphisai, Nongkhai, has been dated by some authorities to 1472, which would make it a good candidate for being the oldest Lao or north-eastern Thai text presently known. However the correct date for this inscription is 1570.^® These orthographic developments would appear to be closely linked to the political and religious history of the region. As noted above, in the fifteenth century Lan Na Buddhist missionaries were reportedly sent to the central

206

THE EXTRA ’Y’ IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

Maqkhong region, including to That Phanom; hence perhaps the inscribed Buddha images mentioned above. However Lan Na political and cultural links to Lan Sang became especially strong in the reign of the Lan Sang King Photisan (also Photisalaral, Photisarat, r.1420-1547). He took as major queen Nang Yo'l Kham Thip, a daughter of the Lan Na king, Mu’ang Kaeo — signalling a close paci.l^ Photisan is known from inscriptions and chronicles as an ardent reformer

and promoter of Buddhism — to the point of issuing decrees in 1527 suppressing animistic practices with associated shrines to be destroyed (see Wyatt 1985:84). Perhaps in line with these Buddhist considerations, the Wat Daen Miiang inscriptions of Nongkhai and contemporary ones of similar type have as their purpose a deed-like recording of monastic land grants decreed through the king's offices. (They regularly contain curses to prevent local lords from subsequently ignoring the grant and appropriating productive lands and slaves. Local power bases, both in terms of land and manpower, were thus eroded by such monastic grants; al times this erosion of local power may well have been in a king's interests.) In any case, the writing system for these early sixteenth-century texts is essentially FK of Lan Na, which was also used to record similar land grants and donations of the same period in the Lan Na area.^^ It then seems reasonable to suppose that not only Lan Na scripts but also Lan Na writing conventions and practices — the standard purposes to which respective scripts were pul — arrived in the central Maekhong region in this way and during this general period. In particular, both the FK (subsequently Thai Noi") and LN (subsequently "Lao Tham' or 'Tham Isan') systems were introduced, each with the conventional functions they had acquired in the Lan Na area. Saiyasettha (Chaiyachetthathirat) the oldest son of Photisan, was given the rule of his mother’s town, Chiang Mai, in 1546, further strengthening the poUtic'al-cullural linkages. Soon Saiyasettha returned to Luang Prabang to succeed his father as king of Lan Sang. During his reign in Lan Sang (15471570) land grants continued to be documented by inscriptions. These include the 1561 inscription of Wat Ban Wiang Kham, Thurakhom, sometimes considered the first Tai-language stone inscription known from what is now Laos proper (Sila Viravongse 1973:7).

207

ANTHONY DILLER

To judge from surviving materials, by the reign Saiyasettha there seems to have been a shift in functional conventions, in that LN came to be an appropriate option for Tai-language stone land-grant inscriptions. This practice was true both for the Lan Na area^^ and in the central Maekhong communities near Wiang Chan, where Saiyasettha maintained his capital.^ His 1560 pact in Loei with King Mahachakraphat of Ayutthya was a Tai text written in LN.^ As before, features of FK were further borrowed or mixed into local forms of LN, especially when the latter was used to write texts in Tai. It remains to observe that both Northeastern FK and LN were used in the following centuries, with some functional shifting and with the development of substantial local variation including degrees of FK‘LN mixing (Lafont 1962a, 1926b). In 1921 under French direction a standardized orthography was promulgated: in etymological terms, this can be seen as predominately from FK, but with a few LN features; spelling was simplified to the point of becoming nearly a one-to-one phonemic representation, at least for consonants. All letters relevant only to Indic source spelling were dropped. Tone marking, which had previously been rare and sporadic in Lao/Northeastem Thai writing, in 1921 was adopted in the manner of contemporary Standard Thai with only minor adjustments (Uthai Piromruen and Dhawaj Poonotoke 1984:13). These views of orthographic development are summarized in 3.

208

THE EXTRA ’Y’ IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

3

Script relationships suggested by presently-known dated texts

(Indic proto^pe scripts)

Old Khmer

By 1292

By 1339

(used to write Pali texts)

Ramkhamhaeng script devised

'Classical SK*

By 1371

By 1411

Old Mon

SK in Lamphun

(Ayuthian Thai)

I

SK > FK in Norfri ►

By 1465 By 1503

*

LN in North I

(used to write

■

FK and LN in Nakhon Phanom

Divergences From the Preceding Views Coed&s, writing in 1925, hypothesized the existence of 'Archaic Tai writing' (flfad'.-n thay doe:m\ based on Old Mon and predating SK. This proposal has been recently revived. Coedfes noted that no samples survive to document this writing conclusively. However, he suggested that some features of original Archaic Thai’ may be reflected in LN and in Ahom scripts, although surviving samples of these scripts, he thought, do not directly portray the earlier system (1925:25).^'* The main relationships he proposed are summarized in 4. He also saw Modem Lad script-as a modification of Sukhothai writing, although he did not consider an essentially Lan Na -Lan Sang route.

209

ANTHONY DILLER

4

Relationships of Tai scripts after Coed^s (1925)

(Indic prototype scripts)

Old Khmer Inscriptional Khmer

Cursive Khmer

Archaic Tai I______

Sukhothai

Ahom

Thai

5

Old Mon

Burmese

Lan Na

Lao

Shan

Relationships of Tai scripts after Sila Viravongse (1973)

(Indic prototype scripts)

Indic B

Indic A

Old Khmer

,

Archaic Lao

J -

I

Inscriptional Khmer + Cursive Khmer 4- Archaic Lao

I Sukhothai

Modern Thai

210

Modern Lao

Ahom

Lan Na

Burmese

Mon

THE EXTRA 'Y' IN NORTHERN THAI-SCRIPT

More recently Penth (1985a, b) has made proposals in essential harmony with those of Coedfes. He has suggested that as Tai speakers came in contact with Mons, the former began to use a handwritten script of the latter; 'it is not possible to say exactly when the Thai borrowed the Mon letters, nor where.’ He adds that the 'process of learning and trying out [Mon letters to write texts in Tai] could have occurred several times and in different localities, whenever Thai met Mon ... The time was probably between 1150-1250 A.D*. (1985a;13). Following from this hypothesis. Penth goes on to speculate that some inscriptional firagments from Wat Kan Thom, near Chiang Mai, may actually be samples of such early writing (in essence representing Coedfes' 'Archaic Tai'). Unfortunately since these fragments are undated the argument has not convinced all who have studied the matter. Penth emphasizes the influence of such 'learning and trying out' of Mon letters in the evolution of SK: 'Thus, the so-called "Sukhothai" script was not invented in Sukhothai. It possibly was not invented at any particular place, but came slowly into being along a contact zone between Mon and Thai’ (Penth 1985a: 16). With respect to the evolution of LN, Coed&s' opinion was that sometime after the mid-fifteenth century 'the people of Lan Na stopped using Sukhothai letters and instead used the Lue script of Sip Song Pan Na'. (Coed&s 1925:16)^6 He suggested that Burmese political influence may have been the reason. Coed^' conclusion was based on facts as they were known in 1925; for example, he did not take into account the use of FK as it continued even under Burmese occupation.27 As for LN, given documentation now available. Penth’s (1973)

differing history is more plausible: LN developed 'naturally' from local Mon and was not 'borrowed' from elsewhere. A more provocative set of proposals — especially in terms of labelling — has been made by Sila Viravongse (1973); essential components of it are summarized in 5. He sees a 'Sanskrit-Devanagari' system (referred to as 'Indic A’ in 5) as giving rise to both to Old Khmer inscripdonal writing and to an ancient Lao alphabet derived 'from Sanskrit’ (Sila Viravongse 1973:4). This was said to have developed in the course of trade between the Ai-Lao kingdom and India, during which time the [Tai?-] Lao people were also said to have been introduced to Mahayana Buddhism. These conjectures are presented without supporting

211

ANTHONY PH J-HR

material evidence apart from references in Chinese records. Leaving aside obvious problems of paleo-elhnography, the references to writing are indirect and problematic.^ As for what were called 'Mon-based scripts’ above, another form of Indic writing (which he refers to as Pali', that is, ’Indic B' on 5) was said to have given rise to them. Sila Viravongse’s construction could easily be dismissed as merely a folkloristic attempt to shift nomenclature and arrange dubious citations in such a way as to relate to Lao nationalistic sentiments, that is, to avoid the 'indignity' of Lao script being bonowed directly from Thai. On the other hand, his interest in the naming of earlier scripts is salutary in that it points to similar covert assumptions inherent in terms like 'Archaic Tai', 'SK', 'FK’, etc., if used as anything more than arbirtaty labels. For example, in the case of Coedfes' argument summarized in 4, 'Archaic Lan Na’ or even 'Archaic Lao’ would seem to be as appropriate as ’Archaic Tai', that is, for putative early adaptations of Mon script by Tai/Lao speakers. The suggestions put forward also show that it would be difficult to constrain conjecturing of this sort which is not based on more solid and dated documentary evidence. Yet another sort of challenge to the traditional view has been argued by Vickery (1987). In this case the authenticity of Sukhothai Inscription 1 is called into question. Vickery also makes more general proposals regarding the development of Tai scripts which would be generally in line with the views of Penth summarized above.

'Lustral Y' and Palatal Continuants in Inscfiptional Sources We turn now to consider an 'extra Y' letter in certain Tai writing systems and assess how its form and development may throw some light on the issues above. For convenience the letter shape in question is referred to as 'lustral Y'. (This is a glossing of its usual name in Lan Na treatises: yo': yd:i nd:m, or 'yo': [as in) yd:i nd:m that is, the letter 'Y' as in (the Lanna spelling of) the word yd:t 'to drip'. In texts the latter word is frequently encountered in the expression yd;f nd:m meaning ’to pour lustral water' or 'to consecrate’.) 'Lustral Y' is extra in the sense that it is a Y-like symbol in the FK, LN and Modem Lao (henceforth ML) writing systems with no direct single counterpart symbol in SK or in modern Standard Thai (MT). For SK, the regular

212

THE EXTRA T IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

correspondence with 'lust^ Y’ is the compound digraph: glottal stop {o': d:ng) + simple 'Y' (yo': ydk). This 'extra' letter however is clearly formed by a supplementation to the existing FK inventory. The addition was most plausibly accomplished by adding an upwards tail stroke to the familiar SK-FK simple V symbol (yo': ydk); see 6, upper left-hand item. (Recall from I(ii)(a) that yo'; ydk itself is a simplification of Khmer or Mon prototype scripts.) An additional consideration is noted by Kannika Wimonkasem (1983:29): the left part of the FK glottal-stop sign also resembled the FK ‘Y’ symbol; this may have served as a further motivation for the derivation.

6

Palatal continuants in several Tai writing systems

LANNA

LN

FAK KHAM

FK

modern LAO

ML

SUKHOTHAI

SK

MODERN THAI

MT

’V

V

O'

w

5 d sc; OU

0 ti u u

B

hR

hy

"’J ■Old

w

tbCU Wfu

Before taking up 'lustral Y’ in particular, we review more generally how vocabulary in palatal continuants appears in inscriptional sources. 6 compares symbols representing sounds /y/, /fi/ and phonologically similar items in several scripts. For convenience, in discussion below these orthographic symbols are cit^ by designations indicating row and column in 6. Row — the particular variety of script is shown following brackets. The brackets contain upper-case letters referring to column. Columns Y and N show letters regularly used inter

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ANTHONY DILLER

alia to represent Indic vocabulary in those initials, at least in older texts; other labels are motivated by comparative-historical discussion below. Since certain rows represent script traditions of several centuries, symbols shown should be considered merely as representative tokens; other variants would occur. 'Lustral Y* thus appears three times in 6: in Mon-based Lan Na writing in the form ['Y]LN; similarly as [Y]FK and ['Y]ML. In Sukhothai inscriptions of the thirteenth century, the four graphemes ['Y]SK, [Y]SK, [Risk, [HN]SK occur representing cognates of modern Thai vocabulary items shown in 7. [’Y]SK and [HR]SK are compound items in inscriptions of the Sukhothai area. As noted above, [’Y]SK is composed of the glottal stop sign (now called o': d:ng) followed by a plain [Y]SK, while [HN]SK is simply a close juxtaposition of the two items indicated in the brackets. Modem Standard Thai (MI) spelling of initial is indicated to the right in 7. It is clear that no all-embracing system of one-to-one relationships can be established between Sukhothai and modem spelling, but neither is the relationship entirely arbitr^. Duangduen Suwattee and France Kullavanijaya (1976) have discussed a number of these" items. They note that spelling with the four graphemes in Sukhothai materials is generally consistent for those materials, with some apparent exceptions to be considered below. Also, they observe that a grapheme answering to H + Y or to [HY]SK is not found at this stage.

214

THE EXTRA ’Y' IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

SK spelling [Y]SK

[Y]SK

D^SK

[HN]SK

MT cognate ya: ya: . yen yu':n ySw yang ylap yam y6’:n y^k yu':n yung ya:m yang yd'im ylng yin y^y

'stay' 'medicine' 'cool' 'stand' 'house' 'towards' 'trample' ■fear' 'loosen' ’ 'difficult' 'long time' "grannary’ 'period' 'still' 'apt to' 'woman' 'hear' ■big'

Inscriptional sources Compare MT spelling 3.1.32; 8.3.12 3.1.23; 5.1.25 8.3.18; 5,3.24 2.1.47; 5.3.39 38.1.8; 3.2.44 8.3.11; 8.3.12 8.1.3; 3.2.53 3.1.23; 3.2.37 49.1.16; 49.1.32 2.2.24 3.2.47; 45.1.18 13.2 3.1.2; 9.3.26 3.1.16; 5.1.35 3.1.55; 8.1.12 38.1.11; 1.2.11 40.1.11; 1.2.1 381.21; 45.1.13

[■YIMT [Y]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [HY]MT [Y]MT [HY]MT [Y]MT tHY]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [Y]MT [HN]MT [Y]MT [HNIMT

Of interest are several homonyms/homographs in present-day modem Central Thai: yu':n [Y]MT, meaning either 'stand' or 'for a long time' (mainly in compound expressions); yang [Y]MT 'still' or 'towards'. These meanings are regularly differentiated in SukKothai writing in a way consistent with comparative evidence. Not shown in 7 are items of (ultimately) Indic provenance. These are almost always spelled such that Pali-Sanskrit y- = [Y]SK and fi- = [N]SK. Examples (MT cognates indicated): [Y]SK — yama:, yom 'god of death’; y6t 'tank.' > SkL yasa); [N]SK — ya:n 'wisdom' (> Skt. flan-); ya.7 'relative' (Pali-Skt. > fiati).

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ANTHONY DILLER

The earliest firmly dated Tai-language source presently known in the Lamphun-Chiang Mai area is the 1371 inscription of Wat Phra Yu’n, Lamphun (see section 2). Words like yil; ’stay’ and yu':n ’stand’ are spelled as [’YJSK; that is with two adjacent consonant symbols, as they are on contemporary inscriptions found in the Sukhothai area. As observed above, samples of the FK variant of SK script can be found dated within fifty years after the Wat Phra Yu’n text In nearly all features, the relationship between FK and SK represents only superficial adjustments in letter shapes and in other stylistic details of execution. In fact the main systematic inventory difference is the presence of a single ’lustral Y* symbol [’YJFK answering to the compound [’Y]SK. Kannika Wimonkasem (1983:173) documents [’Y]FK from 1411 and shows that it is used consistently in over fifty FK inscriptions over the three centuries thereafter. The lexical items using initial [’Y]FK on the FK inscriptions is regular: it is found in exactly those items which appear with [’Y]SK in the Sukhothai-area inscriptions, for example, those listed in the first set in 7. In addition there are a few items with no SK counterparts. [’Y]FK appears never to have been used for Indic vocabulary; the latter was confined, as in SK. to [Y]FK [N]FK. The 1556 FK inscription of Wat Phrathat Si Chom Thong, near Chiang Mai, is representative. Spelled with [’YJFK are cognates of the (MT) items yd; ’do not’; yd; ’to stay’; ya: ’medicine’ and yu':n ’to stand’; all of these have attested SK spellings in ['Y]SK. In addition, the item yd;/ ’to consecrate' appears with ['Y]FK. FK letters [Y]FK and [N]FK are not used to spell vocabulary of this sort.2^ Not only was ['Y]FK used as an initial consonant in FK but it was also used occasionally as a vowel + final unit, almost certainly representing the sound /o’:y/. Thus the cognate of MT n6':y 'small' was sometimes written in FK with two letters as though [ n + (’YJFK ]; similarly rd';y ’hundred’, etc.^® This usage suggests that some scribes understood the symbol fYlFK as functioning in a manner entirely commensurate with the corresponding two-graph sequence in SK. Turning to LN, we find in the Mon prototype script used to write‘Pali the symbols [Y]LN and [^LN, but not ['Y)LN. For early Tai-language texts written in LN script, there is some variation in the representation of vocabulary cognate

216

THE EXTRA ’Y' IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

to that spelled in ['Y]SK (for example, items in 7) (Naina Prongthura 1984:69).^^ However, with a few early exceptions, consistent practice was

established to use the symbol [’Y]LN as shown in 6. In the sixteenth century, this symbol [’Y]LN does not depart in any significant way from ['Y]FK either in form or in usage. (Later LN texts may show an extra slight upwards jag in the bottom portion of the letter; this was true in some FK sources as well.) Of various possible inferences that could be made, the least problematic would seem to be that LN — perhaps after some early experimentation — bonowed 'lustral Y* from local FK to represent a necessary Tai phonemic distinction that was not coded in the Hariphunchai Mon system on which LN was based. Bqth [’Y]FK and ['Y]LN are found in the central Maekhong as discussed above from the earliest appearances of such sources. ['Y]FK appears on inscriptions of the Nongkhai area with both the initial-consonant function and also with the final /o'; + y/ function; that is, the usage is analogous to that in FK inscriptions of the same and earlier periods in the Lan Na area. These facts are again in line with a view of Northeastern or Lao writing practice disseminating from Lan Na. Once ['Y]FK and ['Y]LN become established in their respective writing practices, as noted above, there is almost no variation in the stock of items spelled in this manner. The strong impression is of spelling based on an important phonological distinction. The same cannot be said for the other palatal continuants. Starting in the early sixteenth century, FK sources show considerable item-by-item variation with respect to [Y]FK and [N]FK. Thus the medial -y- in name of the town Thayao' is spelled variously with [Y]FK and [N]FK, as it is the title phraya?'^ Sometimes the s^e item is spelled variously with [Y]FK and [^FK in the same inscription, as on the Wat Chiang Man inscription of 1581 (Griswold and Praserl na Nagara 1977).33 The impression here is that what were formerly two distinctive sounds are at this point in time falling together and that the letters formerly used to differentiate the sounds are by now treated by scribes as mere variants one of another. This impression is strenghthened by comparative considerations in the next section.

217

anthony'diller

Southwestern Tai Palatal Continuants Duangduen Suwattee and France Kullavanijaya (1976) called attention to the fact that SK spellings in [Y]SK, ['Y]SK, [N]SK and [HR]SK correlate well with the Proto-Tai reconstructions of Fang KueiLi (See Li 1977:173-181). In fact, Li reconstructed exactly the four initials shown in brackets for Proto-Tai, and also for less remote Proto-Southwestern-Tai. Li used comparative rather than philological evidence in establishing reconstructions, so there is no circularity in this observation. In particular, preglottalized Zy/ is still present in a few Tai varieites of Guangxi and Guizhou, such as the Fengshan dialect of Zhuang. In this dialect, a consonatal distinction fy/ * /y/ is maintained. Some relevant items from this dialect are shown in 8.^^ 8

Preglottalized /'y/ items in the Fengshan dialect of Zhuang

'yu: ■yie 'yen 'yiak 'yieng 'yieng 'yiet 'ya: ■yong 'yan

'stay' 'medicine' 'to add water' (cf. 'cool*) 'hungry' 'to roast' 'resin' 'stretch' 'to open the eyes' 'to stir' (e.g. rice)' 'to hide'

tone B2 tone Al tone Al tone D2 tone Cl tone Al tone D2 oneC2 one Al tone Al

Compare MT yh: ya; yen ya:k y3;ng ya:ng yiat -

When cognates with documented SK items are available, the regular correspondence is: Fengshan Zy-/ with [‘Y]$K. (Other Fengshan palatal initials correspond regularly with the other SK initials.) Li's reconstructions — especially along with the. availability of firm conoborating synchronic data like that in 8 — are helpful for understanding the essential regularity of SK spelling for items such as those in 7.

218

THE EXTRA V IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

9 presents a likely hypothesis as to diachronic phonological relationships among palatal continuants.

9 Consonant mergers implied by Proto-Tai reconstructions of Li (1977)35

EARLIER

Modern Nan Modem Wiang Chan

SOUTHWESTERN TAI

Modern Central Thai

From the vantage point of twentieth-century MT dictionary norms, SK .spelling could well appear arbitrary or capricious. However from the arguments of Duangduen Suwattee and Pranee Kullavanijaya it must be instead that MT spelling — rather than SK — is to be considered capricious in this case, phonologically, MT appears to have merged original sounds /y/, /fi/, /hfi/ and Zy/^ll into /y/, with some compensatory tonal distinctions (the tonal separation of consonant classes), but inadequate to carry all of the original functional load. This situation has given rise to numerous /y-/ homonym and even homograph pairs in MT for items distinguished elsewhere; it also is in line with Ayutthayaera spelling fluctuation from which numerous etymologicallly spurious spellings have been recently codified.

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ANTHONY DILLER

Other Southwestern Tai varieties are frequently more conservative with respect to the treatment of these initials. In White Tai and in several other varieties mergers involving /*'y/ > /y/ and /*hfi/ > /fl/ have occurred, but with tonal conditioning so as to preserve all previous lexical distinctions (Donaldson and Di6u 1970).^^ Southern Thai of the Songkhla area is also characterized by

the preceding mergers, with items from /*'y/ now distinguished tonally from those derived from /*y/; also from those derived from the other initials (see Diller 1979).37 'LUSTRAL Y', CONSONANT MERGERS AND AUSTROASIATIC CONTACT

Probably then the four SK representations ['Y]SK, [Y]SK, [N]SK,and [HN]SK represented four distinct SK sounds which had been preserved from the Proto-Southwestern-Tai stage. The reconstructions by Li (1977; see 9) are backed by comparative evidence, as’noted above. Following the preceding scheme of phonological development, one would seem justified in interpreting the compound digraph ['Y]SK as an indication that a preglottalized semivowel was pronounced at the time the SK writing system was devised. The representation is surprisingly iconic, but so are other features of the SK system. How long preglottalization may have persisted is problematic. For the Sukhothai area and south to Ayutthaya it is difficult to argue from orthographic sources alone how long this phonetic characteristic was maintained. This is because once spelling had become somewhat established or codified it is not unreasonable to suppose that preglottalization became lost phonetically while the [’Y]SK representation was retained in writing. On the other hand, for the Lan Na area, the writers of FK ’went out of their way' as it were to represent the class of lexical items with initial derived from /*'y/ with the unitary symbol [Y]FK. That this innovation was accomplished while many other features of SK were shared in FK can hardly be due to chance. A reasonable deduction would be that by about 1400, vocabulary etymologically of the /*’y/ category was no longer pronounced with a glottalic onset in the Lamphun-Chiang Mai area. However a tonal ’residue' was probably left behind. That is, there was a distinctive tonal patterning for lexical items in /fr-/, /d-/ and those in glottal stop; included in this set were items in 7y-/ if previously preglottalized.

220

THE EXTRA V IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

Lan Na scribes writing in their fifteenth-century FK probably were aware of what was for them by then a plain or unitary sound for vocabulary etymologically of the /*'y / category. Thus rather than to write what was for them the unmotivated compound digraph of SK, they chose.to make a superficial modification of die SK-FK [Y] symbol. Simply using the latter symbol unaltered was apparently an unappealing solution for these scribes. It would have introduced homographs: there would have been items (from /*y/) that would have then been spelled the same way as ones derived from /*'y/; however because of the ’tonal residue' the lexical items would have been distinguished in the spoken language of the scribes. The 'tonal residue' hypothesized above is still characteristic of many varieties of Lao. In terms of the tone categories of Li (1977), these varieties tonally distinguish *,A mid-class items from high-class and low-class ones. Sixteenth-century Lan Na texts begin to show spelling variation affecting initial conson^ts formerly written with [Y]LN and [N]LN. This suggests that the merger shown in 9 for Nan of /*y/ and /*fi/ to /fl/, with low-class tones, was by then underway for Lan Na and probably in Lao varieties also. (Ultimately the symbol [Y]LN 'won out' to represent the sound [fl] with low-class tones, at least for Tai-provenance vocabulary, and is now considered the standard way to write items in Lan Na script derived from earlier Tai /*y/ and /*fi/. In modem Lan Na usage/the symbol [N]LN is now confined to Pali texts. The preceding distribution is true for [Y]ML in reformed modem Lao script as well. Similarly, in Lao [HY]ML is now used to represent items etymologically from /*hfi/, as [HY]MT is for most items in MT.) Note that in LN varieties where /*y/ items now occur with *A low-class tone and with the phonetic value /y/, the relevant tonal and consonantal mergers must be ordered either as above or in some other manner that gives a plausible sequence. Otherwise a merger would be posited which would need to be subsequently reversed. Might the retention of a preglottalized semivowel in SK speech, but its loss in Tai varieties of the LN area, be explained in pan by differential Austroasiatic contact? For Khmer, Jenner has hypothesised a series of preglottalized consonants, including continuants such as semivowels and nasals. For example. Old Khmer inscriptions show quite directly a glottal-stop sign compounded with

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ANTHONY DILLER

subscripted continuant symbols (Jenner 1981:xix, 356, 391-394).38 This may well have been the prototype for the SK treatment of/*‘y/ items. If this were the case, Khmers coming to use spoken Tai would have had a native speaker's motivation to preserve a preglotialized semivowel such as that surmised above. It would seem reasonable that a good share of the population of 14th-century Sukhothai would have ultimately had Khmer speech in their backgrounds. These speakers could have contributed significantly to the preservation of preglottalization. On the other hand, a good share of the 14th-century population of the Lan Na area, especially near Lamphun, would — one presumes — have come from a Mon-speaking milieu, or perhaps from other Austroasiatic groups. In the phonological systems of Old Mon proposed by Shorto and by Diffloth, no preglottalized semivowels or nasals are reconstructed (Shorto 197 l:xiii; Diffloth 1984:315). Nor, apparently, is there direct Old Mon inscriptional evidence to support such a grade of consonants; although other grades of prenasalized stops, etc., are attested or can be deduced. It may be premature to raise such posibilities of Austroasiatic contact in the context of South-western Tai phonological development. In this case, however, there does appear to be a plausible convergence of phonological, orthographic and external-historical sequences.

Phonological and Orthographic Change How plausible then is the historical-philological outline of the first three sections — a synthesis of rather ’traditional’ views — as a way to address the more comparative linguistic issues discussed in the preceding three sections? What of the differing proposals in the fourth section? The currently known orthographic sources which are firmly dated (mainly inscriptional evidence taken more-or-less at face value) point to a s^uence of phonological and orthographic relationships in line with the comparative evidence. For example, CYISK items in Sukhothai inscriptions 7 are represented by preglottalized cognates in present-day Zhuang dialects like that of Fengshan 8, in accordance with observations of Li (1977). Other SK palatal continuants are not represented by such Zhuang cognates. This would seem reasonable

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THE EXTRA ’Y' IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

justification for interpreting the contemporary SK value of [’Y]SK as a preglottalized palatal semivowel. The full hypothesis would then go as follows. Although there would almost certainly have been some pre [Y]SK [Y]SK>[Y]FK [Y]FK>[’Y]FK ['Y]FK>[’Y]LN ['Y]LN/FK>[’Y1ML

(simplification; similar in treatment to other letters) (SK writing practice spreads to Lan Na) ('raised tail' FK innovation to replace [’Y]SK) (FK letter used in LN to make needed sound distinction) (Lan Na writing practice spreads to central Maekhong)

'Lustral Y’ — in the first instance [’YJFK — was an innovation of the Lan Na region that spread subsequently far and wide to the west, north and east. It was not used to the sou|h in Sukhothai or Ayutthaya. ['Y]FK — along with other features — was soon borrowed into LN — that is, into local Mon script modified to write Lan Na Tai. The presence in LN of a symbol essentially identical to ['Y]FK — but the absence of one like [Y]FK — is important for confirming the directionality of LN/FK borrowing attested to by surviving material sources as discussed in the second section. Thus it is highly unlikely that LN donated I'YJLN to FK. This would mean that LN would have possessed the modified or elaborated symbol ['Y]LN without the basic one; namely, [’Y]LN minus its tail. The latter is in fact equivalent to [Y]FK (and indeed to [Y]SK). Note that all surviving LN texts show [Y]LN directly from Mon, substantially different in shape from ['Y]LN; the forma- Mon letter could scarcely have been prototype for the latter -lustral Y'. With a firm directionality FK to LN established in this way on formal grounds for ['Y]LN and supported in terms of ’phonological background’ by plausible reconstructions, the presence of other FK-like or SK-like features in LN such as those in 2 must be tentatively conjectured to have had the same directionality, barring the uncovering of material evidence to the contrary. That is, such innovating features were borrowed from FK into LN, not vice versa. This also accords with presently available material evidence. We turn now to the opinion of Coedfes cited above with respect to 'Archaic Tai' writing and a provenance of Chiang Mai script from the Lue town of Chiang Hung in Sip Song Pan Na. If Coed&s (1925) is to be read as implying that LN of the Chiang Mai area was borrowed from a pre-existing Lue writing practice in Chiang Hung (that is, in some way the direct successor of Coedds' 'Archaic Tai'), then at least the symbol ['Y]LN must have moved in the opposite direction. One wonders immediately how vocabulary etymologically from /*'y/ would had been spelled in a putative preexisting Chiang Hung script.^® Also,

224

THE EXTRA ‘Y’ IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

what could have been the motivation for giving up such earlier spelling and adopting instead just this one letter in the Chiang Mai manner? There may, of course, be plausible answers for these questions, but Coedbs' argument did not focus on such issues. In particular, the presence of a pre-1400 source in Chiang Hung with a letter shaped like ’lustral Y' would substantially affect this argument, but (as of time of writing) material sources in the Sip Song Pan Na.area that might shed light on this question have yet to be throroughly investigated.. (Versions of LN-Iike script used in Keng Tung — that is, Tai Khoen — also show ’lustral Y' symbols agreeing in form and function with LN texhial practice. The antiquity of this script also needs further investigation.) As for the Northeast and Lao, [’Y]LN andlYJFK are present in the central Maekhong from the start of documented Tai writing in that area in about 1500. A Lan Na provenance is strongly indicated for Lao-Northeastem script instead of any direct connection with Sukhothai or Ayutthaya, where compound [’Y]SK was retained at this period. Again, the system-internal features of the orthography point to the same conclusions that external historical sources suggest: Lan Na cultural and political ties to Lan Sang and thus to the central Maekhong area, beginning in the late fifteenth century and culminating in the reign of Saiyasettha, account for how scripts of the the Lan Na area were transmitted, along with their characteristic writing practices. Thus [’Y]FK survives as Modem Lao fYlML. There is at present neither material evidence nor any obvious system-int^al argument to suggest the ©tistence of a conventionalized 'Archaic Lao' script that predated the arrival of LN and FK in central Maekhong as sketched above; let alone one that predated SK of the fourteenth century. In fact both FK and LN as written in the central Maekhong area are, for the sixteenth century at least, almost identical to pre-existing documented FK and LN in the Lan Na area. Of course a different script may have been used earlier, but evidence has not been reported. In summary, it is unlikely that a pre-SK script could have had 'lustral Y’, although it is not impossible. Since [Y]SK appears to be one of a number of similar SK shape-simplifications of exising Khmer-Pallava writing, its case should not be assessed in isolation. Evidence is good that fYJSK was in SK times a motivated digraph to represent conserved preglottalization. On the one

225

1

ANTHONY DILLER

J I ,

‘

*

1 , k

I

hand t'Y]FK/[’Y]LN is clearly a subsequent modification in turn of this very [Y] symbol — namely, [Y]SK. The modification appears to have been motivated by loss or lack of preglottalization in the LN area but with compensatory tonal differentiation, part of a larger phonological change. Loss of systematic preglottalization is almost certainly a one-way and ineversible sound change. Similarly, at least in the Tai milieu, a consonant shape with an added 'tail' can safely be assumed to follow (and not to precede) the 'tail-less' counterpart These two constraints would need to be kept in mind if one were to construct’ a sequence to replace the one suggested above. Other scenerios, of course, are possible and the construction above is only one way to account for the linguistic and epigraphic facts. However this way would appear for the moment to be the simplest way. It is hoped that the di^ussion above both may lead others to advance and test alternate proposals.

Notes i A shorter version of this paper was presented at the Thammasat University Language Symposium, Bangkok, August, 1988. The Thai National Research Council facilitated Held study relating to this paper, which was funded by the Australian Research Grants Scheme; co-researchers were Drs J.C. Eade and B J. Terwiel. A number of scholars assisted me in preparing this paper, but none is responsible for its shortcomings or questionable conclusions. Dr Gehan Wijeyewardene has kindly supplied me with important references, as has Dr Hans Penth. My thanks to Mrs Aroonrut Wicienkeeo who has patiently instructed me in the fundamentals of Lan Na script and has shared with me the findings of her recent research work. She has also been at the forefront of a commendable movement in Northern Thailand to study and preserve the Lan Na orthographic heritage. Lan Na script has faced strong Central Thai opposition. According to Singkha Wannasai (1975:8), from the time of King Chulalongkorn’s administrative reforms (after about 1890) there have been repeated efforts to eliminate the Lan Na text tradition, the most vigorous being in 1944 during the Pibun Songkhram government when abbots were actually ordered to bum Buddhist scriptures written in Lan Na script. Where relevant, the tone-marking system for (Modem) Thai of Mary R. Haas (1964) is used'together with a straightforward modification of the Royi Institute romanisation system: high vowels: i, u', u; mid: e, oe, o; low: ae. a, o'; length

226

THE EXTRA V IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

is shown by colon. The symbol ’y represents a preglotialized semivowel as described below. 2 The script in question is also referred to as tua mu'ang and (lua) tham', that is,, 'dharma letters’, presumably because the script was first and foremost associated with religious texts. An additional script called thai Met came into use in the nineteenth century and has direct links with Central Thai writing practice. It is not considered here (see Sin^dia Wannasai 1975:5). Some authorities use the term "Lah Na' (writing) to refer inclusively to a different script called ’Fak Kham’, described below; that inclusive practice is not followed here. Note that Tai' here" refers to the language family. 3 It is important to note that the essential innovation did not lie in placing these vowel signs on-line per se since Khmer-Pallava, as well as other Indic-based scripts, had similar on-line symbols for words beginning in vowel-sounds fi:-/ and /u;-/. In fact, the latter symbols somewhat resemble those used on Inscription 1. The innovation lay in establishing an interpretive convention: to allow the value of such symbols to represent either a vowel sounding before, or a vowel sounding after, the consonant that orthographically followed. Thus in 'Si Intharathit', both the /i:-/ in Si and the first vowel sound in Intharathit treated in the same way: with a preceding on-line /i:-/ symbol. In KhmerPallava, only the latter would have been treated in this on-line way. Note, however, that the way of representing the post-consonantal /-e:-/ sound in Khmer and similar scripts was exactly analogous to the reading allowed for /i:-/, etc., on Inscription 1. So the innovation was not so much the physical invention of on-line symbols as establishing a new (or actually an additional) method of reading. Charu'k. samai Sukhothai (1983:385); the editors of this work characterize the 1376.Pali text in question as the first know example of Lan Na script, but essentially similar Mon script had been used to,write Pali in the Lamphum area for some two centuries (V/ikho' silacharu'k naiphiphitthaphansathan haeng chat Hariphunchai, 1979). 5 For example, in the 'Mango-Grove' inscriptions of 1361; Charu'k samai Sukhothai (1986:222-256); see also Charu'k naiPrathet Thai 5 (1986:43-62). ^Namely 1 i, iv; 5^ Charu'knaiPrathet Thai5 (1986:77-83; 201-221).

Kannika Wimonkasem calls attention to an interesting gap in FK sources from about 1600-1800 (1983:37). ® For other designations, see n. 2.

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ANTHONY DILLER

But see Caru'k nai Prathet Thai 5 (1986:202) for an undated Sukhothai-area gold leaf with Tai written in Mon letters. The editors date it the century after 1450. The vowel [ae:] is represented in SK. Naina Prongthura’s chart shows that for the earlier sources the form of the marker mdy tho: is more like FK/SK; later there is evolution away from this. Data in 2 are from the same source; Naina Prongthura 1984:37,53,78, 85,89. A modified symbol answering to the extra SK velar letter kho’: khon is attested in LN from 1548 according to Naina Prongthura (1984:31). It would seem that recently there have been further attempts to bring LN 'into line' with Standard Central Thai as a simple isomorphic code. Thus Chaliao Munchan arranges Lan Na letters arbitrarily into '44 [basic] consonants' with several 'extra added consonants’ (1983:6) as though having a basic inventory of 44 consonants (in the Standard Thai manner) were a desirable norm; the full set of MT vowel symbols is also defined for LN. Other authorities give updated re­ spellings to etymologically conservative Lan Na forms as documented from earlier texts, that is, they translate etymologically spurious or innovating Central Thai spellings into modem LN. Neither Shan nor Ahom script differentiate consonants specific to the [High (-1- Mid)] / [Low] orthographic classes, suggesting that these scripts were adopted after important sound changes - which most authorities attribute to [Low] devoicing - that led to merger of certain formerly distinct consonants in these groups. SK, FK and LN scripts would appear to predate such changes, although this is not certain. Also, the changes undoubtedly affected different dialects at different times. Ahom, which is materially dated beginning with coins of about 1550, is problematic in showing a rather archaic form of Mon lettering as a plausible prototype for superficial orthographic shapes, but a writing practice more 'modem' and Shan-like in terms of the direct relation of consonant symbols to (presumably later) sounds: that is, Ahom fails to distinguish separate [High] and [Low] series consonant symbols. According to Kraisri Nimanheminda, LN was also brought to the Tai Lue town of Chiang Hung at this time; see Udom Rungruangsri (1984:13). Inscriptional fragments in FK-like script found at Ban Rae, Sakon Nakhon (Dhawaj Poonotoke 1987 225) would seem to date tol450 (Chulasakarat 812). However the astronomical and calendrical data in the inscription fail to confirm this date (J.C. Eade, personal communication). Nor do they support any better Dhawaj's conjectural reading of 1350 (Chulasakarat 712). Dating remains problematic. For FK only the word tua 'classifier for numbers’ occurs.

228

THE EXTRA ’Y’ IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

The letter forms are rather angular, as they are in the Wat Daen Mu'ang Inscription ofl530 in Phonphisai District, Nongkhai. Another inscription of the latter site dated five years later is closer to 'standard* FK orthography of the Lan Na area. See Caru'k nai Prathet Thai 5 (1986:328); also Dhawaj Poonotoke 1987:236-240(1986:317). CS 932 is the clear reading. For the earlier date, see Caru'k nai prathet Thai 5, p. 317. Aroonnrat Wichienkeeo (1978:22) citing local chronicles, in which the Chiang Mai king is called Phra Ket Klao. 20 For example, Inscription 73, Nan, 1512 (Prachum silacharu'k 5, 1965:198). Inscription Lamphun-29, Phayao, 1523 (Champa Yuangcharoen 1979:62). Inscription 104, Chom Thong District, Chiang Mai, 1556. {Prachum silacharu'k 4,1965:111). 21 For example. Inscription 74, Nan, 1548; (Prachum silacharu'k 3,1965:302). 22 For example, the two inscriptions of Wat Tham Suwan Khuha, Udon, 1562, 1572; Charu'k nai prathet Thai 5, 1987:302-307. The second inscription, reestablishing the monastic grant under Saiyasettha's successor, would seem to represent a Yelapse’ into FK script; the calendrical system is also readjusted (J.C. Eade, personal communication). 23 The Ayuthian version was written in Khmer script (Griswold and Prasert na Nagara 1979). 24 Note that Coed&s refers to Lan Na, Lue, etc., writing as Thai Noi’ script, as distinct from Shan (which he calls "Ngiaw* or ’Thai Yai*). He also suggests the functional assignment noted above of 'Thai Noi' tham to religions texts, including moral Jataka-like tales. 23 For example, Prasert-na Nagara (1985) has expressed skepticism about the early dating of these firagments. 26 Or perhaps: '... returned to using (Coedfes 1925:16): t^e: pha.-ylUng mil'a ray^ pho': s6': 2050 cha.-w la:n na: thay day lde:k chdy tua aks5':n sukh5:thay Ide kldp chdy tua aksd':n phuak lu':, khu': thay mu'ang sip sd':ngphon na:... Or perhaps it is also possible to read 'Lue script' in this passage not as a claim about the the provenance of LN script, but merely a means of differentiating it from FK (= Cc^ds' 'Sukhothai')? 2'7 For example. Inscription 76 of Wat Chiang Man, Chiang. Mai, 1581 (Griswold and Prasert na Nagara 1977).

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Whatever merit this proposal may have in general terms, the specific chronological claim of 147 AD is - for the present at least * in the realm of folklore or folk history. 29 The items yd; 'don’t' and yd; 'separate' are probably connected in terms of ultimate etymology. Superficially the spelling of these items appears to be erratic; more study is needed. For example, in the 1496 text of Wat Pa Bong discussed by Penth (1985b); see also Kannika Wimonkasem (1983: 90) for the item do':y 'with' so spelled in an inscription of 1611, although in several other FK sources two separate graphs are used. 31 A compound symbol composed of glottal stop + [Y]lN> th® latter in subscript form, is found on a Nan inscription of 1548 (Inscription 74.2.17 = Nan-5). 32 Compare inscriptions Lamphun-19 and -2,1502 and 1535 respectively. 33 The item 'woman' is variously spelled with [Y]LN and [N]LN. 34 Luo Yongxian kindly supplied the Zhuang data. Tones: Al 35; Bl, DI 55; Cl 23; A2 11; B2, D2 33; C2 52. Note that this initial contrasts with plain /y/ in a manner accounted for by Li's reconstructions. 35 Li (1977:256); Nan follows Davis (1970:3). Note that among younger Lan Na speakers in urban areas such as Chiang Mai there has been a recent loss of phonemic status of /fl/ through the change /fl/ > /y/, that is, as though to bring the Lan Na consonant inventory in line with that of Central Thai (Singkha Wannasai 1975:106). This may account for the conflicting opinions of how specific palatal items are now to be spelled in modem LN; such differences are to be found in various recent Lan Na manuals and word lists not reflecting an analysis of older textual usage. Designations 'low' and 'high' in 9 refer to tone classes and thus indirectly to some attributes of modem MT spelling. 36 Similarly for Saek (Wilaiwan Khannitanan 1976). 3”^ Note that the Southern Thai dictionary of Suthiwong Phongphaibun et al. (1982) appears to report preservation of preglottalization for /*'y/ items; local dialects may differ in this regard. 38 Items spelled as though /val/ or fwal/ 'turn' are attested from the late seventh century (Jenner 1981:393). 39 The latter in fact is more representative of the Lan Na tradition of writing, which until very recently appears not to have had the same degree of uniformity as did the southern SK system.

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THE EXTRA V IN NORTHERN THAI SCRIPT

However this account ignores the problem of reconstrucing earlier stages of Lue phonology. For example, most (all?) modem dialects of Lue show the same sound changes as characterize MT in 9: /*y/, /♦ff/ /*'y/ and /♦hfi/ all merging to modem /y/. When did these changes take place in Lue and how would they affect the orthographic developments under discussion hare?

References Aroonnrut Wichienkeeo 1978 Prawatsat chiang mai' (History of Chiang Mai). In Prakong Nimmanhaeminda and Songsak Prangwattanakun (eds) Lan na thai khadi, pp. 11-47. Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai Book Centre. Chaliao Munchan 1983 Akso'n thorn Ian na (The Dhamma script of Lan Na). Bangkok: Thai Wattanaphanit. Champa Yuangcharoen et al. 1979 Wikhro' silacaru'k nai phiphitthaphansathan haeng chat hariphunchai analysis of the inscriptions in the National Hariphunchai Museum). Bangkok: Krom Siplakom.

Chit Phumisak 1983 Ruam botkhwam thang phasa lae niruktisat (Collected papers on linguistics and etymology). Bangkok: Dok Ya Press. Coedbs, Georges 1925 Tcwman akso'n thai {k history of the Thai alphabet). Bangkok: Khurusapha.

Davis, Richard 1970 A Northern Thai Reader. Bangkok: The Siam Society.

Dhawaj Poonotoke 1983 'Akso'n nai prathet thai kap kan ti khwam ruang chon chat' (The alphabet in Thailand and explaining the Thai race'.) In 700pi haeng laisu Thai (700 years of Thai writing) pp. 11-25. Bangkok: Ministry of Education.

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1987

Silacharuk isan (Inscriptions of Northeast Thailand). Bangkok: Ramkhamhaeng University.

Difflolh, Gfirard 1984 The Dvaravati Old Mon Language and Nyah Kur. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Printing House. Diller, Anthony 1979 How many tones for Southern Thai?' In Nguyen Dang Liem (ed.) South-East Asian Linguistic Studies, Vol. 4, pp.117-129. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C49.

Donaldson, Jean and Di&u Chinh Nhim 1970 Tai-Vietnamese-English Vocabulary. Saigon: B6 Glao-Duc Xuat Ban. Duangduen Suwattee and Pranee Kullavanijaya 1976 'A study of qy y hY and Y’. In T.W. Gething et al. (eds) Tai Linguistics in Honor of Fang Kuei Li, pp.214-224. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press. Fine Arts Department 1979 Wikhro'silacharu'k nai phiphilthaphansathan haeng chat hariphunchai (Investigation of the inscriptions of the National Hariphunchai museum). Lamphun. 1986 Charu'k nai prathet thai (Inscriptions in Thailand). Bangkok. 1983 Charu'k samai sukhothai (Inscriptions of the Sukhothai period). Bangkok.

Gelb, IJ 1952

A Study of Writing. University of Chicago Press.

Griswold, A.B. and Prasert na Nagara 1971 'Epigraphic and historical studies No. 9: The inscription of King Rama Gamheng of Sukhodaya (1292 A.D.)'. JSS 59:179-228. 1974 ’Epigraphic and historical studies No. 13: The inscription of Wat PhraYun'./SS 62(1):123-125. 1977 'Epigraphic and historical studies No. 18: The inscription of Vat Juan Hman (Wat Chieng Man)'. JSS 65:111-144.

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1978 1979

'Epigraphic and historical studies No. 19: An inscription from Keng Tung (1451 A.D.)'. JSS 66(l):66-88. 'Epigraphic and historical studies No. 24: An inscription of 1563 A.D. recording a treaty between Laos and Ayodhya in 1560*. JSS 67:54-69.

Jenner, Philip N. 1981 A Chrestomathy of Pre-Angkorian Khmer. Vol. 2. Lexicon of the . Dated Inscriptions. Southeast Asia Paper No. 20, Part IL Honolulu: University of Hawaii Center for Asian and Pacific Studies.

Kanhika Wimonkasem. 1983 Akso'n fak kham thi phop nai silacharu'k phak nu'a {Fak kham script found in inscriptions of the northern region). Bangkok: Silpakom Univo^ity.

Lafont, Pierre-Bemard 1962a "Les 6critures pali au Laos'. BEFEO. 50:395-405. 1962b 'Les Ventures tai au Laos'. BEFEO. 50:367-93. Li Fang Kuei 1977 A Handbook Comparative Tai. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications No. 15.

Naina Prongthura 1984 AAjo'n tham Ian na (The Dhamma Alphabet of Lan Na). Bangkok: Silpakom University. Office of the Prime Minister 1965 Prachum Silackaruk 3 (Collected Inscriptions 3). Bangkok. Penth, Hans 1973 'Notizen zilr Geschichte der Yuan-schrift'. Acta Orientalia 35’.XC3165. 1985a The Wat Kan Thom inscriptions and the development of Thai letters'. Seminar on Lan Na History and Archaeology, Chiang Mai Teachers College, 28-31 January 1985. 1985b Kansamruat lae wichai charu'k 1.6.1.1 War Pa Bong, pho’ so’ 2039 kho’ so' 1496’ (Research on inscription 1.6.1.1 Wat Pa Bong 1496). Silpakon 29(2):65-69.

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1986a Thai scripts: an outline of their origin and development.' In H.R.H. Galyani Vadhana (ed.) Yunnan., pp. 246-249. Bangkok 1986b 'On the history of Thai scripts'. Newsletter 2(3):2-4. Bangkok: The Siam Society.

Prasert na Nagara 1983 'Laisu' that ’(Thai writing of the Sukhothai period). In Ruam bot khwam ru'ang phasa lae akso'n that (Collected papers on the Thai language and alphabet) pp. 19-39. Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, 1985 'Prawatsat Ian na ch ok charu'k' (The history of Lan Na from inscriptions’. Silapawattanatham 6(6):84-90. Shorto, H.L. 1970 A Dictionary of the Mon Inscriptions from the Sixth to the Sixteenth Centuries (London Oriental Series, Volume 24). London: Oxford University Press.

Sila Viravongse 1973 Akso'nsat lao pawatsat nangsu' lao (The Lao alphabet and the history of Lao writing). Wiang Chan: Phai Nam. Singkha Wannasai 1975 Tamra rian akso^n Ian na that (Textbook for the study of the Lan Na alphabet). Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University.

Suthiwong Phongphaibun et al. 1982 Photchananukrom phasa thai thin tai (Dictionary of Southern Thai) Songkhla: Institute of Southern Thai Studies. Udom Rungniangsri 1984 Rabob kankhian akso'n Ian na (The system of writing the Lan Na alphabet) Chiang Mai University: Khrongkan Tamra N^awitthayalai, Andap 19. Uthai Piromruen and Dhawaj Poonotoke 1984 'The Northeastern Scripts During the Lao Period,16-19 Century A.D'. Paper- presented to the International Conference on Thai Studies, Bangkok, 1984.

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Vickery, Michael 1987 The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription; a Piltdown Skull of Southeast Asian History?’ Proceedings of (he International Conference on Thai Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, 3-6 July, 1987 (Compiled by Ann Buller), Vol. 1, pp.191-211.

Wilaiwah Khanittanan 1976 Phasa saek (The Saek language). Bangkok: Thammasat University.

Wyatt, David K. 1984 Thailand, a Short History. New Haven: Yale University Press.

235

Patterns of the Mind 3 Myth

Transformations of Karen Myths of Origin and Relations of Power Ananda Rajah Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

I suppose, though I am not altogether sure, there is barely a society without its major narratives, told, retold and varied; formulae, texts, ritualised texts to be spoken in well-defined circumstances, things said once and conserved because people suspect some hidden secret or wealth lies buried within. In short, 1 suspect one could find a kind of gradation between different types of discourse within most societies: discourse 'uttered' in the course of the day and in casual meetings, and which disappears with the very act which gave rise to it; and those forms of discourse that lie at the origins of a certain number of new verbal acts, which are reiterated, transformed or discussed... The radical denial of this gradation can never be anything but play, utopia or anguish. Play, as Borges uses the term, in the form of commentary that is nothing more than the reappearance, word for word (though this time it is solemn and anticipated) of the text comment^ on; or again, the play of a work of criticism talking endlessly about a work that does not exist. Foucault 1972:220 James Joyce said that his Homeric parallels were a mere bridge for marching his eighteen episodes over: once they were across, the structure could be blown skyhigh. This was ingenuous ... Joyce required the device of myth not because myth would say more about modern life, either through

ANANDA RAJAH

mockery or elevation to a place of genuine heroism, but because myth justified textual inspissation. Burgess 1987:365

Richard Davis and the Study of Muang Myth and Ritual In his remarkable study of a northern Thai ritual system, Muang Metaphysics, Richard Davis devoted his final chapter to a theoretical consideration of the relationship between myth and rite. The Muang myths which Davis examined in his study were drawn from a corpus, much of which was written down, provided by his most important informant, Noi Inta Muangphrom. The rites, on the other hand, were the subject of Davis's own observations. Davis's argument, in essence, was that while ritual behaviour 'is structured in terms of an ideology which consists of asymmetrically opposed concepts' (1984:283) expressing 'the imposition of schemata upon an undifferentiated universe' (1984:295), myth or the myth-maker, bn the other hand, exaggerates ambiguities and dissolves cognitive boundaries partly through a relaxation of schematic vigilance as. well as to suggest metaphysically that there is some universal essence underlying the contrasts and oppositions imposed upon experience by the mind (1984:296-298). Central to this is paidia, a concept Davis took from Callois (1961), which is the 'playful emphasis of spontaneity, uncontrolled fantasy, and carefree gaiety' (1984:293). It can be destructive in the sense that it violates the order imposed upon experience by our cognitive categories. In Davis's view, paidia may be seen as a drive that runs counter to a need, probably instinctual, for order; furthermore, the relaxation of schematic vigilance through paidia is necessary to restore energy, if it is assumed that the imposition of schemata and the constant vigilance necessary to maintain them requires some degree of psychic energy (1984:294). Davis's considerable scholarship is amply demonstrated in his finely documented ethnography of the northern Thai village of Landing* and the thoroughness of his investigations and understanding of Tai myths and ritual

* 'Landing' is the translation of the Thai name Ban Tha [£ the nation beyond its capital: it was a sign that the king and court continued to set the hour by which all tasks of moment should be performed. Yet it also embodied an accuracy that derived not from the watchfulness of the officials, nor even of the king himself, but was in keeping with a universal apprehension which also prevailed elsewhere. Mongkut's journeys around his kingdom, which wwe begun while he was a monk and then continued as a new royal tradition after his accession, also served to make real in a new jvay the idea as well as extent of the monarch's domain. Siam's borders were threatened by a new kind of potential intruder with the heightened rivalry between England and France for territories in the area, and King Mongkut actively encouraged and sought to learn what he could of his kingdom from the Westerners who, from their surveys in remoter areas, were for the first time creating accurate maps (Moffat 1961:170). To make the most of this new information Mongkut had further recourse to the inspiration made possible by the revelations of Copernicus — that the earth was 'like a pomelo' — and he took a keen delight in taking measurements and making calculations for the time differences in various parts of the kingdom. These differences were often carefully recorded in the announcements which he made concerning events of astronomical interest, and were given some prominence in order to highlight a feature of Western astronomy which represented a considerable advance on the methods of the Siamese astronomer­ astrologers. We are told in the recollections of his descendants that during his travels he would pause frequently to guage his location in longitude and latitude from observation of the sun, or to lake measurements of the positions of the stars, and for this same end he ordered the construction of his own Royal Observatory near Phelburi (Chula 1982:211). But Mongkut also fully realized the implications of the theory for the position of his kingdom in relation to the rest of the world. The address with which he had headed a letter to a Western correspondent, ’[d]ated a place of sea surface 13®26’ N. latitude and 101®3’ E. longitude in Gulf of Siam', reveals more than a simple 'amusing determination to emulate Western scientists' (Blofeld 1972:96), for Mongkut, in such

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communication with Europeans, saw himself as placing Bangkok (and Siam) quite firmly and precisely on their maps. While all of these innovations were visible to the European foreigners, who often as not regarded them merely as evidence of a rather quixotic form of Westernization, it is in the addresses to his own Siamese subjects that we see most clearly why Mongkut as king may have been so taken with astronomy. A large proportion of the available work by Mongkut on matters astronomical is to be found in the Royal Pronouncements issued during his time on the throne. Most of these prakat are the New Year Pronouncements which were routinely issued to announce the important dates of each coming year, and in which Mongkut ran a continuing campaign to enlighten his audience on his views on some of the finer points of traditional calendrical calculations, especially for Buddhist ceremonial purposes.^ Of greater interest to the present discussion, however, are the pronouncements which Mongkut issued on the occasion of any unusual or noteworthy astronomical occurrence, of which there were several during his reign. Mongkut-'s contribution to the creation of these announcements — as well as his own particular interest in the calculation of eclipses, which we have already seen to have begun during his early days in the monkhood — is evident in the particularly detailed description of how a lunar eclipse would appear to observers at various, locations in Siam, an occasion on which Mongkut proudly and pointedly announced that this set of calculations was entirely his own work, and not that of his astrologers (Phracomklao 2511, 1:361). Given the attention paid to the eclipse of 1868, it is worth noting that Mongkut carefully recorded all the expected eclipses for each year, on occasion even mentioning those that would not be visible in Siam, so that people who considered the periods of eclipses not to be auspicious could avoid them when finding auspicious times (Phracomklao 2511,11:6). Many of the announcements concerning astronomically significant events, however, were not restricted to questions of timing. Those concerning the appearance of comets, for example, often served a complex range of aims, from tho medically educative to the political. Mongkut's announcement concerning the comet which appeared above Bangkok in 1858 was, as its title indicated, an attempt to prevent consternation being caused among the public. To this end the king recalled that there had been a comet visible forty-eight years previously.

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during the second reign, and at more or less the same time of year. He pointed out that no great calamity had resulted from that event, the only consequences of note having been outbreaks of smallpox, an epidemic amongst water buffalo, and a lack of rain. He then went on to report that the European nations had already seen the current comet several months previously, and had written about it in the newspapers. Unlike the planets, he informed his audience, comets had a very long orbit, and thus did not appear regularly as the planets did; there was no need for alarm among the populace, however, or for rumours, since it was not as if the comet came to appear only in this capital (that is, Bangkok) and its environs. On the contrary, he argued, it was a phenomenon visible to people in probably every country on the face of the earth (Phracofnkbo 2511,1:288-289). Here we can see that Mongkut is presenting, at least in part, a 'scientific' argument as to why his subjects should not be concerned at the appearance of a comet which, as experience shows, is not a calamitous event and which, as is known from science, is not in any way unnatural, merely rare. The remainder of the argument is less 'logical' from a purely scientific viewpoint — at least in terms of allaying fears on the part of the people — but it still shows a modem cast in Mongkut's thinking: that new awareness of place and relatedness which we have already seen to be part of the Copernican influence. A few years later another comet appeared in the Bangkok sky, but the fact that this time Mongkut had been able to predict the appearance beforehand was used to give his argument concerning the significance and effects of the comet greater scientific and moral force. In his announcement on this occasion he reiterated the likely consequences of the comet's appearance; large animals falling prey to illness, smallpox, and drought or too much rain. In support of this predicted correlation, he noted that these consequences had in fact eventuated after the appearance of the previous comet some three years before. On this occasion, however, he went on to detail the ways in which the populace should prepare themselves against the expected consequences. His advice included the suggestions that anyone who had not had themselves or their children innoculated against smallpox should do so immediately, and that rice should be harvested or purchased as soon as possible. He also gave further advice on the subject of disease prevention, much of which would have pleased Western public health experts of the day (Phracomklao 2511,1:438-439).

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It is possible to argue that Mongkut used his knowledge of scientific astronomy to promote proper understanding of such hitherto fear-inspiring phenomena as comets, and in doing so educated the public on how to react sensibly and in a rational way to their environment and ignore the unfounded predictions of fortune-teUers (Maenmas 2511:603). Indeed, it can be seen that the whole context of this public communication was explicitly bolstered by the advance warning it contained of the events to come, and the consequent promotion of the idea that such eventualities as comets and their effects were caused by discernible laws; and that these effects could therefore be pre-empted by preventative action, animuch danger thereby averted. Yet at the same time, it seems that Mongkut s interpretation of the comet's appearance was unashamedly based at least in part on the predictive assumptions of his native astrology, and it is'’also plausible to suggest that his advisory role, however practical, was no different in kind to the pragmatic advice normally offered by an astrologer who has predicted some portended calamity. It was generally accepted that astrological predictions were at some level based on generalizations derived from experience, and this view Mongkut here explicitly endorsed, despite his own original interpretations of the perceived effects. He combined his astrological experience with the latest concepts and facilities provided by Western science in such a way as to reinforce the authority of both traditions. Mongkut justified his announcement in terms of his position as one fulfilling his role as guiding and protective parent of his people in their time of adversity (Phracomklao 2511, 1:439). Simply to suppose that Mongkut unproved on astrology with a dash of science to try to minimize the hardship on the citizens caused by the comet ignores the context in which Mongkut came to address the subject at all. The remainder of the announcement gives us further indications as to why Mongkut felt impelled to issue his statement on the comet. Mongkut explicitly denied the specific notion that the appearance of a comet signifies the death or misfortune of those in positions of power and authority, and consequent political chaos. To counter this belief Mongkut argued that following the appearance of a comet three years previously nothing of this son had happened, a fact which had shown up the deception of mediums and fortunetellers (Phracomklao 2511,1:440).^ This suggests that it may well have been the

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wide circulation of such politically volatile speculations on the comet's portents which had prompted the rather tardy proclamation against consternation and unrest on the first occasion, and that this previous experience played a part in his preceding the current comet's appearance with an informed prediction. In his first comet announcement of 1858, Mongkut was careful to point out that the comet visited not only his capital, but also many other countries, including some in Europe. While this may have served to add weight to his scientific argument concerning comet orbits, it may also have been an implicit defence against any argument concerning his own political position. By denying that what appeared, by traditional standards, to be a bad omen could have relevance only for the Siamese capital, Mongkut implicitly rejected the plausibility of an interpretation indicating disaster (and by implication moral inadequacy) associated specifically with his own reign. In'the second comet proclamation, Mongkut argued that, like a disease, which does not choose its victim but strikes whoever has a vulnerability to infection due to an existing illness, a comet is only an excuse for acting on ill will and malice which already exists towards those in authority (Phracomklao 2511,1:440). He then changed his terms of reference to point out that Vietnam, whose rulers had not been prepared to negotiate friendship treaties with Europeans, and who had made a fiiss over the issue, had ended up fighting with thefarang (in a series of events which escalated around the time of the appearance of the previous comet; see Thipakorawong 1965:193-195); whereas Siani, who had sensibly agreed to treaties with them, was much better off. Therefore a comet does not incite people to fight: they start that themselves. Mongkut then referred to'a well-known slave with considerable debts who had set fire to some houses on the occasion of the previous comet, taking advantage of the state of speculation and rumour-mongering at the time and “hoping to escape both his predicament and detection if the prevailing atmosphere of unrest should bring about a crisis. Eventually, however, the malefactor was caught and executed for his actions. This example showed, argued Mongkut, that if the populace allowed themselves to become agitated over such rumours, if they become fearful and, ceasing to think of themselves as a unity, stopped helping one another, people such as this man or those seeking to plunder others' dwellings would find their chance. Officials and citizens alike, therefore, should

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not give credent^ to witches and fortune-tellers who predict that this or that will happen as the result of a comet. Humans can learn to calculate and forecast comet appearances juSt as they can eclipses of the sun and moon, proclaimed Mongkut, but the methods of mercenary fortune-tellers and mediums cannot prod.uce such predictions. Mongkut completed his argument by reviewing the evidence provided by the history of the kingdom to the effect that none of the comets seen over Bangkok had ever caused a change of ruler; and on none of the three occasions of a reign change had there appeared a comet. The only consequences of a cometary appearance were therefore the minor afflictions already outlined, and it was clear that comets did not signify danger to the king. For final good measure, Mongkut added that the rumours circulating in the year of the previous comet concerning the appearance of two suns (another omen of misfortune for the ruler) were also unfounded, the illusion having been caused by the reflection of the sun in a viewing apparatus (Phracomklao 2511,1:442). We may conclude from this extended discussion that Mongkut’s proclamations on the effects of comets cannot be seen as a purely scientific exercise; nor one based solely on astrological speculation. It is clear that Mongkut has reason to deny the supernatural associations which have been said to pertain to comets by 'mediums and fortune-tellers’, but he does so by impugning the motives as well as the methods of such people, and he certainly stops short of an anti-astrological, scientific argument that comets do not really mean or portend’ anything at all. Indeed, we learn rather more about the contemporary social and political order from this proclamation than we do of the degree of Siamese acceptance of Western astronomy.^ Mongkut’s remarks formed part of a continuing discourse on the meaning of the celestial signs, not a refutation of that discourse; and the context in which that discourse was carried on continued to define the issues, if not the incidentals. The spectre raised by the comet here is not that of unseen, omnipotent supernatural forces acting iivaccordance with universal laws of righteousness, but the immediate peril of immoral elements within society itself, and the susceptibility of a credulous and divided community. Yet it cannot be argued that Mongkut is opposing the reading of omens per re. for here he is. rather, concerned to counter a specific and politically injurious instance of it. This was a

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continuation of the use of court-centred theories of political omens: an innovative response to a sense of crisis coincident with, or perhaps sparked by, a natural occurrence. The example of Mongkut’s astronomical learning which has, above all, contributed to Mongkut’s fame among Western scholars as a true convert to Western astronomical principles is his prediction of the total solar eclipse which was to appear over Thailand in the latter half of 1868. At the same time, this famous incident is often cited as proof of Mongkut’s outstanding abilities in Thai horasat. It would seem from the Thai record of this event that when Mongkut issued a proclamation that in almost two years' time, on Tuesday, the first waxing day of the tenth month in the year of the dragon, tenth year of the decade (18 August 1868), there would be a complete solar eclipse which would be visible over Thailand, the news was greeted with widespread- incredulity by his royal astrologers and other members of the court It is often reported in explanation for this that at that time even knowledgeable astrologers did not conceive of the possibility of a solar eclipse which would totally obscure the sun, even though total eclipses of the moon were known."^ It may also be the case that it was unusual for an astronomer to be able to predict so precisely the time of an eclipse which was, after all, still a long time off; or it may simply have been that the prediction was not in accord with the ephemeris provided by the court astrologers. Certainly, it seems clear that his astrologers did not concur in Mongkut’s judgement (Moffat 1961:171). Mongkut’s prediction specified that the eclipse, which would be visible over quite'a wide area, could best be viewed (from within the kingdom) at a place, located at a particular latitude and longitude, which proved to be in a small coastal afea in the southern province of Prachuab Khiri Khan known as Waa Kor. Significantly, Mongkut was later recorded to have come to these startling conclusions

by using the old astrological texts of Siamese and Mon, as well as many old American and English texts. The king had made use of all these texts, to come to one and the same final conclusion (Thipakorawong 1966:532).

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In other words, the prediction was the result of research in a combination of systems of astronomical theory and calculation, both Eastern and European. Mpngkut decided to make a great public occasion of the eclipse, and since he had ascertained that the eclipse would not be visible in its entirety in the capital (Phracomkiao 2511,11:304), he ordered an expedition to Waa Kor in order to view it As the time of the eclipse drew nearer, the king made certain of his calculations and ordered temporary pavilions to be built on the location he had calculated as having maximum visibility within his kingdom. When a contingent of French ^tronomers applied for permission to come to view the eclipse in the same afea Mongkul assigned them a viewing area some distance to the south. The king issued a proclamation announcing the coming eclipse which was widely distributed for the information of all (Thipakorawong 1966:533), and also took the opportunity offered by the occasion to invite the Governor of Singapore, Sir Harry Ord, to come up to his camp to view the eclipse and pay a visit to the monarch. Ord accepted the invitation, and brought along with him a .sizeable entourage. Mongkut himself assembled many members of his court, including large numbers of his children, many of the most eminent astrologers of the capital, and all available Europeans within his employ within the capital in a large convoy which set out in boats for the royal camp, while other sections of the entourage preceded to the site by horse and elephant. An indication of the size and importance of the expedition is given by the.fact that the accommodation erected for their stay had a capacity for almost one thousand people (Blofcid 1972:86), while some of the difficulties overcome can be imagined when it is remembered that it was then the rainy season and the remote area chosen was still dense jungle (Saneh 2525:513). Among the expeditioners there may have been much scepticism. One of the party later admitted that he did not believe there would be a complete eclipse of the sun even though the king himself had predicted it; but it was necessary to go along on the journey out of consideration for His Majesty (Damrong 2514:37). The excursion commenced well. To the surprise and delight of the foreigners present the king had provided magnificently for his numerous and distinguished guests, the unlikely surroundings notwithstanding. The temporary quarters

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constructed for the King’s guests, both Siamese and foreign, were substantial and spacious. Indeed, Mongkut's hospitality knew almost no bounds on this occasion, for despite the jungle setting and the great distance from the capital, there was generous provision of European food, under the supervision of a French chef, for the foreigners, as well as the luxury of champagne and, most miraculous of all, even ice was laid on for the benefit of the party (Blofeld 1972:86). While the provisions made for the expedition could not fail to please the guests of the monarch, there was another aspect of the lime spent at Waa Kor which was equally impressive to theunvited Westerners, for Mongkut had apparently decided to set another precedent by allowing the ladies of the Palace who had accompanied him to mingle freely with the foreign guests at a social gathering, a rare and signal honour, as well as having the royal children called forth to speak English with them. While we may wonder that Mongkut chose such an out-of-the-way place to ’revolutionize' court etiquette (Moffat 1961:172), the ladies seemed to regard the occasion as a boon, for they are reported to have requested that the visitors invite their host to be their guest in Singapore, that the ladies might be afforded an opportunity to venture even further afield from the confines of the palace (Anonymous 1870:128). Altogether the Siamese court represented by the expeditionary party provided an unprecedentedly outwardoriented and cosmopolitan face to its observers. On the morning of 18 August the king emerged to take his position at the telescopes only to find the eastern sky filled with clouds. The clouds suddenly lifted, however, soon after the eclipse had started, and as soon as the commencement of the eclipse was perceived, a fanfare was sounded, and King Mongkut took the bath of purification prescribed by royal custom for the occurrence of a solar eclipse (Thipakorawong 1966: 538).^ One Siamese account of the total eclipse captures the drama of the occasion by noting that the senior court astrologer who had accompanied the king (Luang Lokathip) exclaimed aloud at the sight, quite forgetful of his proximity to the king (Damrong 2514:42). The king distributed money to members of the royal family and officials of all ranks who had accompanied him on the trip (Thipakorawong 1966:538), thereby again honouring the appropriate custom for the occasion; but to his guests he was also quick to provide a quite novel perspective on the event

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The nearby villagers, on seeing the eclipse, had created a din by drum-beating and fire-crackers, but Mongkut

remarked with a smile to his guests that they must not think these people were trying to frighten the demon [i.e. Rahu, who was believed to swallow the sun during an eclipse in Indian-derived folk tradition]: they were merely celebrating their sovereign’s skill in having been able to calculate the moment of Ae eclipse more accurately than the European astronomers (Gnswold 1961:51).

Bradley also noted that the 'Prime Minister' strode to his pavilion to exclaim loudly 'Will you now believe the foreigners?' (Journal, 18 August 1868). Mongkut evidently regarded the observation as a vindication of his calculating skills, for reports were circulating around the camp that evening to the effect that the king’s computations were actually two seconds more accurate than those made by the French astronomers, and when the king paid an impromptu visit to some of his foreign guests that afternoon his excellent humour was obvious (Anonymous 1870:127). Although Mongkufs methods of calculation are apparently neither widely known nor understood (Singhto Bukhut 2527:8). it seems that Mongkut's reported accuracy and the attitude demonstrated in his remark concerning the villagers have endeared him to those who see him as presenting a 'more scientific’ view of such things as eclipses (for example, Griswold 1961:50). It is this view which is also celebrated in modem Thailand when in 1982, the bicentennial year of the founding of Bangkok and the Cakkri dyn^ty, it was decided to commemorate the observation of the eclipse by naming 18 August as the National Science Day and by encouraging Thai to pay respect to Mongkut on this day each year (Saneh 2525:518). Mongkut thereby receives official recognition .as the first Thai monarch to win acceptance in the international intellectual and scientific community, which js what the event has come to symbolize: and in this view Mongkut is quite appropriately the ’Father of Thai Science'. It seems entirely logical to regard the fourth reign as that in which the Siamese adopted Western science, and Mongkut as the first notable Siamese who could show that Siamese could not only be proficient in a Western scientific system, but actually more so than the Westerners. Mongkut's predictions were

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accordingly recorded for posterity as being the first to locate the centre of the path of the sun on the day of the eclipse and thus calculate the best viewing location (Saneh 2525:512). Mongkut also exploited the educational potential of the eclipse by issuing an announcement prior to the event, informing his subjects of the occurrence (Thipakorawong 1966:533), and the almost fifty copies of a description of the actual eclipse written and distributed on his return (Saneh 2525:517; see Phracomklao 2512:29-35) showed that the actual eclipse had confonned precisely to the predictions of the king (Rawi 2511:34). If the formerly sceptical astrologer who loudly exclaimed his delight at the eclipse was typical of the king’s entourage in general, then the king was successful indeed. However Mongkut's return to the capital was as anti-climactic as his expedition had been triumphant. The chronicle of his reign records that a few days after his return Mongkut questioned the Chief Astrologer (phra horathibodi), who had not accompanied His Majesty to the viewing camp, about the observation of the solar eclipse in Bangkok: what portion of the sun was obscured and what portion was hot. When he found that neither his chief astrologer nor the other eminent astrologers before him could reply to these queries, the king, furious, ordered that they all suffer a most humiliating punishment:

they were all to be sent to scrub stones at the saranrom Palace for one day. After the day of labor, they were to be imprisoned under the court secretary's room. While imprisoned there, each of them was to wear a chain made of shells from the large fresh water snail on his neck. Their meals would be given to them on coconut shells and on fibrous coverings of the areca nut They were to be thus imprisoned for eight days (Thipakorawong 1966: 540). The king met with the same lack of success when he questioned some of the ladies of the inner palace. When the individuals he questioned there described the portion of the sun which had not been .eclipsed as being seen as about one-andone-half niw in width,

[the] king retorted that people used the niw unit of measure only to measure a certain pan of a man’s l»dy and that these ladies did not know the correct way

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to speak, despite the fact that they were ladies of the palace (Thipakorawong 1966: 541).

Accordingly, the women were also punished. Mongkut felt impelled to berate other members of the court for not having sent him any reports on the nature of the eclipse as seen from the capital. These were later somewhat belatedly provided. However, later still, when the king met the same incapacity to describe cl^Iy the Bangkok view of the eclipse among his high-ranking monks, he decided that because of these erroneous and ignorant responses from those in the court he should have a full and accurate account of the eclipse as seen at Waa Kor written and distributed for the edification of those who had not seen it (Krom Silpakorn in Phracomklao 2512:n.p.). It should by now be clear that the events surrounding the eclipse of 1868 are capable of supporting the divergent views of Mongkut's achievements mentioned at the commencement of this paper. The king’s remarks to the assembled onlookers concerning the accuracy of the king causing the villagers to celebrate his triumph rather than frighten the demon Rahu no doubt reflects Mongkut's wish that this should be the case, and that the accuracy of the King of Siam would be recognized by all, Siamese and foreigner alike. The occurrence of an eclipse was too meaning-imbued for the Siamese of the day for the pure fa^inatibn of scientific curiosity to be a likely explanation of interest.'While, arguably. Mongkut strove to draw attention to the eclipse in order to point out the predictability of such events, the population at large were more concerned with the potential national disaster which might result (Moffat 1961:171). We have seen from Mongkut's witty remarks to the assembled guests at Waa Kor that he recognized the traditional associations of eclipses, and yet he was keen for these to be supplanted by his own views. It is doubtful whether this can be construed u a reaction to purely local rural beliefs, for even some of Mongkut's senior Ministers accepted the notion of Rahu as the cause of eclipses (Bradley, Journal, 25 July, 1868). Moreover, to suppose, as some Western commentators have done, that Mongkut was purely motivated by the 'desire to convince the astrologers of the validity of scientific prediction' is to ignore the existing means of astronomical calculation of eclipses Siamese astrologers already had at their disposal, and reflects a tendency evident in the contemporary reports to give

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Western influence too much credit (Wilson 1976:181). Mongkut was not introducing anything essentially new to the Siamese astrologers of his day, only improving on their existing knowledge by the addition of extra information, skilfully and successfully applied — for this is surely the significance o'f the chronicle stating that he had used both Western and Eastern texts to make his calculations. It is this last aspect of his prediction which enables Thai astrologers and historians to claim Mongkut as the Father of Thai Astrology, for they can state without fear of contradiction that Mongkut's training in the astronomy of his own nation was a basis for his success. In this view the fact that Mongkut al^ proved his own astrologers wrong is of comparatively minor significance, and can even be ignored if preponderance is assigned to his Siamese training, and if his royal status is taken into account. The record of Mongkut's mastery and use of both Western and Siamese/Burmese astronomical calculations not only emphasizes to a Thai audience the skill and resourcefulness of their monarch, but also explicitly rejects the notion of incompatibility; and indeed implicitly suggests that it may have been Mongkut's proficiency in the Eastern methods which made him a better astronomer than the Europeans. The idea that Mongkut showed the world that he was the equal of anyone in his adoption of Western astronomy, not only appeals to the nationalist sentiments whereby Thai can be proud to be Thai (Sivaraksa 2511:791), it also serves to reinforce one of the major themes of much of the history of this period, narriely the role of Siam's kings in protecting the independence of the country by rapid modernization with the introduction of Western ideas and technology in order to thwart annexation by European colonial powers. The promotion of Mongkut's role as statesman in the eclipse affair emphasizes the political and diplomatic aspects of the expedition rather than the purely 'scientific'. The king and his nobles socialized with their country’s guests in a free and equal manner. This change can be regarded as the first time this had occurred in Thailand. Forang believed that [Thailand] was one of those countries which cannot adapt easily. The events which ih&farang came and experienced themselves impressed them and made them certain that Thailand could progress quickly, since it did not have a closed-door policy, and associated with/arang in an honourable way (Saneh 2525:514).

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While the success of the solar eclipse expedition can support a number of views of astrology at the time, the trip was not a total success, as the chronicle record of the event shows. What are we to make of the strange anti-climactic return to the capital? That Mongkut’s predictions met with a resistance amounting to insubordination from his astrologers is clear, and is easily attributable to a sense of injured professional pride.. Yet Mongkut also found the same lack of interest in his triumph among other members of the court, and even his monks failed to support him in this instance. What raised the king's ire most was that no one who had stayed in Bangkok had cared to observe the eclipse in the approved scientific fashion, or that those who had could not report competently — did not know the correct way to speak — on what they had seen. It would seem that Mongkut expected to find an interest in the technical aspects of the eclipse which was simply not there, in spite of his previous published announcements, and that for the members of the court who had not been invited to the official viewing of the event, the actual eclipse itself was not uppermost in their concern. It is reported of the time prior to the eclipse that the populace at large were more concerned with the national disaster which the total solar eclipse might .portend than they were with the niceties of accurate prediction (Moffat 1961:171). and it is not unlikely that the 61ite were equally concerned with this aspect of the eclipse, since their own astrological treatises supported the idea that eclipses were times of inauspiciousness. On this occasion Mongkut seems to have ignored these connotations in favour of a fashionable and extravagant 'scientific' expedition, and yet is this in fact the case? Rather, it seems more likely that Mongkut was on this occasion, as he had done before, reinterpreting the event rather than denying its significance: rather than cowering before the ominous implications of the event, he made a celebration of it. Just as he revolutionized the court and its conventions for the occasion, so he reversed the relation of the court to the portents of the eclipse. The omen boding ill for the nation and its people was fashioned to become a personal triumph for the king in the way most relevant for the time. In the eyes of the international community he redeemed the reputation of his own leadership and his country in a definitive and unforgettable manner which was designed to ensure the continued integrity of

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the nation and its monarchy. Rather than denying the political significance of the eclipse, Mongkut assigned to it a new meaning, and this meaning he expected his fellow Siamese to echo with a resounding, heaven-defying din. Mongkufs astrological interpretations were often highly individual, sometimes unconventional, but always oriented to the responsibilities of his office. The solar eclipse provided a challenge which he met with unprecedented daring, and it is therefore not surprising that many of his court did not share his sense of triumph, but clung to more conservative views which ipso facto placed them in a politically invidious position. Had they accepted the self-sufficient precision of observed facts, learned to speak in the correct terms, and entered the haven of international experience, Mongkut's triumph would have been complete. There is one last aspect of the retrospective view of Mongkut's career as astronomer/astrologer which needs to be considered. As is well known, soon after the return to Bangkok of the expeditionary party, many members fell ill from fever contracted in the jungle camp, including Mongkut himself and several members of his family. In little over a month, Mongkut was dead, having managed to last until his final self-designated auspicious day; and so yet another level of meaning accrues to the solar eclipse which ushered in the end of this eventfufreign. The Reverend Bradley commented stoically at the time that the expedition was 'rather a grand outpouring of treasure and of life in the interests of science’ {Journal, September 25 1868), and yet for some Thai an ambiguity remains: is it possible that on this occasion, tragically, the people and their traditional fears were right, and the king was not? This paper began with the suggestion that Mongkut's fame in both the astronomical and astrological spheres was paradoxical, for to the modem Western way of thinking the two should be mutually exclusive. Yet there is considerable room for doubt as to whether Mongkut himself perceived this, or would have accepted the inevitability of it. Reynolds (1976) has argued persuasively that the Siamese dlite of Mongkut’s generation accepted the veracity of many of the Western scientific notions of the world around them, but retained from their traditional cosmology the moral explanations of the way things were. So, too, in the case'of astronomy, Siamese such as Mohgkut accepted the correctness of the expanded knowledge the Western version supplied, but'Mongkut did not

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argue that this supplanted the importance of the moral and political correlations of the patterns discernible in the heavens. While Mongkut exercised some originality in the ascription of meaning to these patterns, he nevertheless did not deny the astrological orientation of his forebears, nor did he risk the rejection of a traditional handmaiden of Siamese statecraft; and it is for this reason that he represents to astrologers not the break with tradition that acceptance of the West may imply, but rather a reaffirmation of the durability and adaptability of the Siamese way under new and trying circumstances. It is therefore still possible for astrologers to cite the example of the eclipse as an affirmation of the success and value of Thai horasat (for example, Prasidh 2522). This unofficial interpretation parallels the more official historical view of adaptability in order to preserve national integrity which condones the acceptance of Western ways, including scientific darasat, as far as is necessary or desirable (for example, Wichitwong 2529). This duality reinforces an aspect of Siamese kingship which informs so much of the Thai view of their history; the capacity of the monarchy to continue to produce, in each era, a man for all seasons. In the case of Mongkut's experiments with Western astronomy, it can be seen that justifications can be found both for the emergence of Siam into the modem world, and the retention of Siamese tradition without ceding defeat to competitive and hostile intellectual traditions.

Notes I would like to thank the members of the thesis writing seminar of the departments of Anthropology of The Australian National University who offered helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I am also indebted to Anuchai Poungsomlee, who helped with several points of clarification in the translation of material. Any errors of interpretation, however, are my own. In Mongkut's time, as today hooraasaat encompasses both (Siamese) astronomy, the observation and calculation of the motion of the heavenly bodies, Md astrology, the study of the influence of the planets bn human affairs. Both of these pursuits were the duty of the hoor attached to the Palace, although I have usually translated these officials and their knowledge as being 'astrological' to make clear the distinction between the traditional Siamese sastra, with its dual

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orientation, and the Western introduced 'scientific' astronomy, which eventually came to be known by the neologism daaraasaat 2 Some aspects of the logic of this elevation also call to mind the case of Mongkut's grandfather, Rama 1. The chronicle composed on.Mongkut’s instruction contains an account of the occasion when this apical ancestor, while still Chao Phraya (General) Cakkri, was informed of a prediction that he was destined to become king, and it has sometimes been supposed in Thai accounts of this event that the then King Taksin later bestowed upon Cakkri the extraordinary title and rank of the 'Great King of War' (Mahakasatsiik) in an attempt to have the prophecy fulfilled without himself losing the throne. Mongkut seems to have accepted this idea (Chula 1982:75-76) and this account of the prediction of Cakkri as future king only occurs, officially in the Royal Autograph Chronicle composed during his reign (Gesick 1983:98-99,105). That Mongkut utilized a range of such belief complexes is borne out by the fact that, when he perceived Siam to have passed a period of most immediate danger unscathed, he announced that there must be some kind of guardian deity formerly unrecognized which was using its influence to aid the nation; this guardian he reified as Phra-sayamth^athirach (Phloenphis 2520). Traditional Siamese calendrical calculation is a further subject on which Mongkut wrote a great deal, but a discussion of this topic is beyond the sco^ of the present paper. That Mongkut pursued this avidly, producing several lengthy texts and.numerous comments on this aspect of the traditional system (e.g. Phracomklao 2511a; also-2508), shows that Mongkut did not consider that acceptance of the Western explanation of the solar system necessitated the abandonment of Siamese astronomy. Indeed Mongkut distinguished between appropriate methods of calculation depending upon the purpose to which the calculations were to be put (cf. Maenmas 2511:599). Mongkut has sometimes been noted as an opponent of fortune-tellers [mo du") and therefore, it might be assumed, such 'superstitions' in general. However, as this example shows, his opposition to the practices of these 'mercenaries' was not disinterested. Elsewhere, Mongkut again expressed antipathy towards fortune­ tellers who fawned upon the' nobility and who claimed to know the future, and poured scorn on those (nobility) who believed such people (Phracomklao 2511, 1:115), while on another occasion he advocated the death penalty for mo du and their clients if caught involved in certain activities (Phracomklao 2508:109-111). It appears that'the distinction noted by Bowring (1969, 1:138) between the astrologers of the palace and other soothsayers was a very real one in the eyes of the king. .

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This is the explanation which Mongkut himself is supposed to have provided " frequenrcited in

; However, in a letter to a member of the French astronomical 'I'c ° Mongkut enumerated three S?hA 1? Peguan' astronomy under which a total eclipse of Ae sun could take place (Stephan 1869:15, fn. 1). It is interesting to note to ^cuUtions\^a Mongkut displayed great modesty concerning his o“^uipmel comparatively simple^nd "??

in the Science Association of Thailand has pointed out to ^X^L^'orTiSfiR"^ M several total eclipses of the sun visible in Thailand pnor to 1868, including one during the reign of Ramkhamhaeng not tlie rapital of Sukhothai (Salwithanithes 2511:596). There was also a S '^^^out comment, observed by a court astrologer md duly npted in Ae official almanac for the year C.S. 911 (AD 1549-50)- see Cotmaihet hor {25Q1-.Z3}.

"" prescribed in the Indian 5?^ the excepconal conditions obtaining on the occurrence-of an'eclipse Mongkut s ba A of purification and donation of money to those wto hS accompanied him were conscious attempts to fulfil the Brahmanic ritual retirements which in Siam seem to have been observed only by the king. mw w^ a common Siamese unit of measurement roughly equivalent to eight-tenths of an English inch (Haas 1964:273). equivalent to

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A The Plot of Thai History: Theory and Practice Craig J. Reynolds The Australian National University

Introduction Narrative is an essential element in historical writing, and in English language the word story is embedded in the word 'history'. But few professionally-uained historians would admit that they engage in something so common and siniple as telling a story. Most historians would probably agree that story-telling is only one of several ways of representing the past in addition to describing a situation and analyzing a historical process (White 1987:27). Historians trained in universities nowadays are taught to use appropriate methods and theories to interpret their documents and, wherever possible, to make use of social scientific terminology and paradigms to explain the data they have collected. These methods-and theories have little to do with narrative or story­ telling. the mastery of which is more or less taken for granted as something historians acquire for themselves. Teachers of history, in my experience rarely impress on their students the importance of telling a good story or. more to the point, rarely show them how to tell a good story. In Thailand a new academic vocabulary has arisen in the last twenty years as historians have become more research-oriented and rigorous in their craft, and this vocabulary is overwhelmingly scientific and social-scientific. Terms such as analysis (wikhro), hypothesis (kho sommutthithan), social structure {khrongsang khong sangkhom), class {chonchan), social formation (rup khong sangkhom), system (rabop), and theory {thrutsadi) emphasize the social scientific vocabulary that histonans like to use. Some other terms common in historical writing such

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as context {boribot') and role {botbai) are familiar to the dramatist and the novelist as well as to the historian, and indicate a non-scientific and literary dimension of historical writing. But for most historians it is the scientific and social scientific approaches that seem to be most useful in interpreting the past. Historians of the raconteur variety, such as Sawat Chanthani and Chali lamkrasin, are viewed as folk or popular historians rather than as professional, scientific historians. Narrative, in fact, is one of several elements that contribute to a historian's explanation of what happened in the past. Historical writing may be thought of as a composite form in which several modes of discourse — scientific, literary, narrative anti philosophical — are braided together. When we read a historical work we are usually not conscious of the different modes or strands that are twisted together to become sentences, paragraphs and chapters. In this essay I want to separate out, and examine closely, the narrative strand that is a constituent of historical discourse. I want first to establish how narrative represents and explains the past, and then I want to give some examples of how Thai historians have construed and reconstructed the ’plot’ of the Thai past

Narrative in Historical Writing In recent years literary studies in the West have devoted much attention to narrative and the theory of narrative, in part because of the impact of linguistics and semiotics on literary studies and related fields (Culler 1975; Hawkes 1983; Scholes 1974). French structuralism takes the view that all human phenomena can be studied as if they were linguistic phenomena (White 1985:230). The work of philosophers of language such as Barthes' and Saussure is becoming increasingly influential in historical studies, and has been enormously influential already in literary studies, philosophy, communications theory, and anthropology. It took some time for semiotics to make its way to Thailand, and its impact is still felt only slightly in academic circles. The first systematic explanation in Thai appeared in 1982, written by a Thai thinker who had studied in France (Sukanya 1982). The reason for the slow progress of semiotics in Thailand has to do, in the first place, with the fact that Thai linguists are mostly trained in applied rather than theoretical linguistics, and the history of theoretical linguistics has been crucial in the rediscovery of structuralism and semiotics. Second, theory in all disciplines in Thailand is dominated by the social sciences.

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Social scientific terminology and concepts, much of which derives from the work of Marx and Engels, are of more direct relevance to Thailand's goals of development and modernization. In these circumstances, Thai academics do not see semiotics as directly relevant to their work and to the pressing social problems that confront the country. One author who linked semiotics and narrative was Roland Barthes. In his brief article 'Historical discourse' Barthes challenged the distinction between ’historical’ and ‘fictional’ discourse. 'Is there in fact any specific difference between factual and imaginary narrative,’ Barthes asked, that would distinguish the way we narrate historical events from the way we narrate fictional accounts in epics, novels and dramas (Barthes 1970:145; White 1987:35-38). In Barthes's analysis the scholarly paraphernalia of references, footnotes and linguistic terms called shifters merely create the illusion of a reality in the past. The real past remains forever beyond the reach of words. All -the historians can claim to have created is a reality effect. In a statement calculated to outrage the historian who aspires to scientific and social scientific rigor, Barthes declared that 'historical discourse is a fake performance' (|970:154). Hayden White, who, unlike Bathes, was trained.as a historian, has written extensively on historical narrative in an attempt to say precisely how historical narrative differs from other kinds of narrative. One suspects he also aims to make historians mor6 conscious of how they use narrative. White was one of the'first historians in America to be influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault, the -phil($opher-historian who contributed to and reacted against structuralism in Franpe. The way Foucault thought about language intrigued White, and he identified-Foucault as belonging to a wing of French structuralism that was ■profoundly antiscientific.in its impbeations' (White 1985:259). For the writers and thinkers who adopt this approach, the poetic properties of language and the structures of consciousness conceal rather than reveal the reabty of the world. This approach, like that of Roland Barthes in 'Historical Discourse', undermines the notion that the historian's words accurately represent past reabty. For historians who have confidence in narrative as actually telling us something about the real past, historical method consists of deterinining what is 'the true or most plausible story! that can be told about the evidence (White 1987:27). In a sense, the historian 'discovers' this true and plausible story, a

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story that purports to resemble events in the past. In other words, the narrative is supposed to be a verbal model of events and process in the past, which is located beyond the reach of experiment and observation (White 1985:82). The narrative imitates in language those events and processes; the narrative reproduces the past in the present (White 1987:27). In his articles and books White challenges the scientific claims of historical writing by asserting that histories must be understood as literary forms, as linguistic constructs, rather than as 'proofs' or 'demonstrations'. \White argues that the plot in the historical narrative is not in the past wailing to be discovered but is 'constructed' or 'invented' by historians. Histories are 'verbal fictions, the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences' (1985:82). Histories 'explain' the past by making stories out of chronicles, which reduce the past to a sequence of events. The narrative endows the sequence of events with 'a structure, an order of meaning' that it does not possess as 'mere sequence’ (White 1981:5). Histories that are particularly successful at conveying an explanation of the past do so because they tell a story that fits a sequence of historical events like a hand in a glove. White uses the term ’emploiment’ to describe the process of selecting the story-line to fit the evidence, 'essentially a_ literary, that is to sav fiction-making, operation' (1985:85)^1 turns out that emplotment is only one of three different forms of explanation historians may use, the other two being 'explanation by formal argument' and 'explanation by ideological implication' (White 1973:1-42). For Barthes and some other French thinkers, recognition of this activity of emplotment as 'fiction-making' can be liberating. It is a source of freedom, because it restores to human-beings their role as makers of meaning (Gossman

19 How”are the plots of histories changed? Il is possible to change the plot by telling the story of a hitherto unknown or neglected group, the People or the Peasantry, for example, rather than the Aristocracy. The entity — person, class or process — that changes through time and becomes the main 'character' or protagonist in the narrative is also important. Should it be the nation? The state? The geo-body? The social formation? The protagonist makes a difference in the way the plot unfolds.^ The analysis of Thai social formations, for example, which

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became popular for a while in the early 1980s. caused a shake-up in the periodization of all of Thai history (Reynolds and Hong 1983; Reynolds 1987.chap. 3). In recent years the introduction of new protagonists has marked important developments in Thai historiography. While's argument is based on his understanding of historical writing as a kind of code in which events are presented according to plot structures or story typp^ — Historians refamiliarize us with events by showing how they conform to the 6^ story types we use to make sense of our life histories (White 1985:87). 4/ Elsewhere, in his study of nineteenth-century European historians, White seems to argue that the story types that historians use lie in a deep structure of our consciousness. Following the literary critic. Northrop Frye, he identifies four of ^ese story types as archetypes: Tragedy; Comedy: Romance; and Satire (White 973.7-11). As readers, we are able to understand these historians because we 'decode' them according to the story types we have learned from our reading of novels and narrative poetry. In Metaldstory White argues that such historians as R^e, Michelet, Nietzsche. Hegel, Croce, Marx and Burckhardt emplotted their histones as Tragedy, Comedy, Romance or Satire, and in some cases as a combination of two or more story types. Are these four story types culturally determined? Do they have any relevance for other cultures and civiUsations outside Europe? Do they apply, for example, in the writing and understanding of Thai history? I can suggest two answers to these questions. White quotes with approval Roland Barthes, who says that stories from other cultures are easily understood because 'narrative ... is translatable without fundamental damage' (White 1981:2). This seems to imply that the basic elements of stories are readily understandable across cultures and are ' thus not culture-bound. As far as Tragedy, Comedy, Romance and Satire are concerned, we might find that the dominant story types of Western culture have travelled with the global structures of capitalism and the nation-state, a form of the state put in place by dlites who had lived and studied in the West. Modem Thai historiography is, to a large extent, a Western import, though it bears some unmistakable features of being a Thai historiography. We might expect, therefore, to see the same story types predominating in Thailand as those in the West, because ttie techniques and methodologies of modem historiography have come from abroad. In this essay I do not intend to identify and discuss the

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V

dominant story types in Thai historical writing, though I think this is a line of • research that would be interesting to pursue (Somkiat 1986:chap. 4). Instead I want to apply the concept of emplotment to Thai history and discuss how the plot of Thai history has been constructed and, from time to time, reconstructed.

The 1932 Event Emplotted in Nationalist History In telling the story of the past, historians strive for continuity in order to show how one thing leads to another. Problems in maintaining a continuous narrative arise when events seem to repudiate the past, to challenge past assumptions, and to declare the onset of a new epoch. These events may, of course, be deeply painful for particular individuals, classes, or institutions which are threatened with harm or even destruction by the course of events. In Thailand many of the signs of nationhood reproduce, commemorate, and echo these moments of drama, pain and death. But when historians come to write about these disruptive events they sometimes suppress or paper over the painful episodes. The need for the nation's story to be continuous is the overriding factor that determines what is put in and what is left out of the plot. I am not referring here simply to ’official' history that sometimes omits significant episodes. I want to emphasize the way the structure of narrative itself helps to determine the contents of the plot. The 1932 event, for example, is a moment in Thai history that interrupted the flow of history and thus signalled a break with the past. Thai political historians return again and again to the topic of 1932, and in the first half of the 1980s the fiftieth anniversary of the event in 1982, the death of Pridi Phanomyong in 1983, and the golden jubilee in 1984 of the founding of Thammasat University by Pridi heightened interest and stimulated research in that discontinuous moment. The meanings of 1932 for the Thai nation are ambiguous, as reflected in the various terms used to describe the event: the epochal term "revolution’; the more limited and militaristic ’coup’; the ostensibly more neutral (or ironic?) 'change-of-government'; Nakkharin's poker-faced, noncommital ‘event’ (Nakkharin 1982). While the 1932 event seemed at first to repudiate the Chakri dynasty, the new civilian-military leadership eventually repositioned the monarchy to serve its own interests. So we could say the 1932 event halted the dynastic sequence only to restart it on different terms.

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Nationalist history writes about 1932 as an event that is continuous with the past and the period that follows. In fact, however, the stitches joining the Chakri . dynastic state to the post-1932 nation-state are loose and constantly in need of mending. The seam is not a natural one and must be regularly, ritually resewn so that events before and after flow together continuously. There is no more telling testimony to the disruptive effects of 1932 than the physical signs of that historic moment. These physical signs are, like cartoons, films and advertisements, a form of political speech whose 'grammar' and 'vocabulary' may , be read (Anderson 1973). In front of the equestrian statue of King Chulalongkorn in the National Assembly Plaza in Bangkok is a metal plate, about one foot in diameter, secured by a pin sunk into the roadway. It is a kind of foundation plate announcing the beginning of a new epoch. The plate says in Thai: 'On this spot, at dawn on 24 June 1932, the People's Party created the constitution for the benefit of the nation.’ The plate commemorates a time and place deemed to be of great significance, although Constitution Day is actually celebrated on 10 December, the day of proclamation. Nowadays Bangkok traffic rolls incessantly over the spot, wearing down the raised letters on the plate and rubbing out this memorial ■ to that historic event. The plate has not been protected by a shrine and is probably unknown to most Bangkok residents. Indeed, only a fearless and determined person would be willing to brave the traffic and inspect the commemorative plate.^ There is a rumour, which I have not been able to confirm, that for sqme time during the Sarit regime (1958-63) the commemorative plate was removed so that people would not remember Pridi’s democratic achievement. Later, the plate was returned. Here is an example, articulated by anonymous rumour, of the potentially disruptive effects of the 1932 event and of how it might be removed from public memory. More familiar to Bangkokians than the commemorative plate is the Democracy Monument on Rajadamnem Avenue, which visibly and memorably recalls the 1932 event It is situated in a more prominent place, but I doubt that most drivers manoeuvring around the traffic island have time to contemplate the

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Plate 1

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meaning of 1932 as they pass the monument perched with its folded wings. Like the commemorative plate, the Democracy Monument is a 'text' that cannot be conveniently visited on foot, but is separated and put beyond reach. There is no question, however, of the potency of the Democracy Monument. After October 1973 it was recharged with powerful meanings because of the protest marches along the avenue that preceded the fall of the Thanom government Over the course of the following months it came to represent and to broadcast the aspirations of youth and the transitory triumph of democratic forces. It is worth looking at representations of the Democracy Monument on book covers and posters between 1973 and 1976 to see how the meanings latent in 1932 were brought back to life. The October 1973 event was a kind of re-enactment of 1932 with the mass support that the earlier event lacked. The seam that had been stitched to join the pre-1932 and the post-1932 periods was reopened, and the unfulfilled expectations of 1932 resurfaced (Nidhi 1990:93-102). One historian concerned about the meanings of 1932 who contributed to the emplotment of Thai history as the history of the nation was Luang Wichit Watthakan (1898-1962). The popularity of his historical works, plays and radio scripts had a lot to do with the growing popularity of the novel and short story, largely imported from the West as cultural forms that spoke to the emotional needs and aspirations of an emerging urban 61ite. Luang Wichit was instrumental m creating the seam that joined the pre- and post-1932 periods, and he did this by taming the potentially threatening meanings of the coup: revolt from below; cessation of dynastic sequence; and inversion of the social order. While recognized as an influential figure in modem Thai thought, Luang Wichit IS often regarded by Thai academics as the military’s intellectual who was unscientific in his method and as a historian who simply replaced monarchy with nation (for example, Charnvit 1979:166-168). But it was Luang Wichit who assigned the proper meanings to the 1932 event that are with us today, by braiding together the plot of dynasty and the plot of nation-state, though he was aided in this effort by the identity.of dynasty and nation already affirmed by King Vajiravudh, who reigned from 1910 to 1925, (Anderson 1983:95). Thus it may J® Luang Wichh, rather than Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. who is the father of Thai history. It is Wichit's plot, and similar plots of historians of his generation.

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which is now the plot that modern Thai historiography must challenge, rather than that of Damrong, who after all had very little to say about the 1932 event. What is important to realize about Luang Wichit's writings is the extent to which he is responsible for transmitting a specific form of nationalism learned ^from Europe. Various 'modular’ forms of nationalism were available in the first half of the twentieth century for copying or pirating by emerging Third World ' Elites and by ageing dynasties in the European jnetropolises (Anderson 1983:80103). In the Thai case, Luang Wichit adapted, a form of nationalism for the ‘new men' that he himself represented. He was the son of Chinese traders, a temple­ boy from Wat Mahathat, who rose through the foreign affairs bureaucracy to lend his own hand to the operation of the policy levers of official nationalism (Chaliaw 1977). His early career in foreign affairs was crucial to his successes, for his European postings gave him first-hand knowledge of the nationalisms that might be used. What is striking about his essays and speeches is the comparative references in them: to France and Germany; to revolutions; to Southeast Asian neighbours; to the great men — but not women — of world history who made a mark on their age. Wichit himself declared that one of his purposes in writing history was 'to provide a comparative perspective for our history with the histories of other countries’ (Somkiat 1986:280). One explanation for this comparative perspective might be not only Luang Wichit's project of transmitting to Thailand a specific modular form of nationalism but also his project of achieving a sense of scale. His 'universal history' begins with a comment about how ignorant foreigners are of Siam's mailing address. In parentheses after Siam they put 'India* or 'Indochina' or the all-inclusive 'Asia', just in case the international postal authorities cannot locate this far-away country! This is the observation of 'the colonial’, as it were, who has been to the European metropolis and has come to realise his own provinciality. How Siam was ranked al the League of Nations, ahead of a former great power such as Austria, was a source of great pride for this young man from the outskirts of what he was coming to regard as a global civilisation (Wichit 1930:19). But Luang Wichit did not simply borrow a form of nationalism*to fefashion the 1932 event as dynastic as well as nationalist. He also borrowed an anti­ colonial discourse, even though his country had never known full colonial rule.

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His narrative frequently uses the motif of the warrior hero liberating the homeland (ku banmUang) from foreign rule or defending it from foreign incursions. His favourite Thai rulers included Naresuan and Taksin, whom he transformed into national heroes. So pervasive is this motif of national liberation that even Ramakhamheng is counted as a national liberation hero, though the evidence for liberation in the inscription of AD 1292 is scant indeed. The national liberation motif recurs in nationalist historiography today, where 7 national security and national defence issues help to shape the plot even as they bear witness to the need for continued military dominance of the Thai state (Wira 1983). Lpang Wichit took some of his episodes of national liberation from Ayutthayan history, which has always provided the tougher, more muscular, more authoritarian motif for Thai government, as against Sukhothai histt^ whjeh serves as a modeffor the benign, patriarchal, and benevolent side of Thai rule^ln a path-breaking study of the way the history of Ayutthaya 'has been emplotted in response to the needs and pressures of Thai politics. Somkiat Wanthana constructed a set of oppositions to iUustrate the way Ayutthaya culture differed from Sukhothai culture in Luang Wichit's history. Ayutthaya's culture was destructive, coarse, fading, and fugitive’ versus Sukhothai's 'constructive, scrupulous, productive, and striving* culture (Somkiat 1986:301). Yet this destructive, declining culture could still produce great rulers {makarat') suCh as Naresuan and Narai. who restored the country's independence and lifted its achievements to the level of Europe's (Somkiat 1986:284-285). For Luang Wichit, conscious as he was of achieving for Thailand some kind of 'proportional' equality, his country had to have the same kind of history as other countries: independence achieved through struggle, best of all through revolution. In one of his historical plays. 'King Naresuan Declares Independence', first performed in 1934. he emplotted the Thai defeat of the Burmese in the sixteenth century in terms of the suffering, revenge and triumph of-the Thai people over their implacable enemy, a dramatic plot that had more twentieth­ century overtones than sixteenth century ones (Thongchai 1988:392-393). He' even likened the Thai writing system of AD 1283. to the European one; because It placed all vowels and consonants on a single line, a sign of Thai liberation from Cambodia and the kkom writing system, as well as of equality-with

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Europe. And the lack of real revolution in 1932 was no obstacle to writing a propCT national life-history. Personal development was a hallmark of his own biography, and Dale Carnegie, the American guru of self-improvement, was one of his favourite authors. There had been a ’human revolution’, as he put it in a speech given in 1939, in which not social justice but individual self­ improvement, a cherished bourgeois value, would emerge triumphant (Wichit 1973:311-345). The ’great man' theory of history, which is indispensable to the motif of national liberation, seems to me notable not as a legacy of royalist historiography, in which the monarchy is the most important actor, but as a paradigm common elsewhere at the time. The qualities of diligence, self-reliance and robust character, projected onto a single person, whether it be the national leader or the ordinary citizen, are intended to inspire everyone in the nation. The telling example here is Vietnam, where the same values were not bourgeois but socialist and where in the 1920s and 1930s literally hundreds of biographies were written of world figures. The notion of George Washington inspiring Vo Nguyen Giap seems bizarre, but as David Marr has pointed out in his study of the period, qualities were abstracted from these lives and fed into Vietnamese literary culture (Marr 1979). Luang Wichit's long essay on great men, 'Mahaburut' (maha purisa), published in 1928 with biographies of Disraeli, Bismarck, Mussolini and others, belongs alongside the Vietnamese list of biographies rather than Thiphakofawong's and Damrong's chronicles. Here Luang Wichit is less a product-df Thai society than of a post-World War global order. Even Damrong himself-’was’writing this way towards the end of his life. His biography of Nares'uan, emplotted as Comedy (challenge, response and resolution in three chapters), stressed the personal qualities Naresuan needed to liberate the Thai people from the Burmese (Damrong 1966; White 1973:9). r Finally, and in addition to the part he played in bringing a modular form of * nationalism from Europe, T nang Wirhit h&ippd tn cnnstruct_the pure Thai' Buddhist paradigm of the dominant ethnic group. He madC-Sukhothai the earliest I site of this pure Thai-Buddhist society, 'pure' both in terms of ethnic dominance Land in terms of social structure. Viewing slavery as a Khmer contamination that came in teter during the Ayutthaya period, he extolled the purity of Thai society J

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culture at Sukhothai (Wichit 1971:335). In terms of foreign cultural influences, Luang Wichit portrayed Pali v. Sanskrit elements in the Thai arts as an opposition of pure v. corrupt. The Sanskrit Ramakian introduced a weak and lazy hero into Thai literary culture, thus damaging the bourgeois spirit of enteiprise and diligence that prevailed at Buddhist Sukhothai (Wichit 1973:328329). On the nationality question, Luang Wichit recognized that Sukhothai monarchs ruled over Mon, Khmer, Malay and Chinese, but he made PaliBuddhist-Thai the idiom of membership in the national community. What is important here is the way the plot is constructed out of such motifs as religious and ethnic ’puriaJather thanthe evidence for purity or lack of it Evidence alone never dislodges or disconfirms the narrative of a writer such as Luang Wichit, whom Hayden White would regard as 'classic* precisely because of the literary and fictional qualities of his work that make it difficult to negate (White 1985:89). Wichit himself was aware of his historical relativism, even if he did not term it such, and he embraced the historian's power to emplot the past. For Wichit, the historian was in fact 'more powerful that God, because the historian can change the past’,(Somkiat 1986:341). I have discussed the work of Luang Wichit at some length, because ihe.new historiography is writing against him as much as against Damrong, who attracts more publicity as a target of today's historians. Some of the older people at the forefront of Thai history today were schooled in the 1940s and 1950s, when Wichit's work was popular and respected, and their relation to the plot he constructed for Thai history is complex. Although they are now critical of his official nationalist interpretation, they read Luang Wichit avidly in their youth and were' inspired by his plot. .Luang Wichit reached deep into the past to contrive natipnal liberation' that Thailand could then claim to have achieved even without a colonial past of its own. A similar though significantly different motif of national liberation has also been at the heart of .the Communist Party of Thailand s plot of Thai history. Free from European colonial rulers and beset by Asian rulers only during World War II. the Thai people have aspired to be liberated from their own-Thai masters, a plot that seems increasingly out-of-date with Thailand's political and economic realities.

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The Emplotment of the Geo-Body of Siam In a new interpretation of geographical space and Thai historical maps. Thongchai Winichakul has identified what he regards as ’the master plot’ of Thai history (Thongchai 1988). The ’master plot' islhe biography of the nation whose major protagonist is what Thongchai has termed ’the geo-body of Siam’, or the territory of the nation, that is felt by the Thai people to be one of the essential constituents of nationhood. The concept of the nation as a territorial self only came into existence after a series of painful struggles beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in which territory was 'lost' to the Western powers. As a result of these painful struggles and losses, nationhood is today experienced by the people of Thailand as love — and nostalgia — for a bounded chunk of territory on the earth's surface. The existence of ’Thailand* as a bounded entity on the earth's surface dates only from the end of the last century. It came about after a clash between an older concept of space, in the foml of sacred topography, and another concept of space defined by Western surveying practices and mapping techniques that had been introduced by the Western powers to settle ambiguities and conflicts over sovereignty. Some of these ambiguities and conflicts were settled peacefully; others led to armed struggle and bitter 'losses' of what, in retrospect, the Thai state regarded as Thai territory. It is the retrospective projection of a bounded territorial entity into the past, particularly by means of historical atlases, that leads Thongchai to propose how the geo-body 'was a disruptive moment’ in the life of Siam, and a new kind of history had to be vyritten to construct continuity through (his disturbed period (1988:338). Thongchai identifies the 1893 Franco-Siamese crises, which he calls 'the scar of 1893', as the culmination of the process by which Siam realized her own geo­ body. The agony of the country's rulers in that historic “coniest has 'become a national agony, creating a common sentiment among Thai against foreign threats' (Thongchai 1988: 352). He analyses the historiography of events and processes leading up to the crisis to show how the sadness of defeat and the 'loss' of territory has been written into the history of Siam. According to Tej Bunnag's study of Siamese administration, the realm before this moment was 'in theory' unified, with Siamese sovereignty over the outlying provinces and tributaries never in doubt (Thongchai 1988:346). It was not until the European imperial

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process challenged this sovereignly and forced Siam to defend herself, by means of adminisuative reform among other things, that the Bangkok court acknowledged the full scope of the problems it confronted. But in a sleight of hand unnoticed by the historians who have, contributed to this plot for Thai history, the idea of ‘defending’ the country imperceptibly shifts from being a proposition to a presumption. In other words, these historians too easily assume / that there was a territorial entity already in existence to defend. The new history written to cover over the rupture presumed the prior existence of a unified geo­ body qnd dramatised the need to defend its integrity (Thongchai 1988:350). Thongchai s ppint is that this territorial entity was still in the process of being created when the moment of rupture and 'loss’ occurred. Thq way the 1893 crisis is emplotted in Thai history bears all the marks of the fictive imagination discussed by Hayden White. In Thongchai's words:

Standing alone as she did, Siam protected herself gracefully, reasonably and wisely. In one story, the end was a rather tragic one, because the Frehch were beyond Siam s capability to cope reasonably. However, the loss was merely a finger tip or a limb, not the body or heart. In another story, the end was a happy one. Not only did Siam fulfil the defense of herself, but she survived with a great leap forward (1988: 348). The great leap forward was the administrative reform carried out by Chulalongkorn, complementing the tragedy of territorial loss with a story ^splaying 'glory, strength and happy resolution' (Thongchai 1988:349). Both strands of the plot — the sadness of loss and strength through reform are aliyays kept separate, although they both rely on external threat and danger. But Thai historiography rarely acknowledges that the two strands are actually two jides of the same process by which the geo-body came into existence. IJistorical atlases of Thailand give details of territorial 'losses’ from the presumptive geo-body. The evolution of Thailand's boundaries is the story of the territorial ’losses’ which, chopped off parts of the'legitimate realm to form the present-day boundary of the country. There are many versions of maps that provide this information, and all purport 'to represent the geographical reality of Siam before and after the loss of territory' (Thongchai 1988:369), But these temtorial losses — one historical atlas depicts losses back as far as the late

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eighteenth century — could not have been scientifically mapped until after the 1893 treaty. These maps are in fact invented by the collective memory of the ’losses’ of territory from a retrospectively confirmed geo-body as well as by means of the modem map of Thailand, that is, the present geo-body. In Thongchai's words. These maps have no direct relation to territorial reality but to the present map of Siam's territoriality’ (1988:386). The historical memory of the nation ’swaps’ back and forth between the present and the dramatic moments of loss in the past to create sentimental effects. The master plot of the'discourse about the geo-body can thus be seen to be a powerful contributor to nationhood. The sentimental effects created in the story of territorial loss can be used to stir patriotic feelings to the point of inspiring the sacrifice of life. Is this plot 'true' and based on historical fact? Thongchai does not answer the question directly but implies that what White would call the Active imagination is at work in reproducing the plot. Repetition, redundancy, perspective, exaggeration, protagonists — all these elements are deployed to maintain the plot

Conclusion I could cite other instances of the way new plots have been invented for Thai >/ history. The rise of 'local history' (prawallisat thongthin} in the early 1980s is a particularly interesting example, because this plot was quickly institutionalised in universities, teachers colleges, academic programs and research funding. Although the leaders of the movement to write 'local history' have often been historians based in Bangkok, ’local history* is potentially disruptive, because it has the capacity to challenge the conclusions of the general history of the centre. This kind of history could become what Michel Foucault has called 'effective history' (Foucault 1977) and as such it might disturb standard interpretations, as some Thai historians have from time to time warned. The 'plot' of history, then, may serve as a tool for the disenfranchised and the oppressed just as it may serve as an instrument for the ruling dlite to diffuse its own conception of reality as the only conception of reality. Perhaps the ultimate example of history in terms of plot would be history as a novel. Somkiat illustrates his ideas along this line by citing Seni Saowaphong's 1982 novel Khon di si ayuttkaya [The Good People of

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THE PLOT OF THAI HISTORY

Ayutthaya], which Seni insisted was not history, yet was also not falsified history (Somkiat 1986:582). Somkiat thinks this work of the fictive imagination can withstand any accusations of anachronism from so-called professional historians. He argues that this historical novel contributes to the debate over what has made the history of Ayutthaya meaningful to Thai people today on several grounds. First, the novel invites readers to examine their own lives through the lives of the people of Ayutthaya and in such examination to make moral judgements. Second, the novel’s genius is that it suggests how some aspects of the past may lie 'beyond the reach of conventional histories' (Somkiat 1986:586). Though it is self-consciously written in the romantic genre and does not have the format and documentation of conventional 'scientific' historical writing, it purports to tell us something about past reality. And the novel is filled with emotions of understanding and forgiveness. Precisely because It speaks so directly and effectively to contemporary readers, the novel throws a spotlight on the crisis surrounding the scientific and positivistic conception of history that has taken root in Thai historical studies. Precisely because it commi^cates with ordinary people — 'it is a song consoling the common people’ the novel highlights the narrowness and rigidity of scientific academic history (Somkiat 1986:587). Somkiat's analysis of Khon di si ayutthaya hints at one of the explanations Hayden White gives for why narrative is still so essential in historical writing, pe demand for closure in the historical story,’ White says, 'is a demand for moral meanirig, a dem^d that sequences oTr^reventTbe assessed as to their significance as elemejUs^moral dram£(1987-2int is for this reason that historians, just as novelisteTencode their evidence in terms of Tragedy, Comedy; Romance and Satire. They emplot the past as a moral tale. They imagine that real events have the same formal attributes as the stories novelists make up for imaginary events. The coherence, integrity, fullness and closure that historians attribute to the real events of the past 'can only be imaginary*. White asks if the world really presents itself in 'the form of well-made stories, with central subjects, proper beginnings, middles and ends, and a coherence that permits us to see 'the end’ in every beginning' (1987:24). The rhetoric of the-question implies that the answer is no, that these formal attributes underscore the fictive nature of the historical imagination. In this perspective the historical novel of Seni

329

CRAIG J. REYNOLDS

Saowaphong, as well as the historical plays and essays of Luang Wichit and the historical atlases of the Royal Thai Survey Department, are entitled to the label 'history* as much as the doctoral dissertations of Somkiat and Thongchai. We return to the thought that recognition of the importance of plot in historical writing can be liberating, because it restores to human beings their role as makers of meaning.

Notes I have written this essay out of respect for Richard B. Davis, whose contributions to the study of-Thailand and its people will endure for many years. An earner version appeared in the proceedings of the International Conference on Thai Studies, Bangkok, 1984. A Thai version appeared in a felicitation volume for Dr Ne-on Snidvongse in Bangkok, 1990. 1 I am indebted to the late Supha Sirimanond for showing me the commemorative pbte on 19 January 1984. See accompanying illustration.

References Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. 1973 'Notes on Contemporary Indonesian Political Communication’. Indonesia 16:39-80. 1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London Verson Editions and NLB. Barthes, Roland 1970 'Historical Discourse*. In Michael Lane (ed.) Structuralism: A Reader, pp.145-155. London: Jonathan Cape.

Chaliaw Phansida 1977 Luang wichit watthakan le ngan dan prawattisat [Luan Wichit Watthakan and his Historical Work], Bangkok: Bannakit. Chamvit Kasetsiri 1979 Thai Historiography from Ancient Times to the Modem Period'. In Anthony Reid and David Marr (eds) Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, pp.156-170. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books,.

330

THE PLOT OF THAI HISTORY

Culler, Jonathan 1975 Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism. Linguistics and the Study of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Damrong Rajanubhab, Prince 1966 Phraprawat somdetphranaresuan maharat (King Narcsuan the Great]. Bangkok. Reprinted.

Foucault, Michel 1977 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'. In Donald F. Bouchard (ed.) Language, Counter-memory, Practice, pp.139-164. Ithaca: ComeR University Press.

Gossman, Lionel 1978 ’History and Literature'. In Robert H. Canary and Henry Kozicki (eds) The Writing of History, Literary Form and Historical Understanding, pp.3-39. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hawkes, Terence 1983 Structuralism and Semiotics. London: Methuen & Co.

Marr, David 1979 'Vietnamese Historical Reassessment, 1900-1944'. In^ Anthony Reid and David Marr (eds) Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, pp.313-339. Singapore. Kuala Lumpur. Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books.

Nakkharin Mektrairal 1982 'Kanplianpleng kanpokkhrong 2475 khong sayam:phromd€n heng khwamru' [Siam’s Change of Government in 1932: The Limits of Knowledge] Warasan thammasat 11:2 (June) 6-52. Nidhi Aeusriwongse 1990 'Songkhram anusawari kap rat thai [The Thai State and the War of Monuments]' Silpawatthanatham 11(3) January: 80-102. Reynolds. Craig J. 1987 Thai Radical Discourse. The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today. Ithaca: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program.

331

CRAIG J. REYNOLDS

Reynolds, Craig J. and Hong Lysa 1983 'Marxism in Thai Historical Studies' Journal of Asian Studies 43(l):77-104. Scholes, Robert 1974 Structuralism in Literature: An Introduction. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Somkiat Wanthana 1986 The Politics of Modem Thai Historiography. PhD thesis, Monash University. Sukanya Hantrakun 1982 Phasa sanyalak wannakhadi [Language, Symbols, Literature]'. Lok nangsil 5(5):24‘45.

Thongchai Winichdcul 1988 Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of Siam’. PhD thesis. University of Sydney. v' White, Hayden 1973 Metahistory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1981 The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of London’. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Revised and reprinted in White 1987. 1985 Topics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1987 The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Wichit Watthakan, Luang 1930 Prawattisai sakon [Universal History]. Bangkok. Volume VI. vjV r-1973 'Manut paliwat' [Human Revolution]. In Pathakhatha taekhambanyai [Lectures and Talks]. Bangkok: Soemwit Bannakhan. Wira Amphansuk 1983 Khwampenthai [Thai-ness].

332

INDEX AARNei 13 Abelam 241 Adi 132,139 Ahom 10,127ff; language 128, 130, 228^ ; religion 128; script 128, 130; and Assamese associations 129 Ahom Tai Mongoliya Rajya Parishad 129 aid-workers 111 Akha22 AU-Assam Association 129 Allen, M. 121 ambiguity 241, 247 American 253, 283 American Society for the Melioration of the Condition of Jews 253 anal personality 4 Anan Ganjanapan 65,67 Anderson. B. 321, 323. 324 animal sacrifice 135 anthropologists 105,117,123/n, 182, 266 anthropology 12 antinomies of northern Thai culture 6 Anuchat Poungsamlee 307/m aristocracy 8 aristocrats (northern Thai) 64 Aroonrut Wichienkeeo 13, 60, 226/n. 229A Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter 260 Assam 10,128ff Assamese Legislative Council 129 astrologers 293, 300, 302; 305 astrology 12. 281ff. 295, 298, 307 astronomers, French 299. 301,308yw astronomy. Western 282, 283, 284,

290, 292 atlas 329, 332 Australasia 118 Australian National University, The 2. 3, 13 Austria 324 Ayutthaya 208, 224, 281, 284, 286, 325, 326, 331

Bacon, G.B. 284 Bamber, S. 178^ Bangkok 39. 281, 293, 321, 329, 330 Bangkok Recorder 286 Bangladesh 42.260 Bangui 132.139 Bantu 241 Baptist 262, 250, 253, 254 Barbut,M. 183 Bargohain, A. 136, 138,158^ Barthes. R. 316, 317, 319 Baruaand Phukan 136,158/h, 159yh Bania, H.N. 158^ Barua, 1.135 Baruah, T.K.M. 157 Bauer, P.T. 121 beer 7.10.127ff; as ethnic marker 130,157; Tai beer in SEAsia 133; Tai beer in China 133; beer-drinking implements 15; beer­ making, differaices 146ff Benedict, P.K. 185, 195/h Benjamin, W. 105ff, 116, 121,122 Bennett, J.W. 62 Berger and Luckmann 261,262 Bible 249, 252, 257, 285

INDEX

biology 194/h birth control 19 Bismaric326 Bitot's Spots 169ff Bitot, Pierre A. 170 Blofeld, J. 292,299,300 book narratives (Karen) 255ff Border Police 18 borders 107,292,329 Borneo Company 262 Boro, A. 141 Bourdieu, P. 245 Bourlet, A. 149 Bowring, Sir John 283, 284, 285, 289, 307/n Bradley. Dr D.B. 301,303,306 Bradley, W.L. 283-84,286. 287 Brahmaputra 127,128 Brailey, N. 67 Bruneau, M. 59 Buddhist 2. 6. 204, 206, 226/n, 283, 284, 326, 327 Bunchuai Sisawat 149 Burckhardt319 bureaucrat 9 Burgess, A. 240 Burling,R. 184,186 Burma 18. 21. 35. 36. 65. 127. 184, 242, 253, 254, 257, 258, 260, 271; Bunnese 7.8, 23,174, 185, 186, 211, 245, 269, 325 Burman, B.K.R. 129 cabbage 37 Cakkri289, 301,320-21 Calavan. S.K.M, 59. 61, 64, 68/rt Callois, R. 240 Cambodia 325 canals 58 Canberra 2 cargo cult 119 Carnegie, Dale 326 caste 127 Caswell 284,285

334

Chakri seeCakkri Chaliao Munchan 228/n Chaliaw Phansida 324 change and development 7 Chanpa Yuangdiaroen 229/h Chapman, E.C. 20, 212 Qtaran Manophet 190 Chamvit Kasetsri 323 Chiang Hung 205, 224 Chiang Mai 7. 21, 35, 39, 57. 59, 64, 73, 99. 113, 159, 175, 176, ISlff, 189, 207, 210, 215, 220, 224, 229/h. 248 Chiang Mai University 174, 176 Chiang Mai/St Louis Anaemia and Malnutrition Research Centre 176 Chiang Tung see Keng Tung chicken livers (as cure for night blindness) 171,174,177 Childe, Gordon 62 China 27, 66, 158, 218, 284 Chinese 189, 211, 324, 327 Chit Phumisak (also Jit) 200 Chowdhury, J.N. 139 Christian 11, 249, 262, 265, 267. 270 Christian missionary 243 Christianity 31. 38, 39 Chua Beng Huat 272 Chula Chakrabongse 292,307^ 329 Chulalongkorn, King 67, 226/n; statue of 321 Chusit Chuchart 66 city pillar 288ff climate 20, 57 Coed&s, G. 209, 210, 211, 224, 229/n. 199 Cohen, P. 7, 8 Cohen and Wijeyewardene 1,178/ra comet 293-97 commerce 23,35 Communist Party of Thailand 327 communist 27 conflict 33

INDEX

conservation 29,33,44 constitution 321 coitsultants lOSff Cook, N. 12. 13 Cooper, R. 28 Copernican system 284 Copernicus 292 Cornish, A 123^ corvee 59,62 court etiquette 300 Cowan, W.L. 286 creation 250,253 Croce, Benedetto 319 crop substitution 42 Qoss, E.B. 250-51 Cudamani, Prince 286 Culler, J. 316 Cushing, J.N. 149. 153

D'Orleans, Pfere 284 dam chief 59 Damrong Rajanuphab, Prince 59, 201, 286, 299, 308/h, 323, 324, 326 dams 58 Das, T. 141,157 Dasgupta, K. 141 Davis, Richard Iff, 9ff, 105,106, 121, 122, 178^, 195/n, 199. 229/n, 240, 246-47, 249, 332 deep structure 319 Demoaracy Monument 321,323 demography 8,17ff, 34 Department of Public Welfare 108, 109, 113, 122/« Derrida, J. 243 Devanagari211 Development Aid Associates 112 development 31,105 ff; committees 9; planners 118; projects 116 developmental cycle (family) 84ff Dhawaj Poonotoke 200, 206, 228/h,

Diffloth, G. 222

Diller, A. 11 Disraeli 326 distinctive features 181,194/H Djamour, 1.186 Dodd. W.C. 263-64 Donaldson & Dieu Chinh Nimh 149, 153, 220 drinking dtant 154 Duangduen & Pranee 217,219 Duangduen Suwattee 214 Dutta, P. 141

Eade, J.C. 226/rt, 228^ eclipse 284,19isee also solar eclipse ecology 7-8,51 education 18,31,43 Elwin, V. 139 Emerald Buddha. Temple of 288 emplotment318, 319, 326, 329, 331 En^e, S. 145 Engels 317 England 292 environment 17ff, 20, 37; degradation 22; effects 29 Episcopal 254 erosion 25 Etherington and Forster 9 ethnicity 128 ethnohistory (Karen) 258ff Ethnology 3 Europe 118, 326; European 256, 324, 327. 328 eye disease 159ff Fang Kuei Li see Li Fang Kuei 'Father of Thai astrology' 282 'Father of Thai science’ 282 FAO 18 Fashioning ofLeviathan,The 271 fauna 37 feudal relations 22,32 forest conservation 25 forests 20, 30; forestry 36, 39,40. 41; Forestry Service 262

335

INDEX

Forge, A. 241 Fortes, M. 194 fortune tellers 307/h Foucault, M. 239, 244. 269-70, 317; on language 317 Fox, r.J. 249, 272 France 1, 292, 324 Franco-Siamese crisis 1893 328 French Indochina 149 French structuralism 317 Friedman, J. 62, 63, 67 Frye, N. 319 Fukushima, M. 270, 272 • Fumivall, J. 271 Galt, Sir Edward 128 Garo 132,145,183 Geddes, W. 21,27 Gelb, LI 199 ■geo-body of Siam' 328ff Germany 324 Gesick, L. 307/rt Gibson. D. 11, 13. 272 Giddens, A. 271 Gilmore, Rev.D. 254-55 Gluckman, M, 241 glutinous rice 66, 135, 150, 152 Gobi desert 255 Gogoi, Padmeshwar 134,129 Golden Triangle 17 'Good'pebple of‘Ayutthhya,’the' 330 Gossman, L. 318 Governor of Singapore, Sir Harry Ord 299 Graebner, F. 261 Grand Palace 288,289 Grandstaff, T.B. 69Jh grazing 25,37 'great man' theory of history 326 Greenwich Mean Time 291 Griswold, A.B. 301 Griswold and Prasert 200,217, 229yh Guardian;The 260 Gurdon, P.R.T. 157

336

Haas, M.R. 226/h, 3O8yh habitat destruction 38 Hackett, W.D. 184 Hallett, H.S. 21, 60, 68A 263 * Hanks, L. 93 Hanuman3 Hariphunchai 200, 201, 204, 205, 217 Hartmann, IF. 191,196/h Harvey 69 fh Hawkes, T.316 Hegel 319 Helot, L. 157 highlands 17ff, 105 Hill Tribe Division 109,112,113 Hill, M. 272 hilltribes (also 'hill-tribes', hill tribe') 17, 21, 108,170 Hindu 10,128,134 Hinton, P. 6, 7, 9 historians 315,317, 319 'Historical Discourse’ 317 historiography 319; Thai 319, 324, 325, 329 history 12; local 330; Thai 28Iff, 315ff; 1932 event 320ff Hmong 7, 22, 27ff. 40ff, 170; settlement 28 Hong, L. 287,319 horoscope 287ff household size 74 Hunt and Hunt 62 Hutton, J.H. 142, 143 ’hydraulic agriculture’ 63 HyperCard 13

Indian 127,128,189 Inta Muangphrom 1,240 htthanon. Caw 59, 62, 64 Inthanon, Doi 20 Inthawarorot, Caw 65 irrigation 8, 20, 31-2, 38. 46. 57ff Jakobson, R. 249

INDEX

Japan 66 Jayavarman VII206 Jenner, P.N. 221 Jesuits 284 Jews 253-54,258,260 Journal ofthe American Oriental Society 250 Journal of the Siam Society 5 Joyce, James 239

Kaberry, Phyllis 241 Kachari 132,145 Kaew Nawarat, Caw 67 Kammerer, C.A. 272 Kampe, K. 122/h Kane, P.V. 308/h Kannika Wimonkasem 203,212, 216,227fii. 229Jh Karen 11, 21. 22, 24, 25. 40, 121, 170, 239ff, 242, 256; Mongolian origin 259, 264; separatists 254 Karen Demonology’ 267-8 'Karen people of Th^sid and Christianity, the’ 262 Kawila, Prince 64 Kawthoolei 258 Keen, F.G.B. 21, 76, 92, 95 Kemp, J. 194/n, 195yh Keng Tung 68 /n, 203, 205, 225 K^atomalacia 170 Kerr, A,D, 153 Kesamanee Chupinit V22fii C.F. 255, 256-57, 269 kh^ miiang see Thai, northern language Khamu 68 /h Khaw Muenwongse 291 Khmer 201, 206, 211, 212, 221, 222, 223, 229/n, 326, 327; Khmer-Pallava 200,225,227fn Khmu 76, 77 Khoen 205,225 Khon MUang ree Thai, northern King Naresuan declares

independoice’ 325 kingship 307 kinship 11, 92; 'descriptive' terminologies 183,194/n; 'Dravidian' terminology 184, 188,195/h; extension 189; 'Hawaiian' terminologies 183, 195/h; terminology (general) 181ff 'Klein group' 183,184, 194yh Knodel, Chamrattrithirong and Debavalaya 19,34 Kraisri Nimmanhaeminda 23, 158/r, 2:2Zfn Kumar, K. 139 Kunstadter, P. & S. 7~3,11 Kunstadter, Chqjman and Sabhasri 75 Kwangsi 158 Kyuma, K. 56

Laddawan Sunyapridakul 178 Lafont, P-B. 208 Lahu22 Lamet76 Lamphun 201, 227/n 215, 220, 229^ (s'ee also Hariphunchai) Lan Chang ree Lang Sang Lan Na 158/n, 203ff, 207, 209, 212, 213, 217, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226/h, 227^, 22&fii\ see also Thai, northwn Lan Sang 205, 209 land rent 60 land rights 60 land tax 60-61 land title 86 land use 17ff, 22, 30. 38.44 language 11 Lao 149, 211, 212, 217, 211, 212, 217. 221, 225 Laos 18, 21, 27, 77. 207, 209 laupani (’beer’) 127ff; meaning 133, law, northern Thai 13, 60

337

INDEX

Le May, R. Leach. Edmund 182 League of Nations 324 LeBar, EM. 68^. 76.77. 79 Lee, G. 28 Lehman, K. 246 Li Fang Kuei 217, 220, 221,229/h Lian Kwoi Fee 272 Lilley, R. 268 linguistics 11 Lisu22 literacy (Karen) 257,269. Lokathip, Luang 300 Loo Shwe, Thra 262-66 'Lost tribes of Israel' 252 Lounsbury, F. 193 Lua' 7-8, 21, 22. 23ff, 30ff. 48-53, 62, 68/h, 246; wealth 27 Luang Prabang 77,206 Lue 205, 211. 229/n lustral Y' 199ff, 212ff Luo Yongxian229y?i Lyotard, J-F. 262

MacMahon, A.R. 246 Mae Hong Son 172 mae liang see pAo liang Maekhong river 206 Maenmas Chavalit 285, 295, 307/h 'Mahaburut' 326 Mahachakraphat,^I^g 208 Maharaj Na^om Chiang Mai Hospital 172, 174,177 Mahawong, Caw 59-60, 64 malaria 19, 21,31 Malay 185, 186,327 maps 292 marasmus 175 Marlowe. D.H. 245-46, 248.256, 269 Mair.D. 326 marriage and residence 26,29 Marx 317,319 Masakazu Tanaka 272

338

Mason, E 250, 254-55, 258, 259, 261 McKiimon, John 121 meeting procedures 110-111,114115 meetings 105ff Meo sec Hmong Metahistory 319 miang 9, 73ff, origins 76, 'pa miang (miang forest') 13,19, 84, 86, 90,93; process 80ff Michelet 319 Mien see Yao migration (Karen) 263 see also origins, Karen Mongolian origins migration 7-8, 17ff, 26, 30, 39,4041, 43, 45, 46, 48-53, 83 Mika RoUey 258 Mikir 132 Mills, J.P. 142, 144 Milne, L. 149, 150 Miri 132, 139 Mischung, R. 243 Mishmi 132, 141 missionary 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 258, 261, 271, 283 Mizo 260 Moerman, M. 66 Moffat, A.L. 292, 298, 305, 300, 303, 305 Mon 201, 204, 205, 209, 210, 212, 216, 217,. 223. 224. 327; Mon­ Khmer 22; Mon-Pallava 200 Mongkut, King 12,281ff Morgan, L.H. 183 Moseley, G.V.H. 158 Mougne, C. 7, 9 Muang Metaphysics-2,3,13, 240, 242 Musgrave, J.K. 186 Muslim 127 Mussolini 326 Myanmar see Burma myth 11, 239ff; and ritual 243

INDEX

Naga 132.142ff Naina Prongthura 200, 203, 204, 216, 227/n Nakkharin MektrairaC 320 Nan 1, 43, 203, 229^ NanThep4 Narai, King 325 Naresuan, King 325, 326 narrative 315ff Narujohn Iddhichiracharas 195j^ Nash, M. 186 National Statistical Office 34 national liberation 325 Ne-on Snidvongse 332 Needham, J. 149 Neptune, discovery of 285 Netherlands East Indies 66 New South Wales, University of 2 Nidhi Aeusriwongse 323 Nietzsche 319 night blindness {xerophthalmia) 11 night blindness 171 Nimmanahaeminda see Kraisri Nocte 141 Northern Thai Reader, A 2,3.13,199 north«n Thai manuscripts 13 occult 105 October 1973 323 Ophas Sewikul 287 opium 17, 28, 40, 41, 43, 73. 107 Orientalism 262 origin narratives (Karen) 245ff

Pa-0 184 paidia 24Q, 241 Palaung 76 Pali 201,204, 205, 216, 221, 283, 327 Pallegoix, J£. 150, 155 Panday, B3.139 Parry. N.E. 157 Peace Corp 1, 3,13

Penth, H. 204. 210-11, 229yh People's Party 321 Petry. J. 272 Phansak Prad^kaew 288 Phaulkon 284 Philology Section 141 Phloenpis Kamran 307^ Phlu Luang 282. 288. 289 Photisan, King 207 Phracomklao 290-91, 293, 295, 296 299, 302, 303,306/zj Phrae203 Phrek58 pho liang Cpatron’) 22, 82, 85,90. 93, 94, 95; mae liang 94 Pibun Songk^am 226fii planets 294 play 240,241 Playfair, A. 145 'plot' of history 315ff political separatism (Karen) 258, 259, 260 population 21, 34. 40. 41, 128 post-modem 12 power (Karen relations) 269ff; ■pastoral' 269 Prachuab Khiri Khan 298 Prachum Pongsawadan 291 Pranee KuUavanijaya 214 Prani Sirithom 65, 66 Praphatsom Bunprasoet 290 Prasert na Nagara 200,203,229fn Prasidh Lilayuwa 307 Pratt, M.L. 266 Pridi Phanomyong 320,321 proto-Thai 185, 219 Pu'er tea 9 Public Welfare, Departmerit of 18 Pwo Karen 242

railway 65 Rajah, A. 11-12,179yh Rama I. King 288,307^ Rama in. King 283,286

339

INDEX

Rama IV, King see Mongkut Ramakian 282,327; 3'ee also Ramayana Ramayana {Ramahian} 3 Ramayanal3 Rambo, Hutterer and Gillogly 261 Raming Tea CompaiQ' 74, 89 Ramkhamhaeng, King 200,308^; inscription 200 Ramsay, J.A. 67 Ranke, 319 Ranoo Wichasin 178/): Ratner, L. 253-54 Rawi Bhavilai 302 refugees 43 Reinhom, M. 149,153 religion 105,128 Renard, R.D. 259, 272 resettlement 41 Reynolds. C.J. 12. 13. 286, 306 rice 38; 57; trade 66 Richardson, Dr. 60 Riggs, F 123/n rites of rebellion 241 ritual 38. 59.105ff. 121,135 ritualist 4-5,13 Ritualization of Behaviour. The 2,3, 105 Robert. R. 150, 151, 153, 154 Robertson, A.F. 117, 118 Robinson,' W. 128 RockhillW.W. 150 role reversal 241 Roy, S. 139 Royal Autograph Chronicle 301fii Royal Forestry Dqjartment 18,36 Royal Highlands Development 18 Royal Institute 153,226/zi: Dictionary Royal Pronouncements (King Mongkut) 293 Royal Thai Forestry Department 108 Royal Thai Survey Department 332 royal land 57

340

royal land, acquisition 60 Rujaya Abhakom 67,68/71 Rushdie, Salman 12

Saek229/n Saichol Wannarat 286,308/h Said, E. 262 Saikia, A.K. 139 Sainil Nori 178 Saiyasettha, King 207, 208 Salwithanithes. Phraya 308/)t Saneh Watthanathom 299, 302,304 sangha 2S2 Sanskrit 211,215,283,327 Saranukromthai 152 Sarit Thanarat 321 Saussure, F. de 316 Saw Moo Troo 258 Schmidt, Father W. 261 Schwartman, H.B. 116,118 Second King 286 semiotics 316 Seni Saowaphong 330,331 sexuality 244 Sgaw Karen 242 Shakespear, J. 157 Shan 62. 67. 149.152, 170, 228/h. 229/71,246; beliefs 173 shifters 317 Shorto, H.L. 222 Shukla, B.K. 139 'Shway Yoe' (Sir James Scott) 245 Siam Society, The 13 Siamese 59.149.151,152 Siamese cosmology 286, 292, 304, 307/71 Sila Viravongse 207,210, 211 silver plate grants 8 Silvestre, le Capitaine 154 Singhto Bukhut 282. 301 Singkha Wannasai 229Jh Sinha.R. 139, 159/7t Sitte, F. 269 Sivaraksa, S. 289, 304 •

INDEX

slaveiy 326 smallpox 19, 30. 34. 294 Smith. W.C. 142 Smyth. H.W. 21. 27 sociology 182,187 solar eclipse 282, 291, 298ff Somkiat Wanthana 320,325, 327. 331,332 Sommer, A. 171 Somsri Ruckphaopunl 178 Somthat Thewes 287 Southeast Asia 158,181,184, 324. Southwestern Tai 218,222 spirit cults 13 spirit medium 248 Srivastova, L.R.N. 139,141 state systems 258 Stephan, J.M.E. 308/n stereotypy 106,121 Stevenson, H.N.C. 157 structuralism 316 sutsistence crops 22 Sukanya Hantrakul 316 Sukhothai 199. 200ff, 209, 211, 215. 222, 224,227/h, inscription 21^ 214, 216 Suleemam Narumol l9Sfit Supapom Sitthipranee 179/zi Supha Sirimanond 332 Suthiwong Phongjiiaibun Q23fii Swanson, H,R. 212 swidden 7-8,17, 20. 23, 24, 28. 36. 38, 40, 44, 46 Swift, M. 186 Sydney, University of 2, 3 symbolic interpretation 11; systems 106 Systems of Consanguinity and Marriage 183

T'in 76 Tai; beer-brewing 10,148; see also beer; Daeng (Red) 59,149,151, 152; language 127; Lu 59,178/n.

191; fee also Lue;Neual49; White 59,149; writing systems 11; northeastern writing systems 206, 208; Southwestern 199 Tai Historical and Cultural SocieQr of Assam 129 Tai Mongol Association 129 Takaya, Y. 58 Taksin. King 307/n. 325 Tanabe, S. 59.65 Tangsa 132,141 Tani, Father 139 Tantric Saivitcs 134 Tapp. N. 18.28 tax 33 tea 9.76; fermented see miang teak 21.35,77; companies 66 "technological determinism" 63 technology 34 Tej Bunnag 328 telescope 284 tenancy arrangements 84 Tcrwiel, BJ. 6, 10, 11,13. 226/n Thai 256,269; Isan script 06; public service 09,118; central 85, language 188,491', 195/h; northern, 5, 7,8, 13, 17. 3,40, 57ff.'76. 69ff. 176,181ff, 84, 195yh 246,263; northern Thai language 1, 13,170,188,195j^; northern Thai script 199ff; Siandardl99 Thai Food Composition Tables 171 ThaUand 149, 257, 328 Thammasat University'320 Thanom government 323 , The Almanac and Astronomy 286 Thi Be, Saul & Freiberger Wilson 153 Thipakorawong, Chaophraya 288, 289, 298,300,302-03, 326 Third World 118,324 Thongchai Winichakul 325,328ff timber companies 33 timekeeping 290£f

341

iNrax-

Tipparal Maneeldt 178 Ton Kwen study 176ff trade 23.35ff transport 19 Treaty of Yandaboo 130 Trobiiandlslaj^ 117 tuberculosis 19

World Warn 7.18.371 writing systems 11 Wyatt, D. 14,207 Wynne, B. 117

Udom Rungruangsri 223Jh UN Project for Drug AbuSe Control 18 USA 107, 118 Uthai and Dhawaj 208

Y'wa 2A9,251,252,255,2S1,269, 265 Fa/weh 249.252 Yalman, N. 195A Yao 22.170 yeast 147; preparation 138,140,145 Yuan 149; see also northern Thai Yunnan 9. 59,158,191 .

V^navas 133,135 Vajiravudh, King 323 Van Roy. E. 9. 73, 76. 77. -92. 93. 94, 98, 100/rt Vickery, M. 212 Victoria, Queen 284 Vientiane (also Wiangchan) 206, 208. 27. 107. 296. 326 village territory 26 Vinton. Rev. J.B. 254Virginia4 Virginia, University of 1 vitamin A deficiency 159ff Vo Nguyen Giap 326 vocabulary, Thai historians' 315 'vulgar materialism’ 63

WaaKor298 Wancho 141 Washington, George 326 White, H.315ff Wichit Watthakan, Luang 323^ Wichitwong Na Phompech 307 Wijeyewardene, G. 226^, 241,248, 272 Wilanka, Luang 23 Willaiwan Khannitanan 229fit Wilson. D. 186, 286, 304 Wira Amphansuk 325 Wittfogel, Karl 7, 62, 63 Worid Bank 112

342

Xerophihalmia See BitofsISpots xerosis cornea see Bitot's Spots

Zhuang 218,222,229^