University of Virginia Library

2
THE STAGE AND ITS SETTING

THE VILLAGE OF MUAN THE HUNTER AND ITS REGION

Baan Phraan Muan means the village of Muan the hunter. There is
a myth which has wide circulation in the region where this village is
located. It not only gives us some idea of the verbal play in which Thai
people take pleasure and excel, but also relates a number of villages
distinguished by name into a wider regional complex. The villages in
the legend exist; so does the swamp. They lie in a region extending from
Udorn to Nongkai on the Thailand-Laos border (see Fig. 2).

There is another version of the myth which gives the central role to
Muan, the founder of our village: it was he who successfully traced the
lost cow of the seethii and received recognition for it.

The village of Phraan Muan is located in North-east Thailand between
Udorn, the administrative capital of the province bearing the same name,
and Nongkai, the border town on the Mekong River, which separates
Laos from Thailand. It is about seventeen kilometres from Udorn, and
has to be reached along a feeder road that branches from the main road
linking the two towns.

The village is the last unit in a formal administrative hierarchy. Udorn

Fig. 2 Baan Phraan Muan and its region

province has eight districts (amphur); Phraan Muan village is in Amphur
Muang (the district in which the provincial capital of Udorn is situated),
and is a member of the commune (tambon) of Baan Khao, which in
1961/2 had a population of 8,000 persons. This tambon in turn is composed
of the following eight `hamlets' or `villages'—Baan Khao, Baan Phraan
Muan, Daun Marparng, Baan Hua Bueng, Baan Nakha, Baan Ton Yaai,
Baan Duu and Baan Naabua (see Fig. 2). In other words, Phraan Muan
village is one of eight villages which collectively form the commune
(tambon) of Baan Khao, which in turn is part of the central district of
Udorn province. The tambon has a chief headman (gamnan) who is
assisted by a headman (puyaibaan) from each of the villages (baan).
Phraan Muan village has an elected puyaibaan. Both kinds of headman,
who are paid by the government, are the intermediaries between the
central administration (whose chief representative at the district level is
the nai amphur) and the villagers. The administrative hierarchy is only
of marginal relevance in this study of village religion, since the administrative
divisions from the tambon upwards created by the government
do not necessarily reflect the villagers' social and economic networks.
Thus, Phraan Muan village has close links with some of its tambon
members but not with others; and it has close links with other neighbouring
villages of the region which are, however, not in its tambon.

Although quite near Udorn town, the villagers of Phraan Muan have
had very little contact with it. The town, with a population of about
30,000 in the early sixties, provided a striking contrast to the village,
with its administrative offices manned by uniformed officials, modern
schools attended by uniformed children, shops owned by thriving Chinese
businessmen (and stocked with radios, TV sets, cosmetics and beauty
magazines), cinemas, beauty parlours, and nightclubs for American
soldiers. The village was depressing at first sight, with its congested
houses built on stilts; the better ones had wooden walls and the worse
ones bamboo walls. There was in 1961 one small shop in the village and
one radio; and most of the adults saw their first film when the field workers
showed one to them. During the rains, deep mud obstructed travel, but
the eye rejoiced at the sight of sprouting green paddy; during the dry
season, dust and heat kept people indoors and the brown parched countryside
provided no visual relief.

North-east Thailand, like the other major regions of Thailand, concentrates
on agriculture; it is also reckoned to be the poorest part of the
country. Both these features require a gloss which says something general
about the society we are dealing with and something specific about its
north-eastern region.

There is an old tradition in Thailand, which, true or not, conveys
a distinctive feature about that country. It is said that each free man had
the right to cultivate up to twenty-five rai (about six acres) in order to
maintain his family. The people of Thailand were in the past, and still
remain, a nation of small farmers, the vast majority of whom are engaged
in growing one crop—rice.

Rice is the chief crop of Central, North-east, North and South Thailand,
the four main regions of the country. There is a dramatic difference in
the scale on which it was grown between before 1850, when Siam, as the
country was then called, had little contact with the West, and after 1850,
when as a result of the Bowring Treaty, there was an explosive expansion
in rice-growing ensuing from Siam's participation in world trade, the
expansion of which in turn was, partly at least, related to developments
in steam transport and the opening of the Suez Canal. There was a
tremendous increase in the volume of rice exports, especially between the
1870s and 1930s, and one writer describes the change thus: `This 25-fold
increase—over the probable maximum volume at the time of the Bowring
Treaty—which took place while the population roughly doubled itself,
represents the major economic change in Thailand since 1855.' (Ingram
1955, pp. 39-40.)

This economic expansion may have stretched the social structure but
certainly it did not burst it. In fact, it emphasized even more than before
that the Thais had an entrenched preference for rice-growing and for
living in village settlements. Furthermore, the economic expansion and
prosperity, rather than changing traditional religious orientations and
practices, may well have reinforced some of them, notably the belief in
the ethical virtue of merit-making and the scale on which it was practised.
The economic change was thus accomplished, with a change neither of
technology nor of social rules and religious orientations. It was, however,
achieved in an uneven fashion within Thailand. Until about 1900 it was
the Central Plain of Thailand that showed the greatest expansion in rice
cultivation, but from 1905 onwards the outer provinces of the North and
North-east showed significant advances, especially with the construction
of the railway. By 1935 the North-east was responsible for 20% of the
country's total rice exports (Ingram 1955, p. 47).

But although the North-east, like most other parts of Thailand, participated
in the process which broadened the peasant's economic horizons,
it was—and is still—beset with its own peculiar chronic problems. Its soil
is not so fertile as in the North or the Central Plain; whereas the North is
greatly helped by irrigation systems, and the Central Plain by a system
of canals in a flat terrain, the North-east depends entirely on monsoon

rain by and large unaided by the artifices of water-control and irrigation.
Thus the North-east, while it distinguished itself by showing a marked
increase in the area cultivated in the last few decades, is also the region
where yields declined most sharply—a commentary on the marginal
nature of the lands brought under cultivation and the inadequacy of water
supply. (Yet, by some curious twist of nature in this dry area, there are
some three or four swamps and ponds in the vicinity of our village which
are remarkable landmarks and exemplifications of the value of water.)
The data reported in the Census of Agriculture for 1963 (when rearranged
according to the Ministry of Agriculture classification of the four major
regions) show that the average holding in the North-east is 21.6 rai, which
compares favourably with 25.9 for the Central Plain, 23.0 for the South
and 8.6 for the North. But the yield in the North-east is the lowest: 169.2
kilograms per rai, as compared with 216 for the Central Plain, 210 for
the South and 302.5 for the North, which enjoys irrigation. (Wijewardene
in Silcock (ed.) 1967.)

Phraan Muan village is thus representative of its region in that it is
poor. It depends on one rice crop a year, and its yields are controlled by
the volume of rainfall it receives. Rain is notoriously unreliable in both
timing and amount, and the hazard of crop loss due to drought is endemic.
This, combined with poor soils, gives much lower rice yields than in the
Bangkok Plain. During the dry season village wells and ponds dry up and
villagers have to go some distance to draw muddy, slimy water. It is not
to be wondered then that water should occupy villagers, not only in their
economic activities but in their rituals and myths as well.

I shall proceed now to give a picture of the social structure of the
village in terms of the ecological categories and principles of classification
employed by the villagers themselves.

The word baan has many ranges of meaning. First of all it means a house;
it also represents a compound cluster (baun baan); it also means `hamlet'
or `village' in its widest extension (in the sense of a settlement composed of
houses), and for major subdivisions of it (e.g. `large' or `small' hamlets).

The settlement pattern of Baan Phraan Muan is clustered, like that of
other villages in the region. The nucleus is a dense settlement called
baan yaai (big hamlet) intersected by narrow lanes. The branch dirt road
that leads up to the village, and goes beyond to Tambon Baanpue,
separates this settlement from the wat (cluster of buildings forming the
Buddhist temple). Lined along the road, opened ten years previously, are
houses that have overflowed from the main settlement and comprise
baan naui (small hamlet). This settlement contains primarily young
families who could not find space in their parents' compounds in baan

yaai. All villages in the region are clustered and are separated from one
another by distances of three to four kilometres or more. The village is
thus a distinct ecological entity. The settlement itself is comprised of
separate categories: baan (hamlet or village) is distinguished from wat
(temple); the fields (naa) surround the baan; at the edges of the fields
are swamps and ponds (byng) which are a distinct category of nature, for
they provide fishing and symbolize perennial water; and finally forest
(paa), now more or less cut down, separates one village from another.

In a sense the major ecological and social distinction within the village
(baan) is that between the wat, where the monks live, and the houses of
lay villagers (baan).

The most conspicuous physical feature of the village is the cluster of
buildings comprising the wat. The components are a large wooden sala
(preaching hall), a small dilapidated bood (the chapel, where ordination
takes place and where monks hold certain services, such as confessions, to
which laymen are not admitted), and the khuti (monks' dwellings). The
wat compound is large and bounded by a fence with two gateways.
The village school is held in the sala, and this fact alone makes the wat
a focal point in village life and a source of ear-splitting noise, caused by
children both at work (largely repetitive learning) and at play. In addition
to its serving as school and place of religious worship and instruction, the
sala is also the village hall and large meetings of a secular nature are
held there. The wat is thus the focus of village devotional and recreational
activities, the two of which merge in certain collective rites distributed
over the year. But despite the children and their schooling, the monks
lead a segregated life in their khuti, which stands at the farthest end of the
wat, away from the village. The place of the wat in the village cannot be
expressed in a simple dichotomy: if the wat is distinct from baan, it is also the central architectural complex in the village; if the monks are
segregated from village life, village life in its collective aspect is acted
out in the precincts of the wat. The wat belongs to the village; it was
built and is maintained by the villagers; its inmates are of village origin—
though in a formal sense one should say that the wat belongs to the
Sangha (the order of monks) and its ecclesiastical organization.

The settlement can be said to be composed of the following inclusive
groupings: the family, the household, and the compound. Not only is the
smaller contained within the larger, but all three are dynamically interrelated
in terms of the domestic and compound cycles.

In 1961 there were 149 households and 182 families in the village, with
a total population of about 932. The age distributions (rough estimates)
were as shown below.

Table 1. Age distributions of the population of Baan Phraan Muan

             

10 years and under	221
11-20	249
21-30	152
31-40	104
41-50	93
50+	99
No information	14

A brief account of residence and inheritance customs is a necessary
preliminary to the understanding of household and compound structure.

Ordinarily a newly married couple lives uxorilocally for a few years in
the house of the wife's parents as members of the same household.[1]
A change takes place when the next sister gets married; the older sister
and her family may either build a house for themselves in the parents'
compound, or move out altogether and live neolocally. This residential
change is usually synchronized with other changes: no more are the
couple part of the parental household, economically dependent on them
and also contributing their labour to the parental farming enterprise. The
wife's parents informally transfer some land to the couple so that they
can farm independently, and also establish themselves as a separate
household. (Legal possession of this land takes place later, usually in the
form of intestate succession.)

Traditionally in Baan Phraan Muan (and its region), sons either
settled uxorilocally and worked land inherited by their wives or, equally
frequently, cleared new forest land to make their own farms (jab jawng) and
lived neolocally after marriage. This pattern of transmission of property
through females and uxorilocal residence, combined with pioneering
settlements, was in vogue as long as land was freely available; today
with scarcely any new land available for development, the inheritance
ideology is distinctly manifesting bilateral features. This trend will
probably become marked in the future; present figures, however, still
show a statistical emphasis on female rights to land.

Table 2 gives a synchronic cross-section of household composition in
a sample of 80 households. It shows that 65% were elementary families
(with or without odd relatives) and that 26% were multiple extended
families composed of parents and usually their unmarried children plus
families of married children among whom daughters predominate. A

Table 2. Household composition (sample = 80 households)

                         

Elementary family
Parents + unmarried children	46	52 (65%)
Parents + unmarried children + odd relatives	5
Husband and wife + odd relatives	1
Extended family
Parents + unmarried children + married daughter's family	17	21 (26%)
Parents + unmarried children + married son's family	3
Parents + married daughter's family	1
Limited extended family
Widowed parent + married daughter's family	4 (5%)
Other
Families of two sisters	2	3 (4%)
Polygynous family (two wives)	1

diachronic picture of Table 2 is that a married daughter (sometimes a married
son) lives for a short period with her parents in the same household, and
then sets up a separate establishment in the compound (or elsewhere)
when the next sister marries, until finally the youngest sister marries and
lives with the parents as the stem family and will succeed to the parental
house. At the next stage a widowed parent may well become the dependant
of the stem family, and on his or her death the cycle starts again.

It is clear then that the domestic cycle is linked with the compound cycle.
The local word for compound is baun diawkan or baun baan. If there is
more than one household within a fenced compound, typically the most
senior male, or if he is dead then his spouse, is the point of reference for
purposes of identity; for example baun baan Phau Tu Phan means compound
of grandfather Phan, and the constituent households are described as living
within a common fence (`juu nai wua diawkan').

At any particular point of time the compounds may show varied
composition. For instance, the composition of the main hamlet (baan yaai),
which had ninety-nine households, was as follows in 1961/2.

There were eight compounds of multiple households, two to six in
number, whose key linking numbers were close kin who referred their
residence rights to a common ascendant or set of them. In these compounds
there was usually a core of females who provided the kinship and inheritance
links, but there were also instances of brothers only or siblings of both
sexes and their descendants. In baan yaai thirty households formed these
eight compounds.

There were also `pseudo' compounds composed of two or more non-kin
households who had either inherited their site from unrelated sources

or had themselves acquired the residential site. Common fence here
signified friendship and neighbourliness, but not common ownership.
Property rights were held separately. A slightly different situation is that
of two kinsmen who, having left their own parental compounds for lack
of space, acquire adjacent plots intentionally or accidentally, and decide
to maintain a common fence, though their properties are separate.
Baan yaai had some thirty-three such households forming `pseudo'
compounds.

The third type is the `single household' compounds. There were in
baan yaai thirty-six such units, and about six of these were households
of parents and married children. These compounds will in time turn into
multiple household compounds, that is, the first and third types belong
to the same compound cycle.

The cycle may be formalized thus:

1. a fully developed compound would consist of the parental household
(which would include the prospective stem family) and households of
married children, usually daughters;

2. when the parents die the link between sisters, or more rarely between
brothers and sisters, will be the link between households;

3. in the next generation, classificatory siblingship (phii-naung) (especially
matrilateral first cousinship) and more remote ties will link the constituent
households.

In short, there is in the village a tendency toward co-residence, in
compounds, of married female siblings and classificatory phii-naung
(matrilateral parallel cousins), owing to the custom of uxorilocal residence
and the inheritance of residence rights in compounds by daughters rather
than by sons. Thus is the domestic cycle meshed with the compound cycle.

The implications of these inclusive groupings of family, household and
compound for religious activities will occupy us in later chapters. A stem
family or a junior dependent family will not usually be reckoned as an
independent unit for ritual activities—such as making a contribution to
a collective Buddhist festival or to a communal propitiation of the guardian
spirit. Nor will it be an independent unit in the reciprocities of gift giving
and labour services in rites of passage such as marriage and death. A
household which is autonomous in the compound with respect to its
domestic economy and ownership of paddy stocks, and which participates
as an independent contracting unit in reciprocal economic services and
dyadic contracts, will also be reckoned as an autonomous unit for ritual
activities and enjoy the privileges and shoulder the duties thereof.

The normal acting unit or grouping in the village is a `household'.
Co-residence in compound involves reciprocities between households in

economic and ritual matters, but these shade off into the reciprocities of
wider kinship, neighbourliness, and village membership. It is true that
individual afflictions, life crises and rites of passage are first and foremost
the concern of the patients' or celebrants' family and household, then
of the surrounding circle of close kin and finally of distant kin and
neighbours and friends. But it is my view that it would be a mistake
and a relatively barren inquiry to search for the nexus between ritual
concepts and religious symbolism, and the social structure in Baan Phraan
Muan, in terms of social groupings alone or even primarily in terms of
them. The essential structural ideas bearing on ritual are coded in terms
of principles of social classification as portrayed by the kinship terminology,
rules of social distance symbolized in marriage rules, the ordering of
generations, and the topology of social space embedded especially in the
physical divisions of the house and compound. I shall examine these
features now.

Although residential and inheritance patterns have a matrilateral
colouring, kinship is bilateral and ego-oriented. This, combined with
a tendency towards village endogamy as an empirical fact, produces
important results. Table 3 shows both high village endogamy and the
greater tendency for women to have origin in the village than is the case
for men. Among 87 married couples living in the village, 56 (64 %) of
the husbands were born in the village, but 78 (or nearly 90 %) of the
total 87 wives were born in the village. For most people the number of
kinsmen in the community, both cognatic and affinal, is therefore large.
In fact, the entire village population consists of a social universe that is
subject to a common scheme of social categorization which contains or
includes the particularities of ego-oriented reckoning within the generalities
of the society or village-wide categorical scheme. It is important to grasp this
integrating principle.

Table 3. Birth-place of married couples living in Baan Phraan Muan
(sample = 87)

             

		Birth-place of wives
Birth-place of husbands		Baan Phraan Muan	Same tambon	Same district	Elsewhere
Baan Phraan Muan	56 (64 %)	48 (85.7 %)	4 (7 %)	2 (3.6 %)	2 (3.6 %)
Same tambon	8 (9.5 %)	8 (100 %)	—	—	—
Same district	10 (11.5 %)	10 (100 %)	—	—	—
Elsewhere	13 (15 %)	12 (92.3 %)	—	—	1 (7.7 %)
	87 (100 %)	78 (90 %)	4 (4.6 %)	2 (1.9 %)	3 (3.5 %)

The ordering of persons in this system is along two axes—the vertical
generational (which defines respect and authority relations) and the
lateral `sibling' (which defines sexual accessibility and approved marriage).
Both axes embody concepts of social privilege and obligation.

The following is a formal picture of the village-wide status categories
which divide the village into hierarchical segments. I do not propose to
go into details of kinship terminology. In terms of village usage and
categorization the important point is that certain kinship terms for consanguineal
kin over three generations are applied right through the village,
thus dividing the population into generational categories.

1. Pu-ya-ta-yai (fafa-famo-mofa-momo). This is a collective concept
used for the four grandparents as well as all `grandparents' in general.
Each term can be used singly to refer to the particular grandparent
(e.g. pu = fafa). The villagers use this collective term to refer to ancestors
and to dead elders to whom merit is transferred in merit-making rites.

2. Phau-mae (fa-mo). In the narrow sense these terms refer to own father
and mother. They are used as a collective expression to refer to both
parents together. The terms father and mother are, however, used widely
to refer to persons of the parental generation and appropriate sex. Thus
phau-mae-phuu thaw are `persons of father-mother status'. These are
all the elders in ego's village. The accent is on generation and age, which
call for respect on the part of luug-laan (described below), and carry the
right to assume leadership roles in the village and to call upon the labour
power of junior generations. The most commonly used term for persons
of this category is phuu thaw (old persons); in their role as intermediaries,
mediators and arbitrators they are called thaw kae (old old).

3. Phii-naung (elder sibling-younger sibling). This, again, can be used
singly of a particular individual and collectively to refer to a category
of persons. In everyday usage the sex of a sibling is not specified in
address; in terms of reference sex can be specified by a suffix. Once again
the terms are used not only for full siblings, but also for all males and
females of ego's own generation. Rather than specifying sex it specifies
relative age. As a collective term, phii-naung refers to kin of one's own
generation, villagers of one's own generation, and, in its widest extension,
all ego's kin (yaad-phii-naung).

4. Luug-laan (child-grandchild, nephew). The rules of usage are similar
to those already described. Luug in its kinship frame of reference is own
child or children; it is extended to all members of the junior generation.
Laan is grandchild; in its wider extension it means persons of the second
descending generation. Thus this collective category lumps both descending
generations together.

These hierarchical social categories are a significant pointer to the
social structure of the village community. In the grandparental generation
each of the grandparents is specified by sex and type of link in the collective
term; in the parental generation the terms for father and mother make
up the category. In one's own generation, not the sex of siblings but
their relative age is conspicuous in the collective category. In the case
of luug-laan category, both descending generations are grouped together
irrespective of type of link, sex and relative age.

In the sphere of ritual activities examined in this book, the reciprocities
and exchanges considered are those between phuu thaw (or phau-mae-phuu
thaw) and luug-laan (children and grandchildren).

The conspicuous feature of kinship relations in Baan Phraan Muan is
the phrasing of obligations and relationships in the idiom of four terms:
grandparent, parent, sibling, and child-grandchild. These terms imply
asymmetrical and reciprocal behaviour. There is no particular complex
of behaviour attributes associated with, say, mother's brother as distinct
from father's brother, father's sister as distinct from mother's sister.
Close kin are naturally more important than more distant kin, but which
of the close kin (outside ego's families of procreation and orientation)
depends on situational circumstances and not on jural norms. The wider
grouping that assembles at ritual occasions is the bilateral kin, plus
affines, the representation again being flexible and the operative factors
situational. Fellow community members also assemble and play roles, for
the village conception of reciprocity extends to all its members. They, too,
can be comprehended within the collective generational and age categories
deriving from the terminology of kinship.

The lateral axis differentiates persons in ego's own generation. Kinsmen
in one's own generation (including affines) divide into two categories
(phii/naung: older/younger siblings) and the concept yaad phii-naung is
used in its widest reference to mean `kinsmen'. While marriage across
generations and which breaks the rule of `relative age' (the rule that the
husband must be older than his wife) is prohibited, especially if the partners
are close kin, marriage and sex regulations are usually formulated in
terms of the lateral phii-naung own generation series which is differentiated
into the following named sub-categories. All sub-categories incorporate
the relative age distinction.

1. Phii kab naung (blood brothers and sisters; siblings). Sex relations (see)
between siblings is forbidden. If they engage in them, they must be forcibly
separated. Marriage (aw kan = `to take') between them is impossible. These
attitudes are axiomatic and are therefore not the focus of verbal elaboration.
Thus, in short, sex and marriage are prohibited with phii kab naung.

2. Luug phuu phii naung (first cousins). Sex relations between first
cousins are forbidden; once again, if they engage in them, they must be
forcibly separated. Marriage is forbidden because they are descended from
a common ancestor (haam gaad sum diawkan). Village attitude is that such
unions are `impermanent and against custom' (bau yuen pid booran) and
denies that stable and prosperous marriage is possible between first cousins.
It is axiomatic that a marriage ceremony cannot take place (tham pithii
baw dai), and that if two first cousins live together and refuse to be separated,
they will be disinherited and disowned. Villagers appear to observe these
rules strictly. No marriage between first cousins was encountered.

3. Phii-naung (classificatory siblings/second cousins). Second cousins
are not separated from third cousins by means of a special term, but they
comprise a special category in regard to sex and marriage—a transitional
ambivalent category.

Sex between second cousins is not a serious matter if of temporary
duration. But in this village since sex usually follows courtship, and
courtship is a prelude to marriage (in fact ideally there should be no
intercourse before marriage), sex relations between second cousins carries
the possibility of marriage.

Village attitude to marriage of second cousins is ambivalent. Tham
prapheenii haam tae aw dai khaw chaub ragkan—`custom forbids but they
can marry if they love each other'. They can be married ceremonially in
the orthodox fashion, but if second cousins break the relative age rule
(i.e. the woman is an `older sibling of the man'), they have to go through
a certain ritual to overcome the effects of incest. In normal usage a husband
can be referred to by his wife as phii (older sibling) and can refer to his
wife as naung (younger sibling). Thus a marriage that contravenes relative
age distinctions creates unacceptable linguistic asymmetry between husband
and wife. There are cases of second cousin marriage in the village but
they are infrequent.

4. Phii-naung: yaad haang. The second term means distant relatives.
Persons of third cousin range and further distance fall into this category.
Marriage is recommended or approved within this range; and sex relations
without marriage are not prohibited.

5. Khon oeuen: `other people' are non-kinsmen. Typically they are
persons of other villages in the region. It is possible to marry them,
thereby converting non-kin to kinsmen.

6. Finally, we come to the unknown `outsider' who marks the limit
of sex relations and marriage. He stands at the edge of the social universe,
rather than signifying a special forbidden category. Witchcraft is attributed
to remote villagers. Outsiders are also those from the urban world to

Fig. 3a Profile of house, showing levels

Fig. 3b House plan (living space on raised floor)

1. Haan naam: covered water pots for drinking

2. Water pots for washing feet

3. Fireplace

4. Water pots

5. Pillar called saaw haeg (1)

6. Pillar called saaw khwan (1)

7. Pillar called saaw khwan (2)

8. Pillar called saaw haeg (2)

9. Shelf with Buddha statue

which power and wealth and also poverty and degradation belong. While
there is no single term for outsiders they are, however, named as groups:
Cheg (Chinese), Kaew (Vietnamese), Khaeg (Indians), and Farang (a word
which denotes white-skinned foreigners and is derived from farangseed,
the French). Most of these foreign elements are found in the towns of the
North-east as elsewhere in Thailand.

Now I shall present a set of categories pertaining to the arrangement of
space in a village house (and compound). These house categories which
refer to the physical arrangement of the rooms and floor space carry
social meanings which are formulated in reference to categories of persons,
especially the lateral phii-naung series already described. They also derive
meaning from certain other features of social structure: the custom of
initial uxorilocal residence and the frequent habitation of married daughter
and son-in-law in the parental house.

All village houses, with very few exceptions, are built on wooden stilts
or pillars, and are therefore raised from the ground. Access to the house
(baan) is by a ladder. The space under the floor on the ground is used
for keeping animals and storing household goods.

Fig. 3b sets out the floor plan of an orthodox village house. The major
features of the layout that concern us are: the ladder (kan dai) leading
up to the saan, which is an unenclosed and roofless entrance platform;
this platform I describe as a first `threshold'. From the entrance platform
one enters the huean naui (little house) or bawn rab khaeg (place for
receiving guests).

This guest room is roofed and has walls, except on the side which
gives on to the open entrance platform. The limits of the guest room are
fixed by two pillars saaw haeg and saaw khwan (haeg means `first' and
khwan refers to the `spiritual essence' of a human being). From the
guest room one enters the huean yaai or baun naun (place for sleeping).
This sleeping room, too, has two important named pillars: saaw khwan
and saaw haeg (their arrangement being the reverse of the pillars in the
guest room, so that both saaw haeg will be at the extremities). The area
between the two saaw khwan is the second `threshold' in the house,
marking the sleeping quarters from the guest room. The sleeping room
is internally divided into haung phoeng (room of parents) and haung suam
(room for son-in-law and married daughter), but this room has no actual partition,
only an invisible one. This invisible partition is the third `threshold'.

To the left of the guest room is the kitchen (khrua) and adjoining it the
washing place (haung naam), which is an open platform on which are
pots of water used for bathing and for cooking. It is a place for cleansing,
and is used by members of the household only.

All the floors of the named divisions are on different levels. The washing
place (haung naam) is the lowest in level (level 0). The entrance platform
(saan) is at the next level (level 1); the kitchen is on the same level. The
guest room (huean naui) is higher (level 2), and the sleeping room (huean
yaai) is the highest level (level 3). These levels 0-3 are not accidental
but are symbolic of the various values assigned to the divisions of the
house.

The directions and cardinal points I have indicated in the diagram
have symbolic values. Ideally, a person entering the house would face
north and the entrance platform is at the southern end and the sleeping
room at the northern end. The directions can be reversed. Never must
the sleeping room be placed in the west. The kitchen and the washing
place are also always on the western half of the house. The four directions
have these values: east is auspicious, represents life, is sacred (the Buddha
shelf of the house is always placed in the easterly direction), and is the
direction of the rising sun. East is also, when one faces north, the direction
of the right hand and represents male sex. West is inauspicious, represents
death, impurity, and the setting sun. It also represents the left hand and
the female sex. North is auspicious and is associated with the elephant, an
auspicious animal because of its size, natural strength and its associations
with royalty and Buddhist mythology. South is of neutral value.

Social values are attached to the divisions of the house. Our ultimate
interest in this phenomenon is that rituals held in the home such as
mortuary rites, sukhwan, exorcism, depend for part of their meaning and
effectiveness on the exploitation and manipulation of the social meanings
attached to house categories.

The compound fence (wua) marks the boundary of private property.
Outsiders are not expected to enter the compound without invitation.

Saan (the entrance platform), reached by climbing the ladder, is a
threshold. It gives entry into the house proper, and is a place for washing
one's feet before entering the house. Pots of water are placed on the floor
(the boards of which are loosely spaced to permit water to flow through),
and persons coming from the outside are normally expected to cleanse their
feet. Only persons who are invited or are socially admissible can mount
the ladder and step on the saan. `Khon ouen' or `other people' are those
who are normally excluded from entering the house, unless invited.

The kitchen (khrua) is not a particularly private or sacred place. Cooking,
however, is normally a female task. Hence it is predictably placed in the
west and to the left.

The wash place (haung naam) adjoining the kitchen is a platform with
water jars. It is used for washing and bathing by family members only;

it is considered unclean, but the dirt is `private' and pertains to the
family.

The huean naui is the place for receiving and entertaining guests (baun
rabkhaeg). Typically these guests are second and more distant cousins,
neighbours and friends from the same village, and other nearby villagers.
People in these categories (phii-naung/yaad haang) are eminently marriageable
and are permissible sex partners. They are forbidden to enter the
sleeping quarters (huean yaai), unless they enter into a marriage relationship
with a member of the household. They are divided from the sleeping
quarters by a threshold space represented by the two khwan pillars which
stand between the rooms.

The sleeping room or `large house' (huean yaai), the most sacred place
in the house, is divided into two by an invisible partition. The haung
phoeng (the parents' room) is always the eastern half, the haung suam
(the room for son-in-law and married daughter) the western half. Thus
the relation, parents/versus son-in-law and married daughter in the house,
is expressed by values associated with east and west.

When the house is located in the ideal direction (huean yaai at the
northern end), haung phoeng is, for a person facing it, on the right and
haung suam on the left. We have seen that right in village formulation is
auspicious and also associated with male; left is inauspicious and associated
with female. (Thus in any assembly of both sexes, men ideally sit on the
right and women on the left.) There are always two doors leading into
the huean yaai—one into the haung phoeng and the other into the haung
suam.

To describe now the significance of the haung yaai as a totality in
relation to the other house categories: apart from the members of the
household (normally parents, children and son-in-law) for whom the
haung yaai represents sleeping quarters, only siblings of parents (phii kab
naung) and first cousins (luug phuu phii phuu naung) are allowed to enter
the haung yaai, though not to sleep in it. These two kin categories, we
have seen, are considered so close that sex and marriage with them are
forbidden.

These restrictions which apply in everyday life are not operative on
ceremonial occasions such as death, marriage, ordination and a merit-making
ceremony in the house when monks are invited. On such occasions
the ritual proceedings take place inside the sleeping room (haung yaai)
and all guests can enter. Ritual occasions temporarily obliterate the
restrictions of everyday life; marriage, for example, recreates and adds to
the social structure of the house; death disturbs and diminishes it. These
same rituals, however, in some of their sequences exploit the house categories

to convey meaning, as we shall see in subsequent chapters. By way
of example, let me cite here a sequence in the marriage ceremony which
refers back to the house categories.

The most conspicuous social feature of the division in the sleeping
quarters (haung yaai) between the parents' `room' and the son-in-law's
`room' is that a son-in-law must not enter the sleeping quarters through
the doorway of the parents-in-law; furthermore, once inside the room
he must never cross over into their `room'. This taboo does not bear on
children of either sex, including the married daughter. There is only one
occasion on which the son-in-law ever enters through the doorway of his
wife's parents. At his wedding ceremony, he is ceremonially led through
that door by the ritual elders (thaaw) for the ritual of sukhwan (binding
the soul essence to the body). This symbolizes that he is accepted into the
house by the bride's parents and that he is legitimately allowed into the
sleeping quarters as a son-in-law. There is no reciprocal taboo on parents-in-law
crossing over into the haung suam. The taboo on the son-in-law
represents an asymmetrical `avoidance' with all its sex and incest connotations.

To sum up: in this account of social structure I want to emphasize
these features of the village as a community; it is a distinct ecological
entity, it manifests a high degree of endogamy, and the structure of its
kinship is bilateral. For most people the number of kinsmen in the community,
both cognatic and affinal, is large, and the village scheme of
social categorization emphasizes the asymmetrical relationships between
the superordinate senior and subordinate junior generations into which
the total community is divided, rather than differentiated and strongly
defined dyadic relationships within demarcated kin groups. Marriage
should, in theory, be outside the second-cousin range. The marriage
of first cousins is prohibited. Kinship terminology is consistent with the
bilateral kinship system. Authority exercised by, and respect owed to,
elders is buttressed by their position in the household and compound
complexes, and by the fact that property transmission is gradual. The
spatial layout of the village house is an instructive map of social relations
which is incorporated into and expressed in rituals.

Finally, a few comments on the economy of the village: we have noted
that rice cultivation is the basic activity. A remarkable feature is that
there is no marked economic differentiation in the village, a feature which
comes into focus in a comparative context when distributions for Phraan
Muan are compared with those reported for villages in the Central Plain
(e.g. Sharp 1953). There are differences between households in land
ownership, but they are not steep.

Tabulations of rice land ownership, based on tax records (1962) for
nearly the whole village (129 households were listed), gave these figures:
16 (12.4%) were reported as landless, and only 14 (10.8%) as owning
more than 40 rai; the mean ownership was 16.5 rai and the median
13.5 rai. The mean size of a rice farm holding (i.e. figure arrived at after
excluding the landless) was 18.82 rai and the median 15.5 rai. (Note that
other categories of land are excluded in this calculation.)

Now it is well known that land ownership data are notoriously difficult
to interpret accurately. Our previous discussion of inheritance customs
and the nature of the domestic and compound cycles in the village should
warn us against too readily accepting the `landlessness' of young couples
(who are prospective heirs or are informal tenants of their parents/parents-in-law)
at face value, and also against giving too much weight to the
supposedly large holdings of elderly parents (who in fact have informally
divided up their land among their heirs). If there are such inaccuracies
in the gross figures cited above, their correction would merely add more
weight to my assertion that Baan Phraan Muan shows little economic
stratification. There is very little renting in or renting out of land, and
landlord-tenant categories are not important in village economy. There
are differences in house types but here again standards of living are
markedly egalitarian, though without doubt at a low all-round level. The
hierarchy in the village is primarily of a generational nature rather than
a creature of economic maldistribution.

Although rice is the staple crop, most of what is produced is consumed
locally. Small amounts are sold, but villagers depend primarily on the
manufacture of palm sugar in the dry months for selling in the market
for cash. The sale of pigs, poultry, locally woven cloth and mats, and
locally caught fish brings in additional money. Young men of the village
readily work on road construction for wages during the dry months, and
this is an important source of money income. These men usually return
to the village; the drain of young men to urban centres which is a marked
feature in the North-east is as yet of small importance in this village.

It would seem that the village is more involved in trade relationships
now than it was in the past. Salt was produced in the village by boiling
saline soil; it still is, but not enough to satisfy needs. Cloth is widely
woven by women, but today manufactured cloth is preferred. The trade
contacts are mainly in the direction of Nongkai and over the border into
Laos, not with the town of Udorn. The largest items traded are palm
sugar, pigs and rice.

It is not only trade relationships that take villagers outside. A certain
proportion of marriages are with men and women in other villages and this

produces some mobility, especially among the men. Annual temple fairs
attract residents of nearby villages. The younger men nowadays travel
during their dry-season work.

Although, by and large, the social life of the village is inward looking,
and the village is a sharply perceived social universe, what was expressed
in the myth reported at the beginning of this chapter should not be
forgotten: that Baan Phraan Muan is in the pathway of various networks—
trade, marriage, religious participation, cultural transmission—of varying
extension from region to national polity.

It is also a part of the wider stream of history.

THE CARAVANS OF HISTORY

The village of Phraan Muan is in North-east Thailand and is situated
a few miles from the western bank of the Mekong River. The geographical
location of the north-eastern region is such that from the beginnings
of Siamese and Laotian history it constituted an outlying `frontier'
province which was frequently forced to change its political affiliation.
It passed into and out of the control of waxing and waning kingdoms
whose capitals were Wiangchan and Luang Phrabang; Chiengmai, Ayudhya
and Bangkok; Angkor and Pnom Penh. In terms of modern political
entities, we can say that the North-east was a frontier region to which
there were multiple claimants, namely Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and
sometimes even Burma.

Precisely because of its frontier location, the north-eastern region
appears to have had a colourful and chequered political and religious
experience. I can only roughly paint here the outlines of the caravans of
history that have passed through its territories. This sketch should be
regarded as a backdrop to the contemporary scene which is our real focus
of interest. But it is a peculiar kind of backdrop: it both does and does
not give context to the present in the same way the medieval English
village can be said to provide background for the observation of contemporary
village life in East Anglia. In any case, the historical sketch
that follows will make plausible the backward glances into the past that
will be made at various points in this book.

It is probable that the Thai have been in mainland South-east Asia
for a long time; they made their first appearance on stage in political
garb, however, only in the thirteenth century when suddenly Thai
principalities and kingdoms mushroomed. Rather than talk of the invasion
of the Menam basin by the Thai, it is perhaps more correct to view their
political emergence less as the result of sudden mass influx than as the

consequence of progressive migration over time and the gradual engulfing of
the Mon-Khmer and Tibeto-Burman speaking sedentary valley populations.

The fact that the emergence of the Thai as political collectivities took
place in the thirteenth century is important. In this century revolutionary
changes shook the politics of mainland South-east Asia and sounded the
death knell of the older Indianized Mon and Khmer polities. At this
time was felt the thrust of the Mongols southwards, especially under and
after Kublai Khan who ascended the Chinese throne in 1260; the Thai
may have felt added pressures to move southwards themselves by virtue
of this thrust. Whatever the strength of this push, the Thai in fact took
control of such small principalities as Lamphun, Sukhothai, Lavo (Lophburi),
Swanalok, which were then under Mon or Cambodian control.

Before this political dominance of the Thai manifested itself, the
territory which is presently called Thailand was, up to the thirteenth
century, in the divided possession of the Mons who controlled the upper
Menam and the Khmers who dominated the lower Menam and the upper
Mekong (in which region our north-eastern village is located).

The Mon dynasty which controlled the upper Menam was based at
Haripunjaya (Lamphun); it was a champion in the twelfth century of
Buddhism (of the Theravada kind). The history of the Mons in Thailand,
of course, stretches farther back; the Mons of southern Burma adopted
Buddhism at an early date, expanded into the central valley of the Menam,
and set up the famous kingdom of Dvaravati (third to seventh centuries);
they left numerous Buddhist monuments and images; and upon the
historic ruins and location of the Mon capital was to grow up much later
the Thai city of Ayudhya.

The religious components of the Khmer civilization, one of the greatest
of further India and which controlled lower Menam and upper Mekong,
were somewhat different from those of the Mon. Khmer culture had
been heavily influenced by Sanskritic brahmanical forms, especially
Saivism and, to a lesser extent, Vaishnavism. Apart from this, Khmer
civilization had by the eighth century also been affected by Mahayana
Buddhism through the Srivijaya and Sailendra dynasties of Sumatra.

Whatever the particular differences between the Mon and Khmer
civilizations, they had a much more general characteristic in common which
Coedès has aptly conveyed in the appellation `Indianized Kingdoms of
Southeast Asia'. Historians of further India assert that the great kingdoms
of South-east Asia, both on the mainland and in the Indonesian Islands,
were the product in earlier times of Indian cultural `colonization', which
did not mean military occupation or political domination by the parent
Indian states. `Indianization', says Coedès (1968), `must be understood

essentially as the expansion of an organized culture that was founded
upon the Indian conception of royalty, was characterized by Hinduist or
Buddhist cults, the mythology of the Puranas, and the observance of the
Dharmasastras, and expressed itself in the Sanskrit language' (pp. 15-16).

Although these indigenous Indianized Mon and Khmer civilizations
lost their political control over Thailand, they left behind them cultural
imprints which became the legacy and heritage of their successors.

Let us therefore return to the Thai on the eve of their political appearance.
They had for a long time been established in Yunnan which lay within
the orbit of Chinese civilization; according to Eliot (1954, Vol. II, p. 81),
it is likely therefore that they were aware of Chinese Buddhism. Placed
on the route from India to China, the Yunnan Thai must also have had
contact with Indian culture and Buddhism stemming from Indian centres.
But perhaps more importantly, the Thai of upper Menam obviously were
influenced by the Hinayana Buddhism of their Mon masters. Nor must
we overlook the influences radiating from Burma: King Anawrata of
Burma captured Thaton in A.D. 1057, and from there he carried to his
capital at Pagan a number of monks of the southern school together with
the Pali Canon (Wells 1960, p. iv). He became an ardent Hinayanist and
spread the faith in the wake of his military excursions. `After the reign of
Anawrata Pali Buddhism was accepted in Burma and in what we now call the
Shan States as the religion of civilized mankind and this conviction found
its way to the not very distant kingdom of Sukhothai' (Eliot 1954, p. 82).

In Siam the first Thai breakthrough was in the form of the displacement
of the Mons of upper Menam by the Thai chief of Chiengrai, who
founded the kingdom of Lan Na with its capital at Chiengmai (A.D. 1296).
But more importantly, the kingdom of Sukhothai arose vigorously farther
south, having displaced the Khmers, with all the vitality of a new bloom.
The most famous of Sukhothai's kings was King Ramkamhaeng, who
claimed in an inscription that the borders of his domain were Luang
Phrabang in the north-east, Sri Dharmaraja (Ligor) in the south, and
Hamsavati (Pegu) in the west.

From our point of view what is of prime importance is that Sukhothai
enthusiastically espoused and was transformed by Sinhalese Pali Buddhism
(with which, as we have seen, it had already made contact via the Mons
and Burmese).[2] Sinhalese Buddhism had undergone a phase of revival and
efflorescence in the twelfth century under Parakrama Bahu I; from Ceylon
it had penetrated into the Mon polities of Burma and from there it
radiated all over the Indo-Chinese peninsula. It is possible that Ligor

in Southern Thailand was another centre of Pali Buddhism, which was
brought to its shores from Eastern India and Ceylon.

The famous Sukhothai inscription of Ramkamhaeng states that the
court and the inhabitants were devout Buddhists and that they observed
the season of Vassa (rain retreat) and celebrated the festival of Kathina
with processions, concerts and readings of the Scriptures. In the city
were to be seen statues of the Buddha and scenes carved in relief, as
well as large monasteries (Eliot 1954, p. 81).

The significance of this religious espousal of Pali Buddhism—especially
in the form that was propagated from Ceylon—cannot be exaggerated
either for Thailand or for that matter for South-east Asia. Coedès (1968,
p. 253) evaluates the event thus:

In accepting this formulation one should not confound the popularization
of Pali Buddhism with the spread of the `pure' religion of the Pali Canon,
for even in Polonnaruwa, the seat of Sinhalese Buddhism, Mahayanist
and Hindu influences were present (Rahula 1956), and in Thailand the
cross-currents of the Mon-Khmer civilization were too rich and varied
to permit a puritanical narrowing of cultural traditions.

The kingdom of Sukhothai was superseded by the kingdom of Ayudhya,
which was founded farther south in A.D. 1350. The waning of Sukhothai
also coincided with the rise of Thai-Laotian polities in the north-east,
which event has a direct implication for our area of ethnographic interest.

It is not at all clear from the available evidence whether or not the
Sukhothai kingdom actually controlled the eastern provinces of present-day
Thailand; King Ramkamhaeng's claim lacks independent confirmation
from Vietnamese or Cambodian sources. It is certain that up to the
twelfth century, at least, Khmer domination extended up the Mekong
to Wiangchan, and that even with the possible loss of Wiangchan to
Sukhothai the Khmers remained for a long time—at least well into the
fourteenth century—masters of the country situated downstream from
the great bend of the Mekong River. In the light of this we might say
that the region around our village of Phraan Muan was subject to both
Khmer and Sukhothai influences concurrently, although we do not know
who exactly was its political overlord.

The situation suddenly changed radically, for in the fourteenth century
there was a political explosion from the locally established Thai. The
Thai principalities of Muang Chawa (modern Luang Phrabang) and of
Wiangchan joined hands and drove the Cambodians south, thereby
claiming the regions populated by the Thai. No doubt the birth of the first
Laotian state was facilitated by the fall of Sukhothai. The kingdom of
Lan Chang (Wiangchan) was probably founded in 1353 by Fa Ngum
four years after the submission of Sukhothai to Ayudhya.

Laotian historical tradition actually begins with the legendary Khun
Borom who led the first Lao-Thai into the area; Fa Ngum is an historical
successor of the line said to have begun with Borom, and he is thus
described as reclaiming his paternity. According to the Laotian chronicle
Nithan Khun Borom, Fa Ngum was brought up at the Cambodian court,
was taught there by a monk of Theravada persuasion, and when he came
of age, the King of Cambodia not only gave his daughter in marriage to
him, but also provided him with an army to reconquer the kingdom of
his fathers. It appears that Fa Ngum captured Luang Phrabang and
Wiangchan, and even advanced on Lan Na and the Korat plateau; and
that the other Thai principalities, including Ayudhya, were forced to
negotiate with him and seek his friendship (Coedès 1968).

Three essential features may be inferred from this account: the Laotian
kingdom of Wiangchan was a power in its own right; it was culturally
influenced by Khmer civilization; it also, like other Thai polities, espoused
the cause of Sinhalese Buddhism. `The accession of Fa Ngum is important
not only because it marks the establishment of a state destined to play
a major political role in the central Indo-Chinese peninsula, but also
because it resulted in the introduction into the upper Mekong of Khmer
culture and of Singhalese Buddhism through the intermediary of Cambodia.'
(Coedès 1968, p. 225.)

Contemporaneous with the Laotian kingdom of Lan Chang was the
powerful and politically even more important kingdom of Ayudhya on
the lower Menam. This kingdom too was raised on twin pillars which
carried the weight of the total culture. These were a keen sponsorship
of Theravada Buddhism, which represents the carrying on of Sukhothai
traditions, and, at the same time, an enthusiastic acceptance of certain
Khmer cultural elements and patterns which constituted a reversal of
earlier Sukhothai orientations. While in the Sukhothai era the Siamese
showed a marked and perhaps deliberately antagonistic contrast to the
then dominant Khmer civilization, notably in political organization and
art, in the Ayudhya phase they borrowed in an uninhibited manner from
Cambodia its political institutions, vocabulary, system of writing and

art forms (which the Siamese genius transformed). In the initial stage
of political upsurge, the Siamese needed to establish their identity through
differentiation; once established, they wanted now to be as great as the
Khmers, and succeeded. In this sense Ayudhya became the true heir of
Khmer civilization in its elaboration of divine kingship adapted to Buddhist
Canons, in its transformation of Khmer and U Thong art styles, and in
its literary efflorescence.

Now to return to the Laotian kingdom of Lan Chang (`country of a
million elephants'). From the mid-fourteenth century to the mid-sixteenth
century it flourished and established its identity. While no doubt heavily
influenced by Ayudhya, it threw out another arm to link up with the
kingdom of Lan Na (Chiengmai), which in turn had important links with
Burma, both as a victim of its aggression and as a receiver of its religious
influences. During this period Wiangchan had important diplomatic
contacts with Lan Na; Laotian princes married Chiengmai princesses and
a Laotian prince once even successfully claimed the throne of Lan Na.

But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the scourge of the
various Siamese and Laotian kingdoms was Burma. From around 15501650
the Burmese successfully invaded Chiengmai and occupied Lan Na;
they then successfully extended their control over Wiangchan and the
North-east. By the eighteenth century the Laotians were able to reassert
their independent political existence, but at the cost of fragmenting into
the two independent kingdoms of Wiangchan and Luang Phrabang. The
strong links with Chiengmai, however, continued. It is by virtue of this
historical connection with Chiengmai that the Udorn region of North-east
Thailand (where our Phraan Muan village is located) manifests a religious
and linguistic feature which distinguishes it from Central and Lower
Siam: the sacred Buddhist writing of North-east Thailand and Laos is
in a script called Tham, which is a Shan script influenced by Mon writing
(see Tambiah 1968c). For Central Thailand the corresponding script is
the Korm (Khmer) script, which traditionally, since the days of Ayudhya,
has been the script in which Buddhist literature was written there.

The next historical landmark in the fortunes of North-east Thailand
and Laos was the late eighteenth century. The Burmese at the height
of their power had invaded and laid waste in 1767 the city of Ayudhya.
The Thai soon afterwards, in an upsurge of new-found vigour and
solidarity under Phaya Tak Sin, recovered Ayudhya and pushed the
Burmese back. The Burmese had also occupied Luang Prabang in 1752
and imposed their protection on it. The success of the Thai against the
Burmese also meant the extension of their umbrella of influence over the
Laotians. The Thai in fact took Wiangchan in 1778, and held it until

1782 when the first king of the present Chakri dynasty handed it back.
The Thai, now based in Bangkok, also exerted influence over Luang
Phrabang, which was reduced to the status of a dependency.

Thus it could be said that from the last quarter of the eighteenth century
until the end of the nineteenth, both North-east Thailand and the Laotian
kingdoms came under the cultural and political influence of the Central
Thai of Siam. But already the European colonial powers were opening
their voracious jaws at the borders of Siam. In 1893 the Franco-Siamese
Treaty was signed by which Siam agreed to withdraw from the left bank
of the Mekong and to recognize Laos as a French protectorate. North-east
Thailand, the site of Phraan Muan village, finally passed into the undisputed
political control of Thailand.

I have presented in brief outline some of the grand events that were
staged on location in North-east Thailand, as well as others which, by
virtue of their happening in its vicinity, must have affected it. North-east
Thailand, the home of `Laotian' Thai, was originally a part of and
influenced by Khmer civilization; it was affected by Burmese politics;
it was later a part of the Wiangchan kingdom, which was a counterpart
and equal of the Thai polities of Chiengmai and Ayudhya. It is difficult
to say who at any particular period owned the region in which today lies
the village of Phraan Muan; it is less difficult to guess what were the cultural
and religious elements deposited in it by the parade of historical events.

It is not my intention at all to explain the religious institutions of the
villagers, as I observed and studied them in 1961-2, in terms of the deposits
and debris of history. I am not interested to trace the path along which
a particular item travelled from one date to another date. The outline has
been given to sensitize the reader to the historical backdrop, and to make
him appreciate that when, in elucidating a feature or a pattern in the
village, a comparative reference is made to India, Burma, Ceylon, Cambodia
or Laos (or rather, to some place or event in these countries fixed in time
and place) it is not at all arbitrary but can be illuminating. For while
the features that compose the culture of the village of Phraan Muan
were in a sense `arbitrarily' deposited by history, a major task of the
anthropologist is to see the logic and structure behind the manner in
which these elements combine today to form a coherent whole. In elucidating
this, the coherent structural patterns of a previous historical era or a
contemporary neighbouring society can be appropriately invoked to appear
before us to aid our understanding in terms of similarity or contrast. It is
in this sense that I shall invoke the past whenever so warranted.