University of Virginia Library

PREFACE

From 1960 to 1963 I spent three happy and rewarding years in Thailand
as a UNESCO `expert' attached to the International Institute for Child
Study (now called the Bangkok Institute for Child Study). The Institute
was sponsored by UNESCO and the Government of Thailand. The greater
part of my time was devoted to participating in a programme of multidisciplinary
research on problems wider in scope than the name of the
Institute implies. The project that engaged most of my time and effort
was the study, with the assistance of Thai colleagues and other UNESCO
experts, of three villages in their regional setting. The villages were situated
in the Central Plain, the North-east, and the North. My share of the
work was wholly devoted to anthropological investigations relating to
kinship, economy and religion. The material presented here pertains to
the north-eastern village and its region and was collected in 1961-2 (and
subsequently in the course of two long vacation trips made from Cambridge
in 1965 and 1966). I express my grateful and warm thanks to two successive
enlightened, energetic and stimulating Directors of the Institute, Professor
Hugh Philp and Dr Lamaimas Saradatta, for supporting the study in
every way, and to my other colleagues in the Institute, particularly
Mr Tahwon Koedkietpong and Mr Aneckun Greesang, whose field
assistance, co-operation, and friendship were invaluable in collecting,
translating and interpreting the information. Much insight was also gained
from my association with Mr Anders Poulsen, who has provided most
of the plates that adorn this book. I hope that by dedicating the book to
the Bangkok Institute for Child Study I can pay at least a fraction of my
debt to my colleagues in Thailand, to UNESCO, to the Government of
Thailand (particularly the Ministry of Education) and, most importantly,
to the villagers and monks of Baan Phraan Muan who taught us something
of their culture with patience, kindness and accommodation.

I came to Cambridge in September 1963 and it was there that much
of the material was analysed and written up in first draft. In my writing
I have received much intellectual stimulation and guidance from my
friends and colleagues, particularly Edmund Leach (who has taught me
most of the anthropology I know) and Professor Meyer Fortes.

I am also deeply grateful to the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences for affording me leisure, library facilities, editorial and
secretarial assistance in order that I could complete the book. The
meticulous and creative editorial assistance of Miss Miriam Gallaher is

remembered with admiration. Thanks are also due to the secretarial staff
in the Bangkok Institute, and in the Department of Anthropology at
Cambridge, for typing assistance given at various stages of preparation.
I thank my wife, Mary Wynne, for her patient and skilful editorial and
bibliographical assistance and moral support.

The text contains numerous names and concepts which originate in
the Sanskrit and Pali languages: their orthography follows the normal
conventions of romanization but omits all diacritical signs. There are
even more numerous references to Thai words, especially in the northeastern
dialect, for which no proper system of transcription into the
roman alphabet has as yet been devised. I have therefore transcribed
these words as best I could, omitting all diacritical marks.