Phu Thai people

Phu Thai
ผู้ไท (Phu Thai) · ผู้ไทย · ภูไท
Total population
about 470,000 speakers (2004 estimate): 137
Regions with significant populations
Thailand: Sakon Nakhon, Kalasin, Mukdahan and Nakhon Phanom provinces, with smaller numbers in six neighbouring provinces Laos: central Laos, including Savannakhet
Languages
Phu Thai, a Southwestern Tai language; Lao
Religion
Buddhism, with ancestral, house and field spirit cults
Related ethnic groups
Nyaw, Kaloeng, Yoy, Lao

The Phu Thai (Thai ผู้ไท, also written ผู้ไทย and ภูไท; in English also Phuthai and Phu Tai) are a Tai-speaking people of the middle Mekong. In Thailand most live in Sakon Nakhon, Kalasin, Mukdahan and Nakhon Phanom provinces of Northeastern Thailand. Smaller communities live in six other provinces of the region.^: 156–157 Phu Thai is also spoken in central Laos.^: 82 A language survey published in 2004 counted about 470,000 people who speak it.^: 137

Thai scholars place the people's remembered homeland at Muang Thaeng, now Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. Their ancestors later lived at Muang Wang and other towns east of the Mekong, in what is now Laos. Siamese armies moved Phu Thai across the river in several waves. The largest followed the defeat of the Lao rebellion of 1826–1828. Renu Nakhon, Phanna Nikhom, Warichaphum and other towns were raised for the settlers between about 1830 and 1878. Phu Thai religion combines Buddhism with the cult of ancestor, house and field spirits and the yao healing rite. Phu Thai women weave the phrae wa, a silk shoulder cloth. A seed seller names the Phu Thai among the communities best known for growing ganja around Sakon Nakhon and Savannakhet.

Name and identity

Seven Thai spellings of the name appear in the scholarly literature: ภูไท, ภูไทย, ภู่ไท, ผู้ไทย, ผู้ไท, พูไท and พูไทย. Three remain in use, ผู้ไทย, ผู้ไท and ภูไท.^: 137 In the Royal Institute dictionary the entry is ผู้ไทย, a branch of the Thai people of the Sip Song Chu Tai.^: 140 A study of the Phu Thai village of Ban Nabua in Nakhon Phanom states that the name was first written ผู้ไท and that the final ย was added later.^: 119

The spelling ภูไท, "mountain Tai", is traced to the monk Somdet Phra Maha Viravong (Uan Tisso). In a story the writer S. Sivaraksa attributed to Phraya Anuman Rajadhon, the monk heard villagers call themselves phu thai (พูไท), could not make sense of the word and wrote ภู, "great". Phraya Anuman told him that people in Bangkok had once said พูชาย and พูหญิง (phu chai, phu ying, "man" and "woman"). The monk then accepted that ภูไท was wrong.^: 139 The writer Thanwa Jaitiang objected to ภูไท because "Tai of the mountains" could equally cover the Bru, a Lao Theung people whose own name means mountain people. Prawit Khamprom defended it. In his reading the Tai held mountains sacred. ภูไท would then come from "the mountain of the Tai", after the people's old home in the hills of the Sip Song Chu Tai.^: 139–140 Sutep Chaikhan rejected ผู้ไทย, arguing that the word ไทย became official only in 1939, when the government of Plaek Phibunsongkhram renamed Siam. In his view the word covers every citizen of the country, Chinese, Mon, Lao and Khmer among them.^: 142 A seminar on the name held at Wat That Renu in Renu Nakhon District on 11 April 2012 asked which name was correct for the people. Most of those present favoured ผู้ไท.^: 143

The name also has a wider sense. Tai speakers in Vietnam such as the Tai Yo and Tai Daeng call themselves Phu Tai too, the form their dialects regularly have for the word.^: 82 A study of Phu Thai villages in Savannakhet distinguishes two meanings of the name there: one particular group that speaks the Phu Thai language and a wider unit that contains several groups. In Bungkha subdistrict of Loeng Nok Tha District, Yasothon Province, the Phu Thai of Na Kok and Nong Khaen call themselves Phu Thai Boran ("old Phu Thai"). They call their Nyaw and Kha neighbours Phu Thai Nyo and Phu Thai Kha.^: 81

The Tai Song Dam (also Lao Song) of Phetchaburi Province descend from Black Phu Thai whom Siam moved there in the late 18th century. Siriyaphon Salipan interviewed both peoples, the Phu Thai in Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Mukdahan and Kalasin and the Tai Song Dam in Phetchaburi. Each said that the two are different peoples, since their languages, cultures and customs differ, though both may come from the Sip Song Chu Tai.^: 150

Population and distribution

A survey of the languages of Thailand by Suwilai Premsrirat and colleagues, published in 2004, counted about 470,000 Phu Thai who use the Phu Thai language.^: 137 Most live in Sakon Nakhon, Kalasin, Mukdahan and Nakhon Phanom. Smaller numbers live in parts of Bueng Kan, Udon Thani, Amnat Charoen, Yasothon, Ubon Ratchathani and Roi Et.^: 156–157

Sakon Nakhon has more Phu Thai than any other province of Thailand.^: 154 The provincial statistical office lists them among six peoples of the province who keep their own descent, culture and customs, in Warichaphum, Phanna Nikhom, Phang Khon and Ban Muang districts.^: [ix] Phanna Nikhom and Warichaphum districts are almost wholly Phu Thai. The Phu Thai of Warichaphum call themselves Phu Thai Kapong, after Muang Kapong, the town between Muang Wang and Muang Chepon from which they came.^: 154–155 Phu Thai from Mahaxai and Kataak in Khammouane live in Mueang Sakon Nakhon, Khok Si Suphan, Tao Ngoi and Phon Na Kaeo districts and in some villages of Kut Bak. The descendants of the Champa Chonnabot settlers live in Phang Khon, Kusuman, Wanon Niwat and Ban Muang districts and in some villages of Sawang Daen Din.^: 155

The Phu Thai of Kalasin fall into four groups. The Kut Chim Narai group lives in Kuchinarai, Khao Wong and Huai Phueng districts and the Phu Laen Chang group in Na Khu District. The Kham Muang group, whose ancestors came from Muang Wang, lives in Kham Muang and neighbouring districts. In Somdet District the Saeng Badan group is Phu Thai mixed with Nyaw.^: 154

The Phu Thai of Nakhon Phanom came from Muang Wang. They live in Renu Nakhon, That Phanom, Na Kae, Mueang Nakhon Phanom, Pla Pak and Na Wa districts. In Mukdahan they are most numerous in Nong Sung and Kham Cha-i districts, the territory of the old Phu Thai town of Nong Sung. They also live in four other districts of the province. In Yasothon and Amnat Charoen the Phu Thai, whose ancestors came from Muang Chepon, Muang Phin, Muang Palan and Muang Nong, live in Loeng Nok Tha, Senangkhanikhom and Chanuman districts.^: 155–156

In Laos, Phu Thai villages lie in Savannakhet Province.

Language

Phu Thai (ISO 639-3 pht) belongs to the Southwestern branch of the Tai languages. It is spoken in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Ethnologue calls it a stable language.

Mudjalin Luksanawong compared the vocabulary of five Tai varieties of Sakon Nakhon. Nyaw, Lao and Yoy formed one group, while Kaloeng and Phu Thai each stood apart.^: 8–10 Working from sound changes, Pittayawat Pittayaporn proposes a "Peninsular" branch of Southwestern Tai that takes in Thai, Lao and several smaller varieties, among them Nyaw, Yoy and Kaloeng. He judges Phu Thai more distantly related, since it may lack one of the shared innovations.^: 20 Phu Thai varieties are largely uniform. Phu Thai Kapong, spoken in Warichaphum, is the exception: in words that go back to an older *x- it has h- where other Phu Thai varieties have kh-.^: 16

Phu Thai remains the everyday language of Ban Nabua in Renu Nakhon District. The villagers also speak Lao with their Lao neighbours and understand Nyaw, Kaloeng and Yoy.^: 129 In a 2008 study of Don Mai Khum in Kalasin, children spoke Phu Thai and sometimes Isan. Adults spoke and understood both.^: 45

History

Remembered homeland

In Phu Thai legend the people came out of a gourd and made their first home at Muang Thaeng.^: 125 Chareerak and Wongpinunwatana report that scholars of the Phu Thai agree in placing their original homeland at Muang Thaeng, also called Muang Na Noi Oi Nu, now Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.^: 144 A chronicle printed in 1918 names 12 Phu Thai towns in the Sip Song Chu Tai. Four belonged to the White Phu Thai and eight, Muang Thaeng among them, to the Black Phu Thai.^: 145 Several Thai writers explain the two names by dress: the Black Phu Thai wore cloth dyed dark indigo and the White Phu Thai wore white.^: 146

In 1926 the monk Uan Tisso wrote down an account of how the Phu Thai left Muang Na Noi Oi Nu. In the account, famine struck the town. Its ruler quarrelled with Thao Ka, the leader of the Phu Thai. Thao Ka led some 10,000 Phu Thai to submit to Chao Anouvong of Vientiane. Asked how they had lived, they said they grew rice on dry fields and kept orchards but had never farmed paddy. Anouvong settled them at Muang Wang, a hilly, forested country that the account calls the home of the Kha.^: 144–145

Removal across the Mekong

Chareerak and Wongpinunwatana count three waves of Phu Thai removal into Siam. In the first, in the reign of King Taksin, Black Phu Thai were settled around Khao Yoi in Phetchaburi; their descendants are the Tai Song Dam. In the second, about 1792, Vientiane put down a revolt of Muang Thaeng and Muang Phuan and sent the captives to Bangkok. Rama I also settled them in Phetchaburi.^: 150 The third and largest came under Rama III. After the defeat of Anouvong the Siamese army moved the people of Vientiane and its dependencies to the right bank of the Mekong. The Phu Thai of Muang Wang, Muang Phin, Muang Taphon and other towns came with them.^: 150–151 From 1833 to 1847 Siam was in conflict with Vietnam over Laos and Cambodia. Both sides seized the peoples of the left bank. The peoples moved to the right bank included the Kaloeng, So, Nyaw and Kha but above all the Phu Thai. Most came from Muang Wang, others from Muang Chepon (Taphon), Muang Kapong and Muang Khammuan.^: 151–152 According to the Ban Nabua study, the Siamese army took Phu Thai families across the Mekong from Muang Wang, Muang Khamkoet and Muang Khammuan after Anouvong's revolt.^: 120–121

Other accounts date the movement differently. A study of Phu Thai healers states that the Phu Thai moved slowly into north-eastern Thailand between 1844 and 1878 and that most came from Khammuan.^: 173 Timsuksai and Rambo write that the Phu Thai, Kaloeng, Nyaw and Yoy of the Sakon Nakhon basin are believed to have settled there in the early 19th century, after the Siamese army moved them by force from Laos.^: 3 Pittayaporn lists Phu Thai among the Tai varieties that reached Thailand through forced migrations in the 19th century.^: 16 At Don Mai Khum in Kalasin, village history holds that Rama III took about 3,000 people from Vientiane and released them in the Phu Phan range. An elder in his 90s said that his ancestors came from Muang Wang, crossed the Mekong to the Phu Phan and later moved down to the plain to farm.^: 25

The Phu Thai towns

Siam raised the new settlements to towns and made the settlers' leaders their rulers. Five towns were raised for settlers from Muang Wang.^: 152 Renu Nakhon was raised to a town about 1830. Rama III made its leader Thao Sai its first ruler with the title Phra Kaeo Komon.^: 152 The Muang Wang settlers had first lived in three villages, Ban Huai Khua, Ban Bo Chan and Ban Dong Wai. They were later brought together at Ban Dong Wai, now the town of Renu Nakhon.^: 121 Phanna Nikhom in Sakon Nakhon, Kut Chim Narai and Phu Laen Chang in Kalasin and Nong Sung in Mukdahan were all raised about 1844.^: 152

Settlers from Muang Chepon founded Senangkhanikhom about 1839 and Kham Khuean Kaeo about 1844, both now in Amnat Charoen. The Kapong people founded Warichaphum about 1877 and Champa Chonnabot, now Phang Khon, about 1878, under Rama V. The Khammuan group's village of Ban Bueng Kradan became Muang Saeng Badan about 1845, a dependency of Kalasin.^: 153 Several towns later lost their rank. Renu Nakhon became a district of Nakhon Phanom and in 1907 a subdistrict of That Phanom, before it was restored as a district. Phu Laen Chang became a district in 1899 and a subdistrict in 1909.^: 152

Under the Siamese state

In his account of a tour of the north-eastern circles in 2449 BE (1906–1907), Prince Damrong Rajanubhab wrote that the Phu Thai said their homeland lay in the northern towns. He noted that their Tai speech differed in words and accent from that of Lan Chang, that they seemed most numerous at Renu Nakhon and that their women danced for him in pairs.^: 141 Timsuksai and Rambo, citing a 1966 study by A. T. Kirsch, describe the Phu Thai as culturally distinct from other Tai groups. In their account the Phu Thai lived after their resettlement in a largely autonomous enclave under their own ruler with little contact with other Tai groups. They write that the Phu Thai have a reputation among other Tai for being hard-working and innovative.^: 12

Ban Nabua in Renu Nakhon District was founded in 1891, shortly before the administrative reforms of Rama V, by six families from Ban Phon Sao E next to Renu Nakhon, who came in search of farmland.^{: 119, 121} The village was governed by its own customs and the worship of spirits until political conflict reached it in 1961. The conflict ended the old village government. Once the village school was disrupted, most villagers who wanted to learn to read went to study with the communists in Laos and Vietnam.^: 128–129

Society

At Ban Kut Wa in Kuchinarai District, Kalasin, senior kin (chao khot) keep order in the family and the village, as among the Lao and Kaloeng of Isan. The Phu Thai give a particular place to the pho lam and mae lam, a couple appointed at a wedding to instruct the new son-in-law and daughter-in-law and to mediate between husband and wife. They are chosen from people who head good families, have never divorced or quarrelled and are respected in the village.^: 177 Couples in dispute at Ban Kut Wa still go to the pho lam and mae lam. Divorce there is rare.^: 182

Religion

The Phu Thai of Ban Nabua worshipped the spirits of their ancestors and of the house. They addressed the spirits at the rites held each month, in the belief that this kept people healthy and the crops good. Their ancestral spirit belief has since merged with Buddhism.^: 128 At Don Mai Khum the phi thaen, also called mae bao or mae chuea, is the spirit from which the Phu Thai descend. Villagers hold themselves to be children of Phraya Thaen. The yao rite for the phi thaen is held when a woman is about to give birth and to protect children from illness and harmful spirits. The phi fa are ancestral spirits who possess a chosen descendant, the mo phi fa. They are honoured every year. The phi rai phi na, or phi ta haek, guards the fields: before planting, villagers offer it rice liquor, two rolls of cigarettes, two kham mak and two pieces of chicken.^: 48–49

At Ban Kut Wa the village guardian was once a phi thada (ผีถดา), brought in as a protector. When it was held to be causing trouble, the villagers returned it to the Mahesak shrine at Na Mon District and invited a pu ta spirit from the Lao in its place.^: 177 The Phu Thai of Renu Nakhon keep the yao healing rite, the offering to the field spirit phi ta haek, the bai si su khwan and the round of festivals of the twelve months.^: 121

The Phu Thai of Kalasin hold Boon Phawet, the merit-making festival at which the Vessantara story is preached. At Ban Kut Wa and Ban Kokkong it is held every year for three years, after which there may be a break of a year. As in Tai-Lao communities, the listeners hear all 13 chapters of the sermon. A community host holds a set dialogue with the preaching monk.^: 25–26

Culture

A jar of u sold under the name Renu Phu Thai by a farmers' group of Renu Nakhon, with bamboo straws for drinking, in 2007.

At Don Mai Khum, Phu Thai dress was of black cotton. Men wore narrow trousers and women an ankle-length skirt. Both wore a close-fitting shirt with long, tight sleeves and a red stripe along the edge. At the time of a 2008 study the dress was worn for religious ceremonies and village rites. The mo phi fa wore it for the phi fa ritual, but young people no longer wore it.^: 46 At Renu Nakhon the Phu Thai now dress like other Thais except at festivals, when they wear local dress.^: 121

The phrae wa is a hand-woven silk of Phu Thai women, who brought the craft with them from the Sip Song Chu Tai. Its name joins phrae, a length of cloth, to wa, a fathom of about 2 metres. The cloth, usually on a red ground, is worn across the shoulder or as a sash at auspicious events and merit-making festivals, with the smaller, square phrae mon used to cover the head or as a handkerchief. Ban Phon in Kham Muang District of Kalasin is well known as the home of phrae wa.^{: 67, 69–70}

In Renu Nakhon, Phu Thai identity is tied to Phu Thai dances, to the jar liquor u made from glutinous rice, to hand-woven cloth and to the stupa of That Renu.^: 680 Nine plants flavour the u, among them galangal (Alpinia galanga), sugar cane and Oroxylum indicum.^: 683

Economy and livelihood

Before the mid-1950s Ban Nabua grew glutinous rice for its own food, wove cloth and caught fish and crabs in ponds and streams.^: 122 Some of its men were nai hoi, traders who drove buffalo for sale to central and western Thailand and as far as Burma, a part-time trade beside farming.^: 122 The village now sells rice, rubber and tobacco through middlemen and mill owners at prices it cannot negotiate. In some years it falls into debt.^: 127

In a 2008 study of Don Mai Khum, the Phu Thai farmed rain-fed paddy once a year, preferring glutinous rice to white. They also worked for wages in the countryside or in other provinces and sold plants. Part-time work included weaving, making bamboo baskets for sticky rice and making thatch from Imperata cylindrica.^: 36 At Ban Phon in Kalasin the weaving of phrae wa has become an important part of the community's economy.^: 65

In a 2016 study of home gardens in the Sakon Nakhon basin, most Phu Thai gardens had geometric shapes, sharp boundaries and planting in lines, like those of the Vietnamese villages studied. The gardens of the Kaloeng, Lao, Nyaw and Yoy were mostly organic in shape, with indistinct borders and several planting centres.^: 8

Plants and medicine

An ethnobotanical survey in Renu Nakhon District in 2015 interviewed 47 Phu Thai aged from 15 to 83.^: 680 They used 329 plant species from 89 families, 199 of them as food and 176 as medicine. The highest informant agreement on medicinal plants was for the treatment of injuries. Older informants knew significantly more medicinal uses than younger ones.^: 679 Their knowledge is passed on only by word of mouth.^: 697

At Don Mai Khum in Kalasin the Phu Thai used 108 medicinal species from 98 genera and 51 families. Most villagers took advice from the two herbal practitioners of the village. They also drew on their own experience and that of their ancestors. Their use of herbs is bound up with rituals and beliefs of their own.^: iv The provincial health offices of Kalasin, Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom and Mukdahan listed 461 Phu Thai traditional healers in 2005. A study of their knowledge interviewed 263 of them and chose 20 for detailed study: ten herbalists, six "blowing" healers and four yao healers.^: 173 At Ban Nabua, illness was once treated with yao, divination, blowing, Chinese medicine and herbs. Villagers now go to the health station and the hospitals.^: 129

Cannabis

The Real Seed Company, a seed seller, writes about the Phu Thai in its catalogue listing for Lao Gold, its ganja landrace from southern Laos (Lao Gold General Population 2026). The listing states that cannabis cultivation in Laos and neighbouring Isan "is not exclusive to any particular ethnic group" but names the Phu Thai among the communities best known for producing first-class ganja in areas such as Sakon Nakhon and Savannakhet. It says that until very recently plants were "a conspicuous feature of most gardens in Phu Thai villages" and that prohibition has had only minimal effect on traditional ganja culture in Laos, unlike in northern Isan.

Accessions

No accessions documented yet.

See also

• Kaloeng people
• Nakhon Phanom Province
• Northeastern Thailand
• Phu Phan
• Sakon Nakhon Province