Talk:Yoy people
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Sources
The literature on the Yoy is mostly in Thai and mostly about single places: Ban Akat in Akat Amnuai District (Panchansingh and others 2023; Tansinpon 2026; Rachsiri 2025; Tansinpon and Sakham 2026; the Ban Akat entry of the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's community wiki), the Don Pu Ta forest of Phak Tob in Warichaphum District (Saensouk and others 2024) and Akat Amnuai District as a whole (Saensouk and others 2025). Statements about one village are kept to that village in the article. Passages from Thai-language sources are paraphrased from the Thai text.
Several statements reach the page at second hand. Prince Damrong's note on the Yoy comes through Maswanna and Hongsuwan. Thananan Trongdee's view of the tone systems comes through Pacquement (2018). The account of Surat Warangrat and the dates of Sathit Phakmaruk (2016) come through Tansinpon (2026), who also reports Fongchan Arunkamon's 1998 thesis on Ban Akat. The community wiki draws on Pornpan Uchuphap (1995), Laddha Phanasnok (1995), Kittirat Phongsitthisak (1997) and Somsak Srisantisuk and others (1997). The three studies by Arunkamon, Uchuphap and Srisantisuk and others were read only as abstracts in the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's research database; they are cited without page numbers and only for what the abstracts say.
The study of Yoy life and Buddhism by Panchansingh, Sinnok and Munyapo exists in two versions with nearly the same text (2020 and 2023), and a page on the website of the Akat Amnuai subdistrict municipality (2022) repeats its account of the migration. The three are one witness; the article cites the 2023 version.
Where the sources disagree
- Origin. The community wiki and Saensouk and others (2024) place the first home of the Yoy in Guizhou and Guangxi in China; neither gives a source for it. The community wiki retells a legend of a migration under Thao Chueang to Ban Hom Thao Huse in Khammouane (citing Uchuphap) and names Mueang Phu Wa near Maha Chai Kong Kaeo (citing Kittirat Phongsitthisak); Saensouk and others name Phu Wa in nearly the same words. Arunkamon's abstract has the Yoy living on the right bank first and taken to Laos during Anouvong's revolt. Prince Damrong was told nothing about where they came from. The article reports each.
- Voluntary or forced. Panchansingh and others and Uchuphap's abstract say the Yoy came of their own will to find farmland. The community wiki places the crossing after the Bangkok army rounded up and persuaded the people of the left bank in 1826–1827. An interview account in Tansinpon (2026) has a search for land followed by round-ups and flight from war. Timsuksai and Rambo (2016) and Pittayaporn (2025) write of forced migration for all the Tai groups of the area. The article reports each.
- Dates of the crossing and of the town. The community wiki gives 1837 (BE 2380), in the reign of Rama III, for the raising of Ban Muang Rim Yam to the town of Akat Amnuai; another paragraph of the same page puts the raising in the reign of Mongkut, and a third dates an earlier wave of Yoy to the sack of Vientiane under Taksin in 1778. Panchansingh and others give BE 2390 (1847) for the appointment of the first ruler and place it "in the reign of Rama II", who died in 1824; the 2020 version and the municipality page give the reign of Rama II without a year. Tansinpon (2026) cites a royal letter of BE 2396 (1853), in the reign of Mongkut, kept in the National Archives, and an interview account that begins in BE 2380 with a first phase "in the reign of Rama I". Arunkamon's abstract places Anouvong's revolt in the reign of Rama II; it took place under Rama III. The article gives the years each source states and leaves out the reign attributions that contradict them.
- Numbers. The community wiki gives about 2,339 people for the first group in one paragraph and about two thousand in another. The article gives the first figure, which is the more specific.
- The district. Tansinpon (2026) dates the raising of Akat Amnuai to a district to 2 July 1965; the community wiki gives 12 July 1965. The article gives the year only.
- Phraya Sunthon Ratchawongsa. Tansinpon (2026) calls him the governor of Nakhon Phanom; in the community wiki a Phra Sunthon Ratchawongsa leads the second Yoy group to Yasothon. Whether the sources mean one person is not settled by the texts read.
- Classification of the language. Timsuksai and Rambo (2016) place Yoy in the Northern Tai group. Glottolog places it in Southwestern Tai beside Northeastern Thai. Luksanawong (2010) groups it with Nyaw and Lao by vocabulary; Pittayaporn (2025) groups it with Nyo and Kaloeng by sound change and places the group only provisionally. The article reports each. Pittayaporn's Yoy data come from a 1984 thesis by Thepbangon Boonsner, which was not seen.
- The klong leng. Rachsiri (2025) traces the drum at Ban Akat back more than 60 years; the elders interviewed by Tansinpon (2026) say the Yoy brought it on their migration. Both are given.
- Saensouk and others (2024). The abstract counts 36 families of medicinal plants; Table 1 names 34. The text under four use headings (strength, the uterus, the kidneys, dizziness) repeats the paragraph on coughs, while Table 9 lists other species for those uses. The article takes plant uses from Tables 2 and 9 and the text on aches, pains and toothache only. The survey is dated 2023 to 2024 in the paper, which was received in July 2024.
Cannabis
None of the sources read connects the Yoy with cannabis. The texts gathered for the page were searched for "cannabis", "ganja", "marijuana", "hemp", กัญชา and กัญชง, among them the full texts of both Yoy plant studies: neither names cannabis, and neither lists the family Cannabaceae among the 61 medicinal or 78 wild food species recorded. The Ban Akat studies, the community wiki and the research abstracts do not mention it either. A 2022 study of how licensed growers in Sakon Nakhon tell male from female cannabis plants (Hongsuwan and others, cited on the page on the Phu Phan range) does not name the ethnic group of its six informants. The page therefore has no cannabis section.
Not used, and why
- Population figures. No source read gives a count of the Yoy with a year and a counting body. The provincial statistical report for Sakon Nakhon lists districts only. Saensouk and others (2024) give Phak Tob about 697 inhabitants without saying how many are Yoy. The figures on the English and Thai Wikipedia pages rest on a mission handbook and on a 2004 language map that was not seen, and are not used.
- Saensouk and others (2024) on Yoy customs. The paper counts seven ethnic groups in Sakon Nakhon, against six in the provincial report, and names a custom of "floating a steamboat" at the end of Buddhist Lent, citing a reference whose details appear garbled. Neither is used.
- Rachsiri (2025) on the name of the performance. Rachsiri explains the word yoy in yoy klong leng as supple movement of the body to the beat and places the performance's origin in Sakon Nakhon, Nong Khai and Nakhon Phanom. The gloss concerns the performance, not the people, and the references given for it are thin; it is not used.
- Village counts. The community wiki gives Akat subdistrict 18 villages in one section and 12 in another; neither count is used.
- Sitthisarn (2020) and Tansinpon (2026) on the school course. The first describes a course of two drum rhythms; the second a course later extended to four rhythms. The article gives the course and its start only.
- Studies used for other peoples. Yutthaphichai Wannasang and Sarapee Khowdee (2026) record 34 ikat pattern names at Ban Akat, among them one named for the stupa of Mueang Akat; Sathit Phakmaruk's studies of lullabies (2015) and astrology (2017) include Yoy informants. They add pattern names and genre counts only and are not used.
Open content questions
- No count of the Yoy of Thailand or Laos with a stated year and method has been found.
- The Yoy of Laos are named in language databases but not described in any source read.