Yoy people

Yoy
โย้ย (Yoy) · ไทโย้ย
Regions with significant populations
Thailand: Sakon Nakhon Province Laos
Languages
Yoy, a Tai language
Religion
Buddhism, with ancestral, house and field spirit cults
Related ethnic groups
Nyaw, Kaloeng, Phu Thai, Lao

The Yoy (Thai โย้ย, also ไทโย้ย; in English also Yoi, Yooy and Thai Yooi) are a Tai-speaking people of Northeastern Thailand. They live mainly in Akat Amnuai and Wanon Niwat districts of Sakon Nakhon Province, along the Yam, a tributary of the Songkhram. Their language is also spoken in Laos.

Their ancestors crossed the Mekong in the 19th century from the area of the present Khammouane Province of Laos. Their settlement on the right bank, Ban Muang Rim Yam, became the town of Akat Amnuai. Accounts differ on the date of the crossing and on whether the Yoy came of their own will or were moved by force. The Yoy keep the Buddhist merit-making festivals of the region beside ancestral, house and field spirit cults. The klong leng, a two-headed drum carried on a pole, is played at their festivals and taught in the village school at Ban Akat.

Name and identity

The people's name is โย้ย in Thai, also written ไทโย้ย. The Sakon Nakhon provincial statistical office calls them the Thai Yoy (เผ่าไทโย้ย).^: [ix] The name is also spelt Yoi, Yooi and Yooy. English-language studies write Thai Yoi, Tai Yoy and Thai Yooi.^: 3014 A 2023 list of the peoples of Isan names the Yoi separately from the Yor or Yo-Ngiao, a name of the Nyaw.^: 4618

Panchansingh and colleagues count the Thai Yoy among the sub-groups of the Thai-Lao cultural group of Isan, with the Thai Lao, the Phu Thai, the Thai Nyo and the Thai Saek. At Ban Akat they found that the Yoy accept the name Yoy with pride.^: 19–20

Population and distribution

The provincial statistical office lists the Yoy among six peoples of Sakon Nakhon who keep their own descent, culture and customs. It places them in Akat Amnuai and Wanon Niwat districts.^: [ix] Ban Muang Rim Yam, where the Yoy settled after crossing the Mekong, is in the present Akat Amnuai District; part of its people moved on west into Wanon Niwat.^: 20 Most people of Akat Amnuai District are Yoy. The district borders Bueng Kan to the north and Nakhon Phanom to the east.^{: sec. 2.1}

The community wiki of the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre places the largest Yoy population in Akat Amnuai, most of it in Akat subdistrict. It names smaller Yoy communities scattered through Akat Amnuai, Sawang Daen Din, Wanon Niwat and Phang Khon districts. Ban Phon Phaeng in Nong Sanom subdistrict of Wanon Niwat is a Yoy village. So is Phak Tob, in Pla Lo subdistrict of Warichaphum, a district the statistical office lists for the Phu Thai.^{: 3015: [ix]}

Language

Yoy (ISO 639-3 yoy) is a Tai language of Thailand and Laos. Glottolog places it in the Southwestern Tai branch beside Northeastern Thai and rates it "shifting". Ethnologue calls it endangered: all adults in the community speak it as their first language, but not all young people. It is not known to be taught in schools. At Ban Akat the Yoy speak their language in the family and the village. With outsiders and officials they use Thai-Lao and central Thai.^: 21–22 At Ban Phon Phaeng, where the Yoy now also marry people from other communities, Yoy is still the language spoken within the community.

Pijika Timsuksai and A. Terry Rambo put Yoy in the Northern group of the Tai languages and the Lao, Kaloeng, Nyaw and Phu Thai in the Southwestern group.^: 3 Mudjalin Luksanawong compared the vocabulary of five Tai varieties of Sakon Nakhon, taking the Yoy data from elderly speakers in Akat subdistrict. Nyaw, Lao and Yoy formed one group, while Kaloeng and Phu Thai each stood apart.^: 8–9 Working from sound changes, Pittayawat Pittayaporn groups Nyo, Yoy and Kaloeng as one cluster. He places them provisionally in a "Peninsular" branch of Southwestern Tai with Lao and Thai.^{: 16, 23} Jean Pacquement quotes Thananan Trongdee's finding that the tone systems of Nyo, Yoy and Kaloeng are identical. He heard the rhyme /aɰ/ from older Yoy speakers in Akat Amnuai village, though not elsewhere in the district.^{: 78, 80}

Citing Fongchan Arunkamon's thesis of 1998, Tansinpon writes that the speech of Ban Akat has a drawn-out tone and some words that differ from those of other groups.^: 278 In the Ban Akat entry of the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's community wiki, Yoy has four tones and no r or f sound at the start of a word.

History

Accounts of origin

Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, in a note on the peoples of the north-east quoted by Maswanna and Hongsuwan, recorded the Yoy at Mueang Akat Amnuai, a dependency of Sakon Nakhon. He added that nobody could tell him where they had come from.^: 145 The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's community wiki and a 2024 botanical study both say the Yoy first lived in Guizhou and Guangxi in China.^: 3014 The community wiki adds that the Chinese call them Song and the Vietnamese Doi. It retells a legend, from a 1995 study by Pornpan Uchuphap, in which the Yoy left during the "Chueang war" under Phaya Thao Yi (Thao Chueang) and settled at Ban Hom Thao Huse in Khammouane. The same page and the 2024 study also place an earlier home at Mueang Phu Wa, near Maha Chai Kong Kaeo and Hom Thao in Khammouane.^: 3014

A 1998 thesis by Fongchan Arunkamon gives the movement in the other direction. In its abstract the Yoy first lived on the right bank of the Mekong, were taken to Laos during the revolt of Chao Anouvong of Vientiane and were brought back after his defeat.

Crossing the Mekong

In the community wiki's account, the Bangkok army put down Anouvong's revolt of 1826–1827 and then persuaded or rounded up the people of the left bank. Among them about 2,339 Yoy under Thao Si Surat, Thao Chantanam and Thao Namkhot followed the Songkhram and then the Yam and settled at Ban Muang Rim Yam. Tansinpon, citing Sathit Phakmaruk and Surat Warangrat, writes that the Yoy moved at the persuasion of Phraya Sunthon Ratchawongsa of Nakhon Phanom and Phraya Prathet Thani of Sakon Nakhon. Both governors came from the left bank and were related to its rulers. The Yoy first lived in villages under Nakhon Phanom, between the Yam and the Songkhram.^: 277

Panchansingh and colleagues write that the Yoy came from Ban Hom Thao in Laos of their own will to find land to farm. They were neither rounded up nor driven out.^: 20 In the abstract of Uchuphap's study of 1995, the Yoy came voluntarily, not as prisoners of war, in search of farmland. An account gathered in interviews at Akat Amnuai describes two phases, a search for new land followed by round-ups and flight from war.^: 282 Timsuksai and Rambo write that all the Tai-speaking groups 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 also writes of forced migrations in the 19th century.^: 16

The Yoy towns

Ban Muang Rim Yam was raised to the town (mueang) of Akat Amnuai, and Thao Si Surat, titled Luang Phalanukun, became its first ruler. The sources date this differently. The community wiki gives 1837, under Rama III, with the new town placed under Nakhon Phanom. Panchansingh and colleagues give 1847.^: 20 Tansinpon cites a royal letter to Nakhon Phanom of 1853, in the reign of Mongkut, in which the king raised Ban Muang Nam Yam to Mueang Akat Amnuai. The letter made Thao Si Surat Luang Phalanukun, Thao Chantanam akkharawong and Thao Namkhot worabut.^: 277

In the community wiki's account, a second group under Thao Chan Som followed Phra Sunthon Ratchawongsa to Yasothon in 1853. Its village of Ban Kut Ling became the town of Wanon Niwat in 1861; the town later moved to the site of the present Wanon Niwat. A third group, from Mueang Phu Wa under Thao Thep Kanlaya, founded Mueang Sawang Daen Din under Sakon Nakhon in 1862. Citing Sathit Phakmaruk, Tansinpon dates the founding of the three towns to 1857–1863.^: 277 At Wanon Niwat, Yoy villagers left Ban Chat after an outbreak of smallpox; some founded Ban Phon Phaeng on the Yam in about 1864.

In 1914 Akat Amnuai was reduced to a subdistrict. It became a district again in 1965.^: 277

Society

At Ban Akat a birth is marked by the tying of wrists, an ordination by a khwan ceremony and a marriage by a bai si. At a death there is chanting and merit is made for the dead, who are then buried or cremated or their bones collected. Panchansingh and colleagues found that all these rites are still kept.^: 21 At Ban Phon Phaeng most villagers belong to large extended families and the whole community is related by marriage.

Religion

Most Yoy are Buddhists. The Yoy of Akat Amnuai built six temples in turn, among them Wat Klang and Wat Si Phon Mueang. They honour a Buddha image called the Phra Kaeo. Beside Buddhism they keep Brahmanical rites, the cult of spirits and older practices such as the ba vow.^{: 17, 21} The spirits honoured at Ban Akat are the ancestor spirits of each lineage, the house spirits of each family and the phi haek (or phi ta haek), which guards the fields. The phi ta haek receives offerings in particular, for the sake of the rice crop.^: 19 The pho cham or kuan cham is the go-between with the spirits.^: 21

The shrine of the ancestral spirits (san pu ta) of Ban Akat stands in village no. 1 of Ban Akat, within the Akat Amnuai municipality. It belongs to the Yoy and carries their shared memory of the journey from Khammouane to the Yam. Thai people of Chinese descent have joined in its rites in recent years. Before the rice season the village sends rice to the spirits at the shrine.^: 177 The shrine of Ban Phu Ngoen at Ban Hai Yong in Phang Khon District serves Lao villagers with some Nyaw and Yoy.^: 176–177

At Phak Tob the villagers keep a small sacred forest, the Don Pu Ta, with a shrine to the ancestral spirits. Gathering forest produce, felling trees and hunting there are forbidden. Local healers may take medicinal plants from it.^: 3015 Each year before the rice is planted the villagers hold a ceremony at the shrine for the ancestral spirits that protect the village. Stories of these spirits living in the forest are passed on to the village's children.^: 3021

Culture

The klong leng is a two-headed drum of padauk wood covered with cow or buffalo hide. Two men carry it on a pole and face each other, each beating one head. In the account of village elders, the Yoy brought the drum with them on their migration, beat it to signal along the way and hung it up at the new settlement. It was later played in ritual and for entertainment.^: 279 The klong leng at Ban Akat goes back more than 60 years.^: 135 It is played at the rocket festival, the floating of fire boats (lai ruea fai), the merit-making of the sixth month and the bun maha chat. Offerings are made to the guardian and ancestral spirits before these rites; at the fire-boat festival the drums face east.^: 136

Bun Toop, also called bun maha chat or bun phra wet, is held every year after the rice harvest, between December and April.^: 20 On the night before the day of merit the drummers go from house to house, collecting rice porridge, sweets and rice liquor to offer at the temple. Next morning the drum is played again until the procession of the Vessantara story enters the temple, with men and women dancing to its beat.^: 279 The lai han bucha fai and the klong leng are performed every year in the tenth month.^: 279: 22 Since 2014 the Yoy of Akat Amnuai have held a Yoy Day (wan Thai Yoy) on the sixth day of the waxing moon of the sixth month, in honour of their ancestors, with a dance for the ancestral shrine and a procession.

Ban Akat School has taught the klong leng since 2002.^: 282 Its pupils play the drum every day at the lunch break.^: 345 At Ban Akat women weave mudmee cloth for the household when the work of the rice season is done.^: 278 A collection of the legends and folktales of the Tai peoples of Isan who came from elsewhere gathered one legend and ten folktales from the Yoy.^: 148

Economy and livelihood

Rice farming is the main work at Ban Akat. Fishing in the Yam, basketry and weaving bring in further income. Yoy cloth is now sold in Thailand and abroad.^: 20–21 In the past the village traded little, exchanged farm produce and grew cotton, indigo and vegetables along the Yam. The community wiki lists the traps, baskets and hooks once used for fishing in the river and its ponds. In a 2016 study of home gardens in the Sakon Nakhon basin, most gardens of the Yoy village studied, in Akat Amnuai, were organic in shape, with indistinct borders and several planting centres, like those of the Kaloeng, Lao and Nyaw. Equal shares of the Yoy gardens had beds of one species and beds of several.^: 6–8

The people of Phak Tob grow rice and local vegetables and plant eucalyptus.^: 3015 A 2025 survey in Akat Amnuai district, with 40 informants interviewed in Thai or Yoy, recorded 78 species of wild food plants in 42 families. Twenty-five of them bring in household income through local markets.

Plants and medicine

A 2024 study recorded 61 species of medicinal plants in the Don Pu Ta forest of Phak Tob, in 54 genera and 36 families, used for 28 groups of complaints.^: 3014 Aerial stems are the part used for the most species (37), followed by roots (29) and bark (8).^: 3017 The roots and pith of kleng (Dialium cochinchinense) are boiled and drunk for aches and pains.^: 3022 The bark of ta baek (Lagerstroemia floribunda) is used for toothache and bleeding gums.^{: 3018, 3028}

In Akat Amnuai the young leaves and flowers of two Cratoxylum species give a sour taste to food. The rhizome of Boesenbergia rotunda goes into curry pastes. The ripe fruit of Ampelocissus martini is sometimes pounded with unripe banana to reduce its irritancy before it is eaten. Dioscorea hispida tubers are steamed and eaten as a staple food or made into sweets.^{: sec. 3.2} At Phak Tob the same two Cratoxylum trees and Ampelocissus martini are among the medicinal plants.^{: 3018–3019}

Accessions

No accessions documented yet.

See also

• Kaloeng people
• Nyaw people
• Phu Thai people
• Sakon Nakhon Province
• So people