Kaloeng people

Kaloeng
กะเลิง (Kaloeng) · ไทกะเลิง (Tai Kaloeng)
Total population
around 8,000 in Thailand: 2286
Regions with significant populations
Thailand: Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom, Kalasin and Nong Khai provinces Laos
Languages
Kaloeng, a Southwestern Tai language; Lao
Religion
Buddhism, with ancestral and forest spirit cults
Related ethnic groups
Nyaw, Yoy, Phu Thai, Lao

The Kaloeng (Thai กะเลิง; also written Kalaeng, Kaleung and Tai Kaloeng) are a Tai-speaking people of the Sakon Nakhon basin and neighbouring provinces of Northeastern Thailand, whose ancestors came across the Mekong from what is now Laos. In Sakon Nakhon most Kaloeng settled around Nong Han lake and in the Phu Phan range. Other Kaloeng villages lie in Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom and Kalasin. Their number in Thailand has been put at around 8,000.^: 2286

The Kaloeng speak a Tai language, but a derivation of their name from kha loeng has led some writers to class them with the Mon-Khmer-speaking peoples. Their ancestors are said to have come from Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo, now in Khammouane Province of Laos. Sources date their removal to Siam either to the aftermath of the Lao rebellion of 1826–1828 or to the Haw wars of the 1880s. Their religion joins Buddhism to the cult of a village guardian spirit, the phi pu ta, honoured in a grove of sacred forest. The healers and villagers of Ban Kut Haet in Kut Bak District use more than 120 medicinal plants, studied in an ethnobotanical survey of 2016 and 2017.

Name and identity

The people of Ban Dong Ma Fai near Sakon Nakhon town call themselves Kaloeng and are called so by their neighbours.^: 6 Thai writers use both กะเลิง (Kaloeng) and ไทกะเลิง (Tai Kaloeng).^: 18 In English the name is also spelt Kalaeng,^: 3 Kaleung^: 24 and Kalerng.^: 169 Older documents have Tai-Kaloeng and Tai Kaleun.^: 2292

The name has two proposed derivations. It is commonly taken to come from ขะเลิง or ข่าเลิง (kha loeng), a derivation that links the Kaloeng to the Austroasiatic (Mon-Khmer) language family; Somkham cites the Sakon Nakhon City Museum of Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University for it.^: 18 A community wiki entry for Ban Bua in Kut Bak District, compiled for the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, says that Ban Bua and the neighbouring communities call themselves both "Kaloeng" and "Kha Loeng". The linguist Areeluck Tisapong, who did fieldwork at Ban Dong Ma Fai from 1981 to 1985, wrote instead that the people "call themselves 'Kaloeng' because of dark skin", adding that they wore dark clothes.^{: 3, 5}

Writers have classified the Kaloeng in three ways. Some scholars have placed them among the Tai peoples and some among the Mon-Khmer peoples. Others class them with the Lao, as they do the Phuan.^: 2292 A study of the Tai So of the Sakon Nakhon basin cites Frank LeBar and colleagues, by way of a 1975 United States military research publication, for putting the So in a kha group together with the Kaloeng and the Saek.^: 229 The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry follows Joachim Schliesinger, who reported meeting elderly Kaloeng in Thailand who could still speak an older language closer to Mon-Khmer than to Thai. Schliesinger put the change down to long residence among Tai speakers.

Population and distribution

Chiranthanut and Funo put the Tai Kaloeng population of Thailand at around 8,000, living mainly in Mukdahan and Sakon Nakhon provinces.^: 2286 The Sakon Nakhon provincial statistical office lists the Kaloeng among six peoples of the province who keep their own descent, culture and customs. It places them in Kut Bak, Phu Phan and Nikhom Nam Un districts.^: [ix] A comparative study of the province's Tai dialects names the same six: the Kaloeng, Nyaw, Phu Thai, Yoy, Lao and So.^: 9 A study of the So counts eight peoples in the wider Sakon Nakhon basin, the Kaloeng among them.^: 229

In Sakon Nakhon the Kaloeng first settled along the shore of Nong Han and in the Phu Phan range. Most now live at Ban Na Yo and Ban Phon Ngam in Mueang Sakon Nakhon District. Some groups moved up into Kut Bak and Phu Phan districts.^: 18 Areeluck Tisapong listed six Kaloeng villages in Mueang Sakon Nakhon District, among them Ban Dong Ma Fai and Ban Phon Ngam, with others in Kalasin and Nakhon Phanom.^: 3 In Kut Bak District the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry names eight Kaloeng villages, Ban Kut Haet, Ban Bua, Ban Sai Kaeo, Ban Nong Sanai, Ban Phon Ngam, Ban Nong Kha, Ban Kham and Ban Kut Bak, where the Kaloeng live mixed with the Nyaw. Beyond Sakon Nakhon, Kaloeng communities are reported in Nakhon Phanom, Mukdahan and Nong Khai.^: 2–3

Ban Dong Ma Fai, called the "Kaloeng village" among the ten villages of its subdistrict, had 1,380 people in 294 families in a count the subdistrict headman made in 1981.^: 6–7 Ban Kut Haet had 624 inhabitants when it was surveyed in 2016 and 2017.^: 4619 In Mukdahan, Ban Nongnouwn and two neighbouring settlements had about 1,000 people in 1999 and 2000, more than four-fifths of them Kaloeng.^{: 2285–2286, 2292} After the wars of the 19th century some Kaloeng moved back to Laos.^: 2292

Language

A 1985 thesis on the speech of Ban Dong Ma Fai, by its own account the first study of the language, classed Kaloeng among the Tai dialects of a "Central upland group".^: 12–13 A 2016 study of homegardens in the Sakon Nakhon basin assigns the Kaloeng, with the Lao, the Nyaw and the Phu Thai, to the Southwestern group of the Tai languages.^: 3

Mudjalin Luksanawong compared 750 words in five Tai varieties of Sakon Nakhon, taking the Kaloeng data from elderly speakers at Tambon Kut Bak. The Kut Bak variety has six tones. In vocabulary Nyaw, Lao and Yoy formed one group, while Kaloeng and Phu Thai each stood apart.^: 8–10 Working from sound changes, Pittayawat Pittayaporn treats Nyaw, Yoy and Kaloeng as one cluster whose members differ in their tonal mergers and splits. He places that cluster provisionally with Lao and Thai in a "Peninsular" branch of Southwestern Tai, from which he excludes Phu Thai.^{: 16, 23–24}

At Ban Dong Ma Fai long intermarriage with the Lao had made the two peoples hard to tell apart by 1985, though some old villagers still spoke with a Kaloeng accent.^: 5–6 A study of village elders in Isan, citing earlier work, states that the Kaloeng now speak Tai-Lao.^: 171

History

Remembered homelands

Accounts of where the Kaloeng came from differ. When Prince Damrong Rajanubhab toured the north-east in 1907 he reported "large numbers of Kaloeng" in Sakon Nakhon, who said their homeland was Muang Katak but did not know where it lay; Areeluck Tisapong quotes the report in translation.^: 1 Later writers place the homeland at Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo, also called Phu Wa Na Kadaeng, in what is now Khammouane.^: 1: 225 The people of Ban Kut Haet trace their ancestors there.^: 18 A 2026 health study names Mueang Kham Koet and Mueang Khammouane.^: 2 A study of village elders cites a survey of the left bank of the Mekong led by Captain de Malglaive, which placed the Kaloeng in the basin of the Taphon river and at the headwaters of the Se Bang Hiang.^: 171

Chiranthanut and Funo describe a longer migration. In their account the Kaloeng, like other Tai, trace their ancestry to Muang Thaen (Dien Bien Phu). They left it in the 17th century for Muang Xieng Khuang, Muang Mahaxai and Muang Pinn, which the authors place in southern Laos; some later crossed the Mekong.^: 2286 The founders of Ban Nongnouwn came from Muang Pinn in Savannakhet. The village leader told the authors in 2000 that the old hometown had been "Muang Theng".^{: 2286, 2292}

Removal to Siam

Several accounts tie the crossing of the Mekong to the wars of the early 19th century. In a study of the Tai So, Tawatchai Failai writes that after the Siamese campaign against Chao Anouvong of Vientiane in 1828, the Bangkok court carried the people of Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo, Lao, Kaloeng and Kha among them, into Siamese territory. Between 1833 and 1845, in his account, people of 15 towns on the left bank, Kaloeng among them, were moved to Nakhon Ratchasima and the towns of the Sakon Nakhon basin.^: 225 Chiranthanut and Funo also connect the move to the war of 1826–1828, after which people from Laos were "swept to reside" around the Phu Phan range in Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom and Mukdahan.^: 2292 Timsuksai and Rambo write that the Kaloeng, Nyaw, Phu Thai and Yoy of the basin are believed to have settled there in the early 19th century, after the Siamese army moved them by force from Laos.^: 3 The linguist Pittayawat Pittayaporn lists the Kaloeng among the Tai groups that reached Thailand through forced migrations in the 19th century.^: 16

A second account dates the main movement to the 1880s. Areeluck Tisapong reported the view of the local historian Surat Warangrat that the Kaloeng settled in Sakon Nakhon and Nakhon Phanom after the Haw (Ho) rising at Xiang Khouang in 1884 and the disturbances of 1884 to 1886. One of her informants, a Kaloeng woman aged 66, said the Kaloeng had left out of fear and poverty. She added that Kaloeng men had been hired to fight in the Haw war for four baht each.^: 2 A 2026 health study likewise dates the migration to the Haw wars, in the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V).^: 2

Other sources combine the two. The people of Ban Kut Haet date their ancestors' crossing either to the suppression of Chao Anouvong under Rama III or to the suppression of the Haw under Rama V.^: 18 A study of village elders describes several crossings, beginning after the Anouvong war and with a large one during the Haw wars.^: 171 The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry also names both events and dates the Haw war migration to 1883–1887.

Settlement in the Sakon Nakhon basin

The Kaloeng settled first around Nong Han and in the Phu Phan range. Later groups moved up into the hills of Kut Bak.^: 18 In village tradition, Pho Thao Si Mukda and Pho Thao Chamwong La led their kin to found Ban Kut Haet.^: 150 Their names, Si Mukda and Chamwong La, became family names, and both remain large families in the village. Another leader, Tho Chumphon, founded Ban Na Kham. Ta Si Wong Kaeo founded Ban Bua, naming it for a pond full of lotus (bua). At Ban Dong Ma Fai almost every family carries one of two surnames, Dong Phu Yao and Wong Te Cha, which villagers explain by the way their ancestors came: along a long forested ridge or in small groups, bit by bit.^: 6 Ban Nongnouwn in Mukdahan was first settled in 1887.^: 2292

Society

Among the Kaloeng of Ban Kut Haet, as among their Lao and Phu Thai neighbours, senior kin (chao khot) mediate disputes. Cases of adultery are still settled within the community through them. Each house keeps a shelf for the house spirit. A son-in-law must obey his father-in-law in everything: disobedience offends the spirit and is put right with an offering of chicken, pork and liquor.^{: 178, 182} At Ban Dong Ma Fai in the early 1980s men headed their families. A newly married couple built a house near the parents of either husband or wife, with no fixed rule.^: 9 At Ban Nongnouwn most of the younger generations have married Lao and Thai partners.^: 2287

A study of house forms at Ban Nongnouwn describes a compound with a main sleeping house (tua huean) on the east–west axis, a separate kitchen (khua) and a small rice store (yung). The rice store is held sacred: it may stand anywhere but the west. Its floor must sit above the kitchen's so that kitchen waste water cannot reach it. More than two-thirds of the houses surveyed were raised timber houses. A young couple often lives for two or three years in a small temporary house, which becomes the kitchen once a larger house is built; modern houses (huean samai mai) stand on concrete at ground level.^{: 2287, 2289–2290}

Religion

At Ban Kut Haet belief in spirits is closely bound up with Buddhism. The village has several kinds of ritual leader: the yao healer (mo yao), the khaen player (mo khaen) and the officiant of the village spirit (chao cham).^: 152 The people of Ban Dong Ma Fai kept a temple and the Buddhist festivals of Khao Phansa, Ok Phansa and Songkran in the 1980s.^: 9 All 23 Kaloeng respondents in a 2023 survey at Kut Haet were Buddhists.^: 4

Phi pu ta and the spirit forest

The phi pu ta (grandfather spirit) is an ancestor believed to protect the village.^: 2292 Neglect of its rite is believed to bring sickness or disaster.^: 18 At Ban Kut Haet it is honoured in the Don Pu Ta, a forest under tall yang na (Dipterocarpus alatus) and other trees. Village tradition holds that the three leaders who brought the community from Laos, Thao Si Suwan, Mae Phaeng Si and Mae Phaeng Mueang, lie there. The village has built shrines to the three.^: 19

The Kut Haet ceremony falls on the third waxing day of the third lunar month, at harvest. It is led by the pho cham, whom the community once chose by divination and now chooses by vote. The officiant offers rice and liquor first to the forest spirits in the west of the ritual ground and then to the ancestors in the east. Food is then set out at the shrine of the chao pu chao ya. Villagers bathe the statue of the elephant on which the chao pu chao ya ride. A brahmin then leads a bai si su khwan thread-tying, after which households share a communal meal, the hom kan. Games follow, among them a jar-liquor drinking contest between the spirit's representative and the villagers' representative, which the villagers' side must lose. The rite ends with three circuits of the shrine.^: 19–20 A health study at Kut Haet adds that the ceremony includes healing rites for the sick. One of its informants described bringing flowers, incense and candles to the Don Pu Ta when children fall ill.^{: 5–6, 11}

At Ban Dong Ma Fai in the early 1980s the phi pu ta had a communal spirit house and received its offering on the fifth waxing day of the third lunar month. Every marrying couple asked it for permission to live together, usually with a chicken.^: 10 Ban Nongnouwn in Mukdahan keeps its own don pu ta, a wooded mound from which villagers may take mushrooms and firewood. Spirit rites are held there and Buddhist ceremonies at the temple. The ancestral burial ground lies nearby.^: 2287

Healing rites

The yao is a spirit-healing rite that the Kaloeng share with the Phu Thai of Isan. At Ban Kut Haet it is rooted in belief in spirits and ancestral spirits. It is said to have come with the ancestors from Khammouane.^{: 152, 154} The mo yao invokes the teachers and ancestral spirits, then dances to the music and divines with a hen's egg; a rite may last from half an hour to six or eight hours.^{: 155, 159} Illness may be traced to offending a spirit, for example by cutting trees or killing animals in the forest without permission. Most Kaloeng at Kut Haet in 2023 turned to traditional healers first and to hospitals second.^{: 6, 11}

Boon Phawet

The Kaloeng of Sakon Nakhon hold Boon Phawet, the Isan merit-making festival at which the Vessantara story is preached, in the fourth or fifth lunar month, each year for three years and then, sometimes, with a year's break. Their version has elephants in the procession and a "triple-pulpit" sermon. The listeners act together as host to the preaching monk, where Lao and Phu Thai communities have a single host hold the ceremonial dialogue.^: 25–26

Culture

Music accompanies the Kut Haet phi pu ta ceremony. There the khaen is a mouth organ of eight pairs of pipes, with silver reeds and pipes of mai ku bamboo (Thyrsostachys siamensis). It plays the tune lai phi mo with the two-headed klong tum drum and brass cymbals that the Kaloeng call saeng. The players learn by ear and by taking part, without notation. Fewer young people now join the rites.^: 20–24

Areeluck Tisapong described the Kaloeng growing cotton and dye plants and weaving and dyeing cloth black for their own use. Shirts took buttons made from silver coins. Ornaments were of silver: bracelets, anklets, rings and belts. A face powder was made from the root of kloy and a rouge from a root called hua san. Men and women alike chewed betel.^: 3–4 Ban Bua in Kut Bak has silk-weaving and cloth-weaving groups.

Economy and livelihood

In the early 1980s the people of Ban Dong Ma Fai grew rice and cotton and fished. They ate sticky rice with pla ra, crabs, shrimps, bamboo shoots and forest vegetables. They sold only what they did not need.^: 8 Ban Nongnouwn in Mukdahan grows rice and palms.^: 2287

In Kut Bak the villages lie in valleys of the Phu Phan with little flat land. Their people farm the slopes, raise cattle and buffalo, and hunt and gather in the forest. They take birds, rats, red ant eggs and snakes in the cold season and fruit and greens in the rains.^{: 3, 7} At Ban Kut Haet cattle and buffalo were kept in forest camps (thap wua thap khwai) on the mountain through the rainy season.^: 178 A village conservation group has banned hunting in the Kut Haet community forest since 2003, with a fine of 2,000 baht.^: 10 Most households at Ban Bua farm rice and some keep orchards.

Plants and medicine

An ethnobotanical survey at Ban Kut Haet between January 2016 and November 2017 interviewed three healers with more than 20 years' practice and 220 villagers aged 40 and over.^: 4619 The healers used 44 species from 28 families growing in the Don Pu Ta forest, most often the stem core. Most of their remedies were boiled and drunk.^{: 4617, 4620} Micromelum minutum, Rhodamnia dumetorum, Garcinia cowa and Casearia grewiifolia reached a fidelity level of 100 per cent. The healers take Sindora siamensis for nutrition, the blood and sexual performance. They use Garcinia cowa against fever.^{: 4617, 4633}

The villagers named more than 120 medicinal species. The Don Pu Ta is held sacred and its use has been forbidden; only 11 of their species came from it. Most came from other forests and home gardens. Three, among them Andrographis paniculata, were bought at market. About 92 per cent of their knowledge came from their ancestors.^{: 4618, 4621} In the 2023 health survey Kaloeng respondents treated COVID-19 symptoms with Andrographis paniculata, lemon, ginger, galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Village healers called mo pao treat bites and broken limbs by a downward "dispelling" from the head. A visit to a mo yao or a chao cham cost 6 to 12 baht.^: 11–12

Accessions

No accessions documented yet.

See also

• Northeastern Thailand
• Phu Phan
• Sakon Nakhon Province