So people

So
โส้ (So) · โซ่ · กะโซ่ (Kaso) · ไทโส้ (Thai So)
Regions with significant populations
Thailand: Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Mukdahan and Kalasin provinces Laos
Languages
So, a Katuic language of the Austroasiatic family; Lao
Religion
Buddhism, with ancestral and nature spirit cults
Related ethnic groups
Bru, Kuy

The So (Thai โส้ or โซ่, also Kaso and Thai So) are an Austroasiatic-speaking people of Northeastern Thailand whose ancestors came across the Mekong from what is now Laos. In Thailand they live in Kusuman District of Sakon Nakhon, Dong Luang District of Mukdahan and parts of Nakhon Phanom and Kalasin. Their language belongs to the Katuic branch and is related to those of the Bru and the Kuy. They have long been classed by their Tai-speaking neighbours among the kha, a Thai and Lao term for Mon-Khmer-speaking peoples.

The So crossed the Mekong in the first half of the 19th century. A group that settled in Mukdahan in 1816 says it came of its own will, at the command of the sky spirit Thaen, while others were moved by Siamese armies after the Lao rebellion of 1826–1828 and in the wars of the 1830s and 1840s. The town of Kusuman was founded for the So in 1844. Their religion combines Buddhism with the cult of the earth spirit yiang, of ancestral spirits and of the village guardian. The So thang bang, a dance to the beat of bamboo tubes pounded on the ground, is danced to call the ancestors.

Name and identity

Thai writers use three forms of the name: โส้ (So), กะโซ่ or กะโซ้ (Kaso) and โซ่ (So).^: 229 โส้ is used for the So of Kusuman in Sakon Nakhon; โซ่ or กะโซ่ is used for those of Dong Luang in Mukdahan.^: 229 The So of Kusuman call themselves ไทยโส้ (Thai So).^: 6 In their own language their name is Tro.^: 76

Thai and Lao speakers long called the So kha. To Tawatchai Failai, kha is a general Thai-Lao word for peoples who speak Mon-Khmer languages, with a demeaning sense of slave. He notes that "Mon-Khmer" is now usually preferred.^: 6 In Prince Damrong Rajanubhab's report of his tour of 2449 BE (1906–1907), as Failai summarises it, the So are a kha people of the Isan circle with their own language.^: 229 Failai reports that the Royal Institute dictionary of 1982 glossed โซ่ as Karen, forest dwellers or a kha tribe.^: 229 A 2023 study of three So villages writes that the Thai state regarded the So as a kind of kha who lived in forests and hills and moved their fields.^: 3 A companion study by the same authors finds that the So are often perceived as inferior to other peoples.^: 232

The So of Kusuman are distinct from a people of Song Dao District in Sakon Nakhon also called So, or So (Thavung). These came from Kham Koet and Kham Muan in Laos a little over a century ago and speak a Vietic language, of the same branch as Vietnamese.^: 7

A So legend tells that the ancestors of the peoples came out of a gourd. The So came first and are the eldest; the Nyaw came second and the Phu Thai and Lao last.^: 6

Population and distribution

The Sakon Nakhon provincial statistical office lists the So among six peoples of the province who keep their own descent, culture and customs. It places them in Kusuman District.^: [ix] In that district they live in the subdistricts of Kusuman, Na Pho, Phothi Phaisan and Na Phiang.^: 10–11 A study of the province's ethnic music lists the So of Phothi Phaisan among the province's prominent ethnic communities.^: 341

Failai lists So communities in Kusuman and Phanna Nikhom districts of Sakon Nakhon; Dong Luang, Kham Cha-i, Don Tan and Wan Yai districts of Mukdahan; Tha Uthen, Phon Sawan, Si Songkhram and Pla Pak districts of Nakhon Phanom; and Khao Wong and Kuchinarai districts of Kalasin.^: 3 So villages in Nakhon Phanom include Phathai in Tha Uthen District and Ban Phon Chan in Phon Sawan District.^: 4: 4 Some So also lived in Kuchinarai District of Kalasin in the early 20th century, when an official there described them for the Siam Society.^: 145

Estimates of their number differ widely. Raymond and Siriphan Kania estimated in the 1970s, with no census to go on, that about 5,000 to 7,000 people spoke So as their first language in Sakon Nakhon and Nakhon Phanom.^: 76 A 2016 study puts the speakers of So at about 70,000 in Thailand and 80,000 in Laos.^: 83

Language

So belongs to the Katuic branch of the Austroasiatic languages.^: 4 Glottolog names it Sô (ISO 639-3 sss), spoken in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, with the dialects So Makon, So Phong, So Slouy and So Trong. At Phathai in Nakhon Phanom the language is only spoken, not written. A story told there says that the So once wrote on dried buffalo hide and lost their letters when they grilled and ate the hides. With people who are not So, the villagers speak Lao, Nyaw or Kaloeng. The authors of a 2024 study judge their language to be in decline.^: 8–9

Relation to the Bru and the Kuy

Writers relate So to the languages of the Bru and the Kuy in different ways. Glottolog makes Sô and Eastern Bru two sub-branches of one Bru–So group; Kuy sits on a separate branch of West Katuic. Jean Pacquement writes of "Bru, also referred to as 'So'".^: 73 Thai studies of the So of Kusuman and Phathai, following Surat Warangrat, class them in "the Bru or Kha group".^: 6: 5 Failai adds that Yoe, Bru and So are three very closely related languages and that some linguists place Yoe and Bru under Kuy.^: 6 In his later study he compares So with Khmer and with the Suai of Surin and Si Sa Ket: the people there called Suai or Kui, he writes, are So who came from Salavan and Attapeu and speak the same language.^: 229 A survey of the peoples of Isan lists "So or Kaso", "Kha or Brue" and "Kui" separately.^: 4618

History

Homeland

The homeland of the So lay on the left bank of the Mekong, in what are now Khammouane, Savannakhet, Salavan and Attapeu provinces of Laos.^: 229 Finding no primary document that names their towns, Failai suggests that the So of Kusuman came from Mueang Ou, Mueang Wang and Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo.^: 231 Kaithong and Yongvanit place the homeland at the towns of Tapon and Sepon in Khammuan.^: 82

Crossing the Mekong

The So of Dong Luang in Mukdahan crossed in 1816, in the reign of Rama II, at the rapids of Kaeng Kabao. They say they came of their own will, at the command of the sky spirit Thaen. They were not forced or rounded up.^: 233 Their first leader, Luang Wano Phraipruek, settled at Ban Lao in Nong Bua subdistrict.^: 232

The larger movements came under Rama III. After the defeat of Chao Anouvong of Vientiane in 1828, So were among the peoples taken from Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo and sent to Nakhon Phanom.^: 232: 151 Between 1833 and 1845, while Siam and Vietnam contended for Cambodia, the people of 15 towns on the left bank were moved to Nakhon Ratchasima and the Sakon Nakhon basin, So among them.^: 232 In 1840 the ruler of Yasothon persuaded and conscripted Phu Thai and Kaso households to settle in Siam.^: 10 In 1842 the Ratchawong of Sakon Nakhon persuaded more households to cross. Many So came with them, together with the Phu Thai leader Chao Hong Klang. Some settled at Kusuman.^: 233 Between 1842 and 1844 the Siamese army took the So of Mueang Taphon and Mueang Chiang Hom, now in Savannakhet. It settled them at Mueang Ram Rat, now a subdistrict of Tha Uthen.^: 233

Kusuman and Phathai

Rama III ordered the founding of Mueang Kusuman in 1844. Its first ruler was Phia Mueang Sung, or Thao No Mueang Sung, the leader of the "Kha Kaso", who received the title Phra Aran Asa.^: 233 His son Thao King succeeded him.^: 11–12

The So of Phathai in Tha Uthen District came from Kusuman. In their account epidemics, a growing population and drought drove four or five households to move.^: 4 The same study dates the move both to 1838 and to 1910, when Phraya Phaisan Senanurak led more than ten families from Mueang Phothi Phaisan.^{: 6, 8} Ban Phathai and Ban Phanom were long the two villages there, all of whose people were So of a single clan, Nam Phathai.^: 7

Society

The So of Kusuman prefer to marry within their own village. The whole community is bound by ties of kinship and shared labour.^: 12 In the 1970s So also married people of other So villages and of other peoples, among them Thai, Lao and Nyaw.^: 91

At death the Phu Thai make merit to send the dead to a good rebirth. The So of Phathai instead call the spirit of the dead back to the house, where it lives on as a house spirit and protects its descendants. In the rite of sang kramut the dead person is held to become a "raw" spirit.^: 11–12

Religion

In the 1970s the So of Kusuman recognised a universal earth spirit, yiang, found everywhere in nature. A "Big Tree", a major symbol of So identity, had to be consulted before any undertaking. Ancestor worship ranked next, then Buddhism.^: 95 At Phathai the spirits of streams, large trees, fields, forests and hills are still called yiang. Villagers keep a shrine of Chao Pu Mahesak and feed the spirit on the third waxing day of the third lunar month.^: 12 Since settling in Isan the So have kept their spirits beside Buddhism but have made the phi pu ta, the ancestral village guardian of their Isan neighbours, their highest spirit.^: 2

The yao rites of the So include annual spirit feasts, the feeding of ancestral and water spirits, the calling of the soul, healing and the fulfilment of vows.^: 231 At Kusuman the yearly feasts, called saeng sanam prajam kamo, are held twice. The rite for the ancestral spirits falls on the fourth waxing day of the third lunar month; the second is for the water spirits, the spirits of forest and sky that may cause illness.^: 12

Culture

The So thang bang is danced to the beat of bamboo tubes pounded on the ground. Such tubes once held drinking water in the forest and were struck on the ground at night to drive off animals.^: 13 The So dance it at festivals and in sickness to call the ancestral spirits to help and protect their descendants.^: 12 At Kusuman it belongs to the annual So Ramluek festival, held on the fourth waxing day of the third month as an offering to the ancestors. It is also danced at funerals to send the dead to a good place.^: xiv Phathai holds a festival of its own, the Ruam Chai Thai So, on 16 and 17 February each year. The authors of the Phathai study treat it as an invented tradition, adapted to give So culture value for tourism.^{: 4, 13}

Each So household at Phathai once wove its own cloth, mostly cotton, for shirts, loincloths and quilt covers. A silk skirt is finished with a hem of mudmee silk. Old houses were of timber, raised on posts above pens for cattle and buffalo and roofed with leaves.^{: 7, 10}

Economy and livelihood

In the 1970s the So of Kusuman grew rice. About the time of rice planting, women planted vegetables and cotton in small plots beside the fields. In winter and spring the So lived by hunting and gathering.^: 80 The early 20th-century account of the So of Kuchinarai, translated by Erik Seidenfaden, lists rice, gourds, melons, maize, beans, sesame, peppers and tomatoes.^: 147 In the late 1980s officials of the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly brought tobacco to the So villages of Kusuman. Potatoes, chillies and rubber followed. Farming shifted from many crops to one.^: 89

Accessions

No accessions documented yet.

See also

• Bru people
• Kaloeng people
• Nakhon Phanom Province
• Phu Thai people
• Sakon Nakhon Province