Talk:Kaloeng people

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Kaloeng people is the page for the Kaloeng (กะเลิง, also written Kalaeng, Kaleung, Kalerng and Tai Kaloeng), a Tai-speaking people of the Sakon Nakhon basin and neighbouring provinces of north-eastern Thailand whose ancestors came from what is now Laos. It covers the name, distribution, language, the accounts of their origin and migration, society, religion, culture, livelihood and plant use, and lists the accessions collected among them.

Data verification

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Discussion

Sources

Most of the literature on the Kaloeng is in Thai and comes from village studies: Ban Kut Haet in Kut Bak District (Somkham 2025 and 2026; Tipchai, Lamduan and Yodmalee 2019; Appamaraka and others 2023; Suwannarong and others 2026), Ban Dong Ma Fai in Mueang Sakon Nakhon District (Areeluck Tisapong 1985) and a village in Mukdahan (Chiranthanut and Funo 2008). Statements about one village are kept to that village in the article. Passages from Thai-language sources are paraphrased from the Thai text.

Areeluck Tisapong's 1985 thesis survives as an image-only scan. It was read through a machine transcription, and the passages used were checked against the page images. Page numbers are the thesis's own chapter pages. The thesis quotes Prince Damrong's report of his 1907 tour in a translation by Surat Warangrat; the Thai original of the report was not compared.

Chiranthanut and Funo give the Mukdahan village only in the romanisation Ban-Nongnouwn, with no Thai form, so the article keeps their spelling.

The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry for Ban Bua is a community wiki page compiled on 13 April 2023 and checked on 24 April 2023. It reports Joachim Schliesinger's view of the Kaloeng language at second hand, and the article attributes that view to the entry. Its population figure for Ban Bua, 5,726 people in 199 households, is not used: the two numbers do not fit together.

Two bibliographic points: the Boon Phawet article by Lawalee, Yodmalee and Champadaeng was published online on 22 September 2014 in a volume whose running head says 2015, and the article cites it by the online date. The 2026 health study by Suwannarong and others dates its fieldwork to June and July 2023 in its abstract and to August and September 2023 in its methods, so the article says only 2023.

Where the sources disagree

Language family. The sources agree that the Kaloeng speak a Tai language today. Somkham (2025, citing the Sakon Nakhon City Museum) and the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry (citing Schliesinger) report a derivation of the name from kha loeng and an older Mon-Khmer language; Failai (2019) reports a 1975 classification of the Kaloeng with the kha. Chiranthanut and Funo (2008) record Tai, Lao and Mon-Khmer classifications without choosing. Areeluck Tisapong (1985) instead explains the name by dark skin and dark clothing. The article gives each view with its source.
Homeland. Prince Damrong (1907, as quoted by Areeluck Tisapong) recorded Muang Katak, a place the Kaloeng could not locate. Areeluck Tisapong and Failai name Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo, also called Phu Wa Na Kadaeng; Appamaraka and others (2023) write "Phuwanakradueng, South Vietnam, now part of Laos". Suwannarong and others (2026) name Mueang Kham Koet and Mueang Khammouane. Tipchai and others (2019) cite a survey by Captain de Malglaive for the Taphon river and the headwaters of the Se Bang Hiang. Chiranthanut and Funo (2008) trace the people to Muang Thaen (Dien Bien Phu) and a 17th-century move into Laos.
Date of the crossing into Siam. Failai (2019) dates the removal from Maha Chai Kong Kaeo to 1828 and a second resettlement to 1833–1845. Chiranthanut and Funo's notes tie the move to the war of 1826–1828, while their main text has a 17th-century departure from Muang Thaen; the two are not reconciled in the paper. Timsuksai and Rambo (2016) and Pittayaporn (2025) place it in the 19th century, the first in its early decades. Surat Warangrat (as reported by Areeluck Tisapong) and Suwannarong and others (2026) date it to the Haw wars of the 1880s. Somkham (2025), Tipchai and others (2019) and the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry give both events. The entry places the Haw war of 1883–1887 in the reign of Rama IV, who died in 1868; the article gives the years only.
Grouping of the language. Mudjalin Luksanawong's 2010 vocabulary comparison sets Kaloeng apart from a Nyaw–Lao–Yoy group, while Pittayaporn (2025), working from sound changes, groups Nyaw, Yoy and Kaloeng together. The two studies use different evidence and are both reported.
Date of the phi pu ta rite. Ban Kut Haet holds it on the third waxing day of the third lunar month (Somkham 2025); Ban Dong Ma Fai held it on the fifth waxing day of the same month in the early 1980s (Areeluck Tisapong 1985). These are different villages, and both dates are given.
Number of medicinal species. Appamaraka and others (2023) give the villagers' species as 135 in one place and 124 in another; the article says "more than 120".
Population. The figure of around 8,000 Tai Kaloeng in Thailand appears in Chiranthanut and Funo (2008) without a year, in the sentence after one that cites Schliesinger (2001); whether the figure is Schliesinger's is not stated. A table on the English Wikipedia page "Ethnic groups in Thailand" gives a much larger figure without a source, and it is not used.

Not used, and why

Cannabis. None of the sources read connects the Kaloeng with cannabis. The texts gathered for the page were searched for "cannabis", "hemp", "marijuana", "ganja" and กัญชา, and the plant lists of Appamaraka and others (2023) and the remedies in Suwannarong and others (2026) name no cannabis. The page therefore has no cannabis section. Cannabis cultivation in Kut Bak and elsewhere in the Phu Phan range is covered at Phu Phan; the sources cited there do not place it among the Kaloeng.
Thananan Trongdee, "A clarification of the Sakon Nakhon subbranch in the Laan Saang languages", Tai Culture 24 (2015–2016): 49–64. Not obtained. The English Wikipedia page "Kaloeng language" attributes a dialect classification and a list of Kaloeng villages in Laos and Thailand to "Trongdee 2016" without a full reference. The list is not used until the article itself has been read.
Joachim Schliesinger, Tai Groups of Thailand (2001), and his 2000 work on the language. Not obtained; both are known here only through Chiranthanut and Funo and the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre entry.
Surat Warangrat, "Kaloeng", Muang Boran 7(3) (1981): 108–114. Not obtained; it is reported through Areeluck Tisapong and Somkham. A characterisation of the Kaloeng that Areeluck Tisapong quotes from Surat Warangrat, comparing them unfavourably with the Kha, is not reproduced.
Mudjalin Luksanawong, A sub-grouping of Kaloeng in Thailand and Lao PDR (PhD dissertation, Mahasarakham University, 2016). Not obtained; known from Pittayaporn's reference list.
Thayanon Phongsiri's 2020 Thammasat University thesis on Kaloeng social structure at Ban Kut Haet and the Kut Haet subdistrict municipality's 2023 local-wisdom document were not read.
James R. Chamberlain, "The Tai dialects of Khammouan Province" (1983). Not read. The Kaloeng of Laos are not described in any source used.
Lawalee, Yodmalee and Champadaeng (2014) name Ban Bua and Ban Kut Haed as their Sakon Nakhon study villages but do not say which of their communities are Kaleung, so their Boon Phawet details are given for the Kaloeng of Sakon Nakhon without a village.
Popular-history articles in Silpa Watthanatham and Muang Boran online were used only to find scholarly sources.

Open content questions

Whether communities in Khammouane or Savannakhet still call themselves Kaloeng is not settled by the sources read.
No count of the Kaloeng population of Thailand with a stated year and method has been found.

Images reserved in the article

One image has a place in the article but is not yet uploaded. Its file link is kept hidden in the page source and can be restored once the file exists:

File:Cannabis-Kaloeng-places-map.jpg (Population and distribution), a map to be drawn: an outline map of the middle Mekong showing Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom, Kalasin and Nong Khai provinces in Thailand and Khammouane and Savannakhet provinces in Laos. Dots mark Ban Kut Haet and Ban Bua (Kut Bak District), Ban Dong Ma Fai, Ban Na Yo and Ban Phon Ngam (Mueang Sakon Nakhon District), with Nong Han lake drawn and the Phu Phan range shaded. A labelled area in Khammouane marks the remembered homeland around Mueang Maha Chai Kong Kaeo. The Mukdahan village of Chiranthanut and Funo is left off, since the study gives no location precise enough to place it. No borders except the Mekong and the province outlines.