The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXXI, Part 1-2, 1983 - Khamkoo

. LAHU NYI (RED LAHU) RITES FOR EST A BUSHING
A NEW VILLAGE
ANTHONY R. WALKER*
1. Introduction
Dedicated to the memory of Paul CavHtawv,
loyal assistant and friend, who was born in .
Burma's Chin Hills some 40 years ago and
murdered in north Thailand early in 1980.
During a four-year research period among the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Lahu in
the hills of north Thailand ( 1966-70), 1 I was fortunate to be able to record and translate
a substantial corpus of prayer texts applicable to various ritual occasions. Intrinsically
valuable as "oral literature", these prayer texts also have helped me greatly in deciphering
Lahu ideas: about the supernatural worl.d and their place in :r:elation to it.
It is important, I believe, to make this poetic expression of a preliterate mountain
people of northern Southeast Asia available to oriental, ethnological and allied
scholarship. To this end, and as another step towards a substantial monograph on the
Lahu people among whom ·1 worked,2 I have published many of these texts with their
ethnographic background in scholarly journals. The result is a series of articles, each
one focusing on a certain ritual occasion and giving the texts (in Lahu and in English
translation) of the prayers used at that time. Although the present contribution is
~ written to stand by itself, it could better be read in conjunction with my previously­
. published work. 3
For readers unfamiliar with Lahu society and culture, I preface this account of
the rites for establishing a village with some short notes on the Lahu people in general, 4
* Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore.
1. My research was. centred in the districts of Phrao (Chiang Mai province) and· Wiang Pa Pao
(Chiang Rai province). I set up house in one Lahu Nyi village and made visits to two neighbouring
communities. At this time I held the position of "research officer'' at the Tribal
Research Centre in Chiang Mai. I record here my gratitude to the Director of the Tribal
Research Centre, Khun Wanat· Bhruksasri, and all his staff. Thanks go also to my wife,
Pauline Hetland Walker, for editing this paper and drawing the illustrative figures.
2. So far, my major study of these Lahu is a two-volume mimeographed report to the Royal
Thai Government (Walker 1970b).
3. See bibliogr~~;phy at the end of this article.
4. Further ethnographic data on the Lahu people may be found in Telford (1937), Jones (1967),
·Walker (1969, 1970b, 1975a, 1975b, 1975g, 1979a, 1983a) and Bradley (1979:1-18, 37-61) .
. A so~etimes evocative, but not always accurate, account of Lahu life can be found in the
· novel by Hamilton-Merritt (1973). ·.
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