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

158 Anthony R. Walker
· of the 35,000 or so Lahu who live in Thailand. There are also an undetermined number
of Lahu Nyi across the border, mostly in the Burmese districts of Muang Hsat and
Muang Ton, and all of them east of the river Hsin. But there are no Lahu Nyi in the
northerly areas· of Lahu settlement in Burma, nor apparently in Laos. And there are
certainly no Lahu Nyi in China. Available evidence suggests that the Lahu Nyi are an
offshoot of·the numerically greater and territorially more dispersed Lahu·Na, the latter
often considered the premier Lahu division and sometimes called the "Great Lahu"
(Scott and Hardiman 1900: 580; Ruey 1948: 1; Young 1962: 9).
The dialects of these
two divisions are extremely close, and it would appear that the Lahu Nyi broke away
from the main Lahu Na division comparatively recently, perhaps within the last century
and a half (Young 1962: 9), and that the segmentation occurred in Burma rather than
in the Yunnanese homeland. This, at any rate, would help account for the absence of
Lahu Nyi in China or anywhere north of Muang Hsat and Muang Ton.
4. The L!lhD Nyi Village : Its Houses and Its Temple
Headed by its own hk'a" sheh_hpav2s or "master (sheh_hpav) of !he village
(hk'a")" and the older household heads or yehv sheh_hpav (yehv "house"), the Lahu
Nyi village (PL 1) in Thailand averages about 16 households and 102 people. Soirie
settlements are much bigger than this; one had 87 households and 525 people in 1979
· (Khankeaw and Lewis 1979 : 6). Others are -no more than tiny hamlets of five or six
· ho~ses sheltering 30 or so people.
25. · 'As mentioned earlier, ·Lab~ words here are transcribed in the orthography devised by American
Baptist missionaries in Burma and Yunnan. Supra-and sub-script marks after each syllable
·indicate the seven tones of Lahu. There are five open tones (long vowel) and two checked
ton.es (short vowel ending in a glottal s~op). The .tones are indicated as follows :
superscript wedge (cav) : high-falling open tone
subscript wedge (cav) : low-falling open tone
superscript straight line (ca-) : high-rising open tone
subscript straight line (ca_) : very low open tone
no mark (ca) : mid-level open tone
superscript circumlex (ca") :·high tone, checked
subscript circumflex (ca .. ) : low tone, checked
Further details of this orthography may be found in Telford and Saya David (1938) and in
Matisotr (1970). See also n; 20 ~bove.