The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. XXXII, 1940 - Khamkoo

10 Dn. JoAQUIM DE CAMPos
usun.lly fighting. If the Laos obey at all the King of Siam it is due
to the fear of Lhe G1.wos against whom they expect his protection.
NO\v who \Vere these Gneos 2 The Ngios, which is the name for
the Shans, do noL appear to have eaten human flesh though they
even now tattoo themselves very profusely. It would appear from
this description that the G1wos of Barros and other Portuguese
writers were the Lawas and the Was, who had cannibalistic tendencies
like the Bataks in Sumatra, and the latter even now delight
in surrounding their dwe1lings with rows of human skulls. Barros,
Barbosa and Castanheda make it clear, however, that these wild men
did not eat human flesh as their usual food, but ate their own relations
after death out of regard for them for they thought they could
not give them better treLthnent after death than by assimilation into
their own bodies. But to be so organised as to threaten the Lao
kingdom and Lo fight on horseback denotes that they were not ordinary
savages. Could the Gneos have any connection with the old
Annamites who were known aR Gicw-chi? !{eo is still the Laoticn
name for the Annamites. Barros declares he got his information
from Domingo de Seixas who was twenty-five years in Siam and as
a Captain once fought against the G1wos, and he adds that they seem
to be the same as the ones inhabiting the provinces of Octugigu of
Marco Polo.l 8 Pauthier also identified Owngig·n wit,h one of the
states o£ Lao, .and Henry Yule believed that it was a province in that
region embracing Kiang Hung but not Chiangmai. On the whole it
would appear that the term Gueos w11s in the sixteenth century
applied to the Was and Lc~was and not to the old Guw-chi. 'l'here
is no diificnlty in believing that the Lawas rode on horse back because
they were well organised and, according to the Pali Chronicle
CamadeviValnsa, were ruled by a powerful king named Milakkha
as early as the seventh centnry. 'fhe Burmese chronicle Kombnungset
does indeed speak of Gwe Lc~was and in Hmannan Yw?;awin the
Gwes and the Gwe Kc~1·ens are also mentioned. 19 'rhe Siamese name
Ng·i1u for the Shans indicates that the old mtme of the Was and
the Lctwas passed to the Shnns who occupied their lands.
18 'l'his i~> the ernliest 11ttempt to identify the toponyrns of :M:n,rco Polo
and conside1·ing th11t Bn,r1•os hn,d neve1· been in the En.st his pretty nccurate
conjectme is noteworthy. Vide Yule nnd Cordier's fi{c~1·co Polo Vol. I, pp.
120, 123 and note on p. 128.
19 HaPvey, Hist01·y of B1t1'rluc., p. 354,