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Sons of Khun Bulom: The discovery by modern Lao historians of the ‘birth of the Lao race’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2016

Ryan Wolfson-Ford
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Abstract

The opening of the nithan khun bulom genre of texts is usually regarded as a mythic account of Lao history. But the process by which Lao historians themselves began to perceive this was an important nationalist project of the elite during the Royal Lao Government (RLG) period. As early as the 1920s, Lao authors began rewriting the old folktales into a new, modern, scientific account of the past, the ‘birth of the Lao race’. By studying elite writings in the RLG period I show that Lao nationalism was more modernist and autonomous than previously recognised.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 168 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2016 

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References

1 Grant Evans, keynote speech given at the Center for Lao Studies banquet, Fourth International Conference on Lao Studies, Khon Kaen, 2010.

2 For a comprehensive account of the Nanzhao thesis see Evans, Grant, ‘The Ai-Lao and Nan Chao/Tali Kingdom: A re-orientation’, Journal of the Siam Society 102 (2014): 221–56Google Scholar.

3 David Wyatt, Thailand: A short history (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 12. See further B.J. Terwiel, A history of modern Thailand, 1767–1942 (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1984), p. 240.

4 Lao palm leaf manuscripts were not well preserved and those which have come down to us are the latest in a long cycle of recopying.

5 See Martin Stuart-Fox, The Lao kingdom of Lan Xang: Rise and decline (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1998), p. xi, in which he bemoans the lack of sociological, economic, etc., detail in the chronicles (primarily the nithan khun bulom). But his expectation, shared by others, that the Phongsavadan would be an exact equivalence to a Western chronicle is ultimately flawed. Phongsavadan actually translates more accurately as ‘royal genealogy’ (it is a compound word from two Sanskrit words vamsa and avatar).

6 ‘Kha’ is a pejorative term which meant ‘subordinate’, but somewhat ambiguously referred to non-Lao ethnic groups or a legal class (‘slave’) depending on context.

7 The most prominent example of this would be the preface to Sila's 1957 work. See Maha Sila Viravong, Phongsavadan Lao [Chronicle of the Lao] (Vientiane: Ministère de l'éducation nationale, 1957), pp. ຂ–ຕ.

8 My use of the terms ‘modern’ and ‘scientific’ in regard to RLG writers is not an endorsement of their claims; it would be a mistake to ignore the links between them and earlier racialists.

9 Sila, Phongsavadan Lao (1957), p. ກ.

10 Khamchan Pradit, Pavatsat kantut Lao [History of Lao diplomacy] (Vientiane: PakPasak Press, 1971), p. 1.

11 For a recent example of the ‘invention’ thesis in many undergraduate curricula in the United States, see The emergence of modern Southeast Asia: A new history, ed. Norman G. Owen (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), p. 371, which refers to Laos as a ‘concoction’.

12 MacAlister Brown and Joseph Zasloff, Apprentice revolutionaries: The Communist movement in Laos, 1930–1985 (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1986), pp. 3–5.

13 Benedict Anderson's famous thesis has been recently applied to Laos by Soren Ivarsson. See Soren Ivarsson, Creating Laos: The making of a Lao space between Indochina and Siam, 1860–1945 (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2008); B.R. O'G. Anderson, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

14 See Ivarsson, Creating Laos, pp. 11–20.

15 Simon Creak, Embodied nation: Sport, masculinity, and the making of modern Laos (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2015).

16 One exception is Creak, Embodied nation, pp. 118–39.

17 See, for example, the essays by Soren Ivarsson, Peter Koret and Nick Enfield in Laos: Culture and society, ed. Grant Evans (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 1999).

18 For the former, see Ivarsson, Creating Laos, and for the latter, Vatthana Pholsena, Post-war Laos: The politics of culture, history and identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp. 26–7.

19 See further Proschan, Frank, ‘Peoples of the gourd: Imagined ethnicities in highland Southeast Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies 60, 4 (2001): 999–1032CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Grabowsky, Volker, ‘Forced resettlement campaigns in Northern Thailand during the early Bangkok period’, Journal of the Siam Society 87 (1999): 45–86Google Scholar, has noted the role of religious identification in the early nineteenth century, in his discussion of nikai.

20 Auguste Pavie, Mission Pavie Indochine (1879–1895): Études diverse II: Recherches sur l'histoire du Cambodge, du Laos et du Siam (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1898).

21 Some of the major works of the colonial period include: François Tournier, Notice sur le Laos français (Hanoi: F.H. Schneider, 1900); Lucien de Reinach, Le Laos (Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1911); and Paul Le Boulanger, Histoire du Laos français: Essai d'une etude chronologique des principautès laotiennes (Paris: Plon, 1930).

22 See Souneth Phothisane, ‘The Nidan Khun Borom: Annotated translation and analysis’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Queensland, 1996) and Michel Lorrillard, ‘Les chroniques royales du Laos: Contribution à la connaissance historique des royaumes lao (1316–1887)’ (Ph.D. diss., École Pratique des Hautes Études, 1995). Peter Koret has written in general about issues of palm leaf manuscripts in the twentieth century, see Koret, ‘Lao perceptions of traditional literature: Both past and present’, in New Laos: New challenges, ed. Jacqueline Butler-Diaz (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1998).

23 See Pholsena, Post-war Laos, pp. 77–118.

24 See Grabowsky, Volker and Tappe, Oliver, ‘Important kings of Laos’: Translation and analysis of a Lao cartoon pamphlet, Journal of Lao Studies 2, 1 (2011):1–44Google Scholar.

25 Soren Ivarsson, ‘Toward a new Laos: Lao Nhay and the campaign for national “reawakening” in Laos, 1941–1945’, in Evans, Laos: Culture and society, pp. 61–78.

26 Ivarsson, Soren and Goscha, Christopher, ‘Prince Phetsarath (1890–1959): Nationalism and royalty in the making of modern Laos’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38, 1 (2007): 55–81Google Scholar.

27 Creak, Embodied nation, pp. 22–83.

28 Grant Evans, ‘Introduction: What is Lao culture and society?’, in Laos: Culture and society, p. 3.

29 Yan Fu translated Herbert Spencer's The study of sociology, among several other works. His efforts were widely influential. See further Ko-wu Huang, ‘The reception of Yan Fu in twentieth century China’, in China reconstructs, ed. Cindy Yik-yi Chu and Ricardo K.S. Mak (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003), p. 26.

30 Pelley, Patricia, ‘“Barbarians” and “younger brothers”: The remaking of race in postcolonial Vietnam’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29, 2 (1998): 380CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For the case of China, see Frank Dikötter, The discourse of race in modern China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1992).

32 Both the Lao and Thai terms are derived from the Sanskritic term jāti. In my research at the Thai National Library's manuscripts section, I found a very early instance (1856) of the new usage of chaat, regarding differences among Westerners. In this case, chaat appears to be used to distinguish among different Westerners, such as an American who was called a farang-chaat-amerikan. See document number 181 in the National Library microfilm collection on Rama IV. This should be added to the evidence collected in Murashima, Eiji, ‘The origin of modern official state ideology in Thailand’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 19, 1 (1988): 80–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, David Streckfuss, ‘The mixed colonial legacy in Siam: Origins of Thai racialist thought, 1890–1910’, in Autonomous histories, particular truths: Essays in honour of John R.W. Smail, ed. Laurie J. Sears (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison and Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993), pp. 123–53.

33 This evidence appears in a law text from the Luang Prabang area. I discovered this text during my research into palm leaf manuscripts in the Lao National Library in Vientiane, and further work with Maha Khamphoui Sisavatdy.

34 I will address this in another publication.

35 Somchin P. Nginn, Vatchananukom Farangset-Lao doi Achan Somchin P Nginn [A French–Lao dictionary by Professor Somchin P. Nginn], repr. (Bangkok: Rung Ruang Ratna Press, 1969), p. 570. He also includes the related term ‘xeua-xaat’.

36 Katay D. Sasorith, Le Laos: Son évolution politique sa place dans l'Union française (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1953).

37 This is my understanding of the process involved in the histories analysed below. See further the localisation process outlined in Oliver Wolters, History, culture and region in Southeast Asian perspectives (Ithaca: Cornell SEAP, 1999). An important extension of localisation is the co-figuration process of cultural equivalence described in Wynn Wilcox, ‘Introduction: The co-figuration of Vietnam and the West’, in Vietnam and the West: New approaches, ed. Wynn Wilcox (Ithaca: Cornell SEAP, 2010), pp. 1–16.

38 See Geoffrey C. Gunn, Rebellion in Laos: Peasants and politics in a colonial backwater (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990); Stuart-Fox, Martin, ‘The French in Laos, 1887–1945’, Modern Asian Studies 29, 1 (1995): 111–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alfred W. McCoy, ‘French colonialism in Laos, 1893–1945’, in Laos: War and revolution, ed. Nina S. Adams and Alfred W. McCoy (New York: Harper Colophon, 1970), pp. 67–99; Pholsena, Post-war Laos, pp. 32–3; Marc Askew, Colin Long and William Logan, Vientiane: Transformations of a Lao landscape (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 85, 101; Grant Evans, A short history of Laos: The land in-between (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002), pp. 59–61, claims racism in the colony was ‘tempered’, but does offer additional examples, including Lao elite frustrations with the presumed superiority of poor Frenchmen: pp. 39, 44 and pp. 65–8.

39 Pholsena, Post-war Laos, offers an analysis of the census, pp. 151–4.

40 For instance, the Lao views regarding upland peoples, which were widely shared with other Tai peoples. See Richard David, Muang metaphysics: A study of Northern Thai myth and ritual (Bangkok: Pandora, 1984), pp. 81–3.

41 The Lao term meo appears in palm leaf manuscripts as early as 1877. This is a borrowing of the Chinese term miao, and it is likely the Lao understood the discriminatory meaning of that term, ‘barbarian’.

42 My emphasis on the similarities between Lao and French thought does not mean there were no serious differences. A biological notion of racial difference was notably absent in earlier Lao notions, while a greater emphasis was placed on religious identity and a multiethnic kingdom.

43 For instance, French views of the Ho were also very likely shaped by Lao perceptions of them, see Tournier, Notice sur le Laos français, p. 115.

44 Pholsena, Post-war Laos, p. 153.

45 Not all such administrative posts were held by Lao, as some were held by minorities.

46 Annales du Laos, Luang-Prabang, Vientiane, Tranninh et Bassac (Hanoi: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1927). The text is written in lao buhan script.

47 Whereas the main organising concept of palm leaf manuscripts seems to have been a concern with space constraints — a natural concern given that the material was handmade — rather than each item's relation to the others.

48 Annales, p. 4.

49 Souneth, ‘The nidan khun bulom’, has noted that the Nanda dynasty rulers were represented as non-Lao, which provides another example of pre-existing notions of ethnicity from the nineteenth century.

50 Harry A. Franck, East of Siam: Ramblings in the five divisions of French Indo-china (New York: Century, 1926), p. 306.

51 Annales, p. 5.

52 I do not address French missionary printing, which began producing Lao language texts in the country in 1907; rather my interest is when the Lao began to harness the printing press to produce their own works.

53 Mayoury Ngaosyvathn and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn, Paths to conflagration: Fifty years of diplomacy and warfare in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, 1778–1828 (Ithaca: Cornell SEAP, 1998), p. 82, n.100.

54 Peter Koret, ‘Books of search: The invention of traditional Lao literature as a subject of study’, in Laos: Culture and society, p. 232.

55 Ivarsson, Creating Laos, p. 112. He made this comment in reference to other publications, but it seems apt here.

56 Ivarsson, ‘Towards a new Laos’, p. 71.

57 Ibid., p. 73.

58 The Lao Nyai paper was first introduced as a bilingual edition in French and Lao, but was split in 1943 according to Ivarsson, ‘Toward a new Laos’, p. 65. The new French language paper was intended for elite consumption.

59 Katay, Le Laos, p. 10.

60 Ibid., p. 9.

61 ‘3349’, Iron man of Laos: Prince Phetsarath Ratanavongsa, trans. John B. Murdoch, ed. David Wyatt (Ithaca: Cornell SEAP, 1978), pp. 1–2. This book includes a number of interesting racialist views, including a tirade against Deo Van Tri.

62 Katay, Le Laos, p. 14.

63 Ibid., pp. 16–17. Katay claims that the Thai and the Lao had the same origin, and very few differences.

64 Ibid., p. 16.

65 Ibid. This sentiment echoes French views analysed by Streckfuss, ‘The mixed colonial legacy in Siam’.

66 Katay, Le Laos, p. 14. He discussed this at length more so in the case of Siam, whose renaming he said ‘created fear of … political domination by one ethnic group over others’.

67 Ibid., p. 10. Katay used Lao and Tai somewhat interchangeably when discussing ancient history.

68 Ibid., p. 11.

69 Ibid.; emphasis added.

70 Here, Khun Bulom serves a very similar role as the famous Yellow King in Chinese mythology, which had also been similarly rewritten a few decades before in China.

71 I do not claim to make a fair representation of the Pathet Lao and their ideology here, but only to present RLG perceptions of it.

72 Pholsena, Post-war Laos, pp. 24–5.

73 On the emplotment of history, see Hayden White, Metahistory: The historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).

74 For a survey of Western, Thai and Lao writers see Evans, ‘The Ai-Lao and Nan Chao/Tali Kingdom’.

75 Sila gives the full citation to Dodd's work in his 1973 work; see Maha Sila Viravong, Phongsavadan Lao [Chronicle of the Lao] (Vientiane: Education Ministry, 1973), p. 180. For the discussion quoted above, see the original 1957 edition of Phongsavadan Lao, p. 13.

76 Khamchan, Pavatsat kantut Lao, p. 6.

77 Ibid., p. 5.

78 Ibid., p. 6.

79 Ibid.

80 Sila, Phongsavadan Lao (1957), p. 9. He refers to it in reference to his discussion of the etymology of the word ‘Lao’.

81 Ibid., p. 22.

82 Ibid., pp. 22–4.

83 Ibid., p. 26.

84 Ibid., p. 8.

85 Ibid., p. 14; see also p. 8.

86 Khamman Vongkotrattana, Phongsavadan xaat Lao: Khwambinma khong xaat dhae deukdamban [Chronicle of the Lao race: Origins of the race from ancient times], repr. (Vientiane: National Library of Laos, 1973), p. 6.

87 Ibid. Similar to Katay, Khamman uses Tai and Lao (or Ai-Lao) interchangeably when discussing the early period.

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid., p. 7.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid., p. 11.

92 See, for example, the assassination of an ethnic Chinese ruler; ibid., p. 19.

93 Ibid., pp. 19–21.

94 Sila, Phongsavadan Lao (1957), p. 7.

95 See, for example, the many nineteenth-century versions of the Vatthu Haw (Chinese object) text from northern Laos. The phrase not only appears in many astrological or prophetic texts, but is also found in versions of the nithan khun bulom. Another related term is ຈິບຫາຍ meaning loss, ruin or destruction.

96 Khamchan, Pavatsat kantut Lao, p. 2.

97 Katay, Le Laos, p. 10, also refers to the racial extinction of those who remained in China: ‘The child of this Tai king, write the historians, became completely Chinese and no longer respected the Tai customs and traditions.’

98 Khamchan, Pavatsat kantut Lao, employs this phrase using ‘Chinese’ (p. 3) and ‘Thai’ (p. 16) alternately.

99 Sadly, both Katay and Khamman had already passed away. Khamchan was present at the seminar and made his own presentation on the Vietnamese–Lao war of 1479.

100 Maha Sila Viravong, ‘Kamneut xaat lao’ [The birth of the Lao race], in Sammana pavatsat Lao: Viengchan, 25 kannya–2 dhula, 1971 [Seminar on Lao history: Vientiane, 25 Sept.–2 Oct. 1971] (Vientiane: Ministry of Education, 1971), pp. 23–4. In his treatment of the four oldest races of Asia — which he continues to insist was the birthplace of humanity — he removes the language concerning civilisational qualities of each group, except the Lao, as discussed above. This represents a difference of degree, not of kind.

101 Sila, Phongsavadan Lao (1973). It is perhaps not inconsequential that Sila himself wrote years later in his autobiography that he became a Lao nationalist only after first experiencing racism in Bangkok as a young man.