CONTEXTS - The Rough Guide to Laos - page 384

The Tai villages of the first millennium AD were probably much like the villages of rural
Laos today, and would have consisted of a small cluster of households sharing labour during
harvests. A need for mutual protection against outside forces most likely drove such villages
together into larger units known as muang - a term which refers to both a group of villages
and the central town in a network of villages.
With the lowlands to the east and northeast densely settled by Vietnamese and Chinese pop-
ulations, the Tai peoples slowly migrated west and southwest into northern Laos and south-
ern Yunnan, and eventually as far as Assam in northeastern India, displacing the sparse in-
digenous population of Austronesian and Austroasiatic groups and forcing them into the less
desirable upland areas - where their descendants still live today. This migration is reflected
in the Lao legend of Khoun Borom . By the ninth century, the Tai were spread across upland
Southeast Asia and surrounded by Nanchao , a well-organized military state located in south-
western China; a Vietnamese state on the verge of independence from China; Champa, an
Indianized kingdom on the coast of Vietnam; Angkorian Cambodia; and the Mon and Pyu
kingdoms of Burma.
THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE LAO
In the early days, when humankind grew unruly and refused to honour the gods, the chief
of the gods flooded the earth. Three lords managed to survive the flood, floating up to
heaven on a raft. They paid homage to the chief of the gods, and once the floods had sub-
sided the lords returned to earth in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu with a water buffalo,
which helped them sow the rice fields in the plain. When the buffalo died, a large vine
bearing three gourds grew from its nostrils, and from the gourds came shouts and cries.
One of the lords pierced the gourds with a hot poker and a mass of people struggled out
of the blackened holes. These were the Lao Theung , the Lao of the hillsides. Seeing their
plight, a second lord cut more holes with a chisel and from these larger openings emerged
the Lao . The lords taught the Lao how to grow rice and build homes, but when the popula-
tion grew too big, the chief of the gods sent his son, Khoun Borom , to earth.
Descending to earth on an elephant with crossed tusks, Khoun Borom brought with him
teachers and courtiers, teaching the Lao how to make tools and schooling them in the arts
of dance and music. After a prosperous reign of 25 years, Khoun Borom sent his seven sons
to rule over the Tai-Lao world. The eldest went to LuangPrabang and the others to Xieng
Khuang, Chiang Mai, Xishuangbanna (in southwestern China), Ayutthaya and regions of
lower Burma and northern Vietnam.