Premodern Thai History

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Premodern Thai History

• Dr. Thanet Aphornsuvan
• Southeast Asian Studies Program
• Faculty of Liberal Arts,
• Thammasat University

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Beginnings of Tai

• The people of modern Thailand are varied.
  Definition of Thai is political citizens of
  Thailand, subjects of Thai king. Cultural and
  linguisticspeak Thai and participate in Thai
  culture.
• All the things that make up Thai identity,
  however, have developed only slowly through many
  centuries.

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• None of the modern Thai now refers topolitical,
  cultural, linguisticexisted in its present form
  until recently.
• Core elements of contemporary Thai identity
  arrived here a thousand years ago. These were
  people called Tai shared a common linguistic
  and cultural identity which has become
  differentiated into a large number of separate
  identities.

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• Thai culture, a civilization and culture,
  emerged as the product of interaction between Tai
  and indigenous and immigrant cultures. Mon,
  Khmer in old times and Chinese, Indian more
  recently.
• To trace the history of Thailand, must
  primarily be concerned with people, with culture,
  and society, and secondarily with their
  environment.

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Thai vs Tai peoples

• The Tai peoples today are widely spread over
  several million square kilometers of the
  southeastern corner of the great land mass of
  Asia. Most obvious are the Thai or Siamese of
  Thailand. 60 million. Others include
• Lao, most live in northeast Thailand. 4 million
  in Laos.

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• Shans, in northeast Burma (Mynmar). 3 million
• In south China and uplands of SEA. Lu of Yunnan
  province, Black Tai, White Tai, Red Tai of
  Vietnam. About 2.5 million
• Another group is Chuang people of Chinese
  provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow, about 20
  million Influenced by Chinese culture.

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• Also Tai-Ahom in Assam of India, and in Hainan.
• All together Tai is about 70million outside
  Thailand.

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SEA Civilization

• 40,000 years SEA peoples inhabited in relatively
  permanent sites in much of the region. Hunting
  and gathering food from streams and forests,
  using wooden and bamboo tools. With stone
  choppers and knives led to tools as the blowpipe,
  the bow and arrow, animal and fish traps, and
  baskets.

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agriculture

• 10-20,000 years begun to engage in agriculture,
  cultivating peas and beans and domesticated
  animals, i.e. chicken.
• 10,000 years ago, individual ethnic groups began
  to be differentiated, linguistically and
  culturally, from the Yangtse Valley to the
  islands of the Indonesian Archipelago.

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Rice culture

• Core of technology of SEA civilization emerged at
  this time.
• Swine, cattle, fowl domesticated and rice was
  cultivated. Invented canoe, navigated to Japan,
  Melanesia, India. Metallurgy developed. Copper
  and bronze used. Iron-working, pottery.

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Subsistence economy

• Formed subsistence agriculture based on rice,
  supplanted by fishing and gathering of forest
  products. They lived as nuclear families in
  small villages, regular communication and some
  trade with others.

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Women status

• The region was under-populated, manpower was
  highly valued and women enjoyed a relatively high
  social status, certainly by contrast with Chinese
  and Indian women.
• In determining inheritance, equal value was
  accorded the maternal and paternal lines. Sons
  and daughters received equal shares of parents
  estates.

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Local beliefs

• Folk beliefs were remarkably consistent. The
  world was regarded as being peopled with good and
  evil spirits that had power to aid or harm humans
  and thus had to be propitiated by ceremonies or
  offerings of food.

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Spirit world

• Women believed to have a special power to mediate
  between mankind and the spirit world. Nature and
  the world were unpredictable and hostile forces
  with which humans had to cope as best they could

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Beginnings of Tai history

• 1. The formation of the Tai communities and
  Muang(states). 9-10th c
• --In prehistoric times primitive and tribal
  peoples dominated the region of mainland SEA.
• --cultural traditions of SEA have a long complex
  relations between the highland and lowland
  peoples. local genius

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• Adaptation to geographical features. High
  temperatures and monsoonal rainfall.
• The ridges of Indo-Malayan ranges,
• The furrows dominated by watercourses. The
  Irrawady and Salaween of Burma, the Mekong, Chao
  Phraya, Red River.

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2. The Tai and the Classical Empires, A.D.
1000-1200

• --Development of Theravada Buddhist Civilization
• -Dvaravati
• -Angkor
• -Pagan

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3. A Tai Century, 1200-1351

• The expansion of Tai-speaking peoples.
• --Coedes,13th c was a watershed in the history
  of the Indianized states of SEA, because of the
  Mongol attack.
• --the Tai introduced a new type of social
  structure. Territorial units, known as muang,
  which were ruled by chiefly families.

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• The sons of the chief were expected to found
  their own muang. Brought under control large
  areas of SEA.
• Kingdom of Lan Na
• -Sukhothai and the South
• Patani kingdom

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4. Ayutthaya and Its neighbors, 1351-1569.

• -The Rise of Ayutthaya
• Renewal of Lan Na
• -The Rise of Lan Sang, Luang Prabang
• -Universal Monarchs, Universal Warfare

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5. The Empire of Ayutthaya, 1569-1767.