Phong pioneers - exploring the sociopolitics of mythology in upland Laos

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2021-08-01
Journal	Social Anthropology
Authors	Oliver Tappe
Institutions	Heidelberg University

Abstract

Hat Ang, mythological culture hero of the Phong (an ethnic minority in Laos), exemplifies the figure of the upland pioneer. Taking the legend of Hat Ang as a vantage point, this paper discusses the ethnohistory of this specific Austroasiatic group and offers a mythological perspective into the discussion of uplanders’ agency and future-making. This key myth of the Phong addresses questions of remoteness and relationality, of individual aspirations and hubris. Therefore, investigating mythology is key to understanding past and present representations of Phong culture and society within a multi-ethnic upland context. Hat Ang, un héros culturel mythologique des Phong (une minorité ethnique du Laos), illustre la figure du pionnier des hautes terres. En prenant la légende de Hat Ang comme point de vue, cet article discute de l’ethnohistoire de ce groupe austroasiatique spécifique et offre une perspective mythologique dans la discussion sur l’agence et l’avenir des montagnards. Ce mythe clé des Phong aborde les questions d’éloignement et de relationnalité, d’aspirations individuelles et d’orgueil. L’étude de la mythologie est donc essentielle pour comprendre les représentations passées et présentes de la culture, ainsi que de la société phong dans le contexte multiethnique des hautes terres. Houaphan Province in northeastern Laos, next to the Vietnamese border, is home to a dozen ethnic groups who share a history and oral traditions of migration and pioneering mobility (see Petit 2020). Although local archaeological sites indicate human settlement of the area for millennia, no group claims autochthony (Källén 2016). The various ethnic groups include the Lao and other Tai-speaking groups, the Khmu and Phong of the Austroasiatic language family, and the Hmong and Yao as historical latecomers from China (via Vietnam) into the rugged mountains of Houaphan. Houaphan forms part of upland Southeast Asia, and thus constitutes a test case for James Scott’s (2009) grand narrative of the allegedly anarchic, state-resisting upland populations of Zomia. Historically contested between the lowland Lao, Siamese and Vietnamese kingdoms, Houaphan indeed seems to fit into the stereotype of the remote and unruly Southeast Asian upland frontier (Tappe 2015). However, the Zomian paradigm reduces local political agency in the uplands to a mere ‘escapist’ freedom struggle (Jonsson 2014). Avoiding this limited perspective, recent research on upland Laos pays more attention to possible venues of communication and exchange, and to more dynamic historical relationships, especially between local elites and (successive) external powers (Pholsena 2018; Petit 2020). In consequence, this paper suggests a shift in focus towards the complex local histories of shifting alliances and negotiations across cultural differences (see Jonsson 2014; Tappe 2018). Sociopolitical diverse upland regions like Houaphan are interstitial spaces, marked by relative remoteness in relation to larger polities in the lowlands -potential sources of potency - in different historical contexts. As Rosalie Stolz and Oliver Tappe argue in the general introduction to this special issue, upland pioneers manoeuvre this relational remoteness, explore nearby and distant potency, and thus shape the future of their own kin or ethnic communities. Taking the myth of Hat Ang, a legendary upland ‘pioneering’ leader, as a vantage point, this paper explores the ethnohistory of the Phong, a small, linguistically diverse group of 30,000 people with historical strongholds in the Sam Neua and Houamuang districts. The Phong stand out among the various members of the Austroasiatic language family - which encompass 33 out of the 50 ethnic groups in Laos - as one of the few Buddhicised groups. Unlike their animist Khmu neighbours, they have been Buddhist since precolonial times (see Bouté 2018 and this issue for the related example of the Phunoy, a Tibeto-Burman speaking group in Phongsaly Province). According to local oral traditions, the Phong experienced a historical exodus from the Nam Ou river basin, north of Luang Prabang, the old royal city of the Lao. As the following study of the Hat Ang myth indicates, Phong and Lao share a common history of interaction and conflict. As an ethnohistorical contribution to this special issue on upland pioneers, this study aims to bring a mythological perspective into the discussion of uplanders’ agency and future-making. As we will see, the figure of the upland pioneer features prominently in Phong mythology, particularly the myth of the culture hero Hat Ang. How does this key myth address questions of remoteness and relationality, of individual aspirations and hubris? In what way are mythological representations of ambiguous upland pioneers relevant for our understanding of Phong society today? The history of northern Laos and northwestern Vietnam is marked by a sociopolitical organisation referred to as muang, a Tai-Lao term that can mean polity, country or city. It is often characterised as a Tai political core with a ‘Kha’ periphery - Kha (or Xa) means ‘serf’ in Tai languages and is used to refer pejoratively to upland non-Tai groups such as the Khmu and Phong (see Condominas 1990; Lentz 2019). Historically, the concept of Kha obscured the sometimes ‘symbiotic relationship based on both ritual and economic exchanges’ between Tai and neighbouring non-Tai communities (Grabowsky and Wichasin 2008: 11), and the uplanders’ important socio-economic position in specific localities (see Sprenger 2006; Badenoch and Tomita 2013; Évrard 2019). Indeed, the Phong appear in some colonial sources as ‘Kha Phong’ (and less often as the autonym K’nieng; Macey 1905). However, colonial reports from the 1910s and 1920s differentiate between the Khmu - as genuine ‘Kha’ - and the Phong, since the latter were considered as more civilised due to their Buddhist religion and an allegedly more ‘advanced’ social organisation (see Lambert 1913; Lagrèze 1925). Phong notables received the Lao title phya and took positions in the local administration of Houamuang District (where no overwhelming Lao or Tai Deng (Red Tai) majority or political dominance was noted). Interestingly, phong is a Tai-Lao word and refers to ‘large villages (or clusters) inhabited by non-Tai populations’ (Bouté 2018: 39) within a Tai or Lao muang - that is, it refers not to a remote upland village but to an integral part of a muang, straddling the upland-lowland dichotomy. Pierre Petit (2020: 86) mentions the title of phya phong as referring to the head of a cluster of non-Lao villages in northern Houaphan. Given the fact that, according to oral history, the Phong originally settled in the Nam Ou basin, an important trading route between Luang Prabang and Sipsong Panna, it is very likely that the exonym Phong refers to a sociopolitical or administrative category for certain non-Tai components of a local Tai-Lao muang. While my Phong informants date the Phong migration from the Nam Ou to Houaphan roughly back to the 18th century, the French traveller and journalist Alfred Raquez is more precise: according to his Phong interlocutors - ‘neither Lao, nor Tai, nor Kha’ (Raquez 1905: 1398) - from the village of Ban Saleuy, their migration to Houaphan (via Luang Prabang) started in the 1720s, that is, shortly after the disintegration of the Lao kingdom of Lan Sang into the competing kingdoms of Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Champasak. This was certainly a time of turmoil and of the decline of Lao political sovereignty. By then, the Phong already knew the Lao language and had adopted Buddhism and the festivals of the Lao Buddhist calendar. The Phong share this trajectory - especially the close inter-ethnic relationship with Lao and/or Tai communities - with the Phunoy of northern Laos, as studied by French anthropologist Vanina Bouté (2018, this issue). Neither Phong nor Phunoy fit into James Scott’s (2009) image of the ‘anarchic Zomian’ (Tappe 2019). Rather, they exemplify a history of contact, exchange, cultural borrowings and mimetic appropriation - but not complete absorption into the Tai-Lao cultural realm (for a related study on the Khmu, see Évrard 2019). Although converted to Buddhism, the Phong still follow animist ritual practices like those of their Mon-Khmer-speaking neighbours, the Khmu (Évrard 2019; Stolz 2021 and this issue) and the Ksingmul (Evans 2000). In contrast to those groups, the Phong insist on being ‘Lao Lum’ (‘lowland Lao’, in contrast to ‘Lao Thoeng’ - ‘Lao from the mountain slopes’, an officially abandoned ethnic category that is still present in Lao everyday speech and refers to the Mon-Khmer speakers in Laos; Schlemmer 2017), as they share the relevant cultural markers with the Lao cultural mainstream: Buddhism, weaving and wet rice cultivation (even if limited due to terrain). They often use the ethnonym ‘Lao Phong’ to highlight their Lao citizenship and their belonging to the so-called ‘Lao multi-ethnic people’ (pasason lao banda phao), one of the key ideological pillars of the contemporary Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Pholsena 2006). The following study of the myth of Hat Ang adds fresh perspectives on upland ethnogenesis and present-day social configurations at the margins of the Lao PDR. Mythology is used as a tool to explore the history of the dynamic ‘Tai-Kha’ relationship and to investigate the role of upland pioneers in shaping this relationship. Besides functioning as ‘cartography of the social order’ (Évrard and Chiemsisouraj 2011: 71) or as an explanatory model for the present-day marginality of upland peoples (cf. the myth of the money tree of the Mon-Khmer-speaking Rmeet, which also addresses upland-lowland inequalities; Sprenger 2006), the myth of Hat Ang offers a host of interesting detail and ethnographic information: historical origins, pioneering mobility, kinship, exchange, ethnic stereotypes, cosmology etc.11 Nathan Badenoch (2020) discusses another Phong myth that offers fresh interpretations on linguistic variety and human-nature relations in the uplands of Laos. Along with my own recording of the myth of Hat Ang, I use versions noted down by Alfred Raquez (1905) and the colonial administrators Adolphe Plunian (1905) and Antoine Lagrèze (1925; an almost verbatim reproduction of Raquez’s version). Interestingly, both Raquez and Plunian mention the same informant, the sage Phya Boun; Plunian probably hosted his fellow traveller in the French post. Curiously enough, Raquez’s account of the myth differs from Plunian’s version in quite some detail. While Raquez refers to Phya Boun as ‘thai’ - phya being a Tai-Lao honorific title and boun the Tai-Lao word for ‘merit’ - it is not unlikely that he was a Phong notable who had enjoyed education in a Lao Buddhist temple and eventually received his title and authority from the Lao chao muang of Sam Neua, Houaphan’s political centre.22 One piece of evidence for this is the fact that generations of Phong village headmen in Ban Saleuy are from the ‘Bounkhoun’ family, a kind of local elite who trace their privileged position back to precolonial times (even if the title phya has disappeared since the communist takeover). Once upon a time, an upland hermit walked along the banks of the River Nam Ou. He took a rest in the shadow of a big mak san tree. Contemplating and listening to singing birds and deer roaming in the woods, he helped himself to the fruits of the tree and let his soul flow into one of them. He threw the fruit into the river, where it floated downstream. Shortly afterwards, the youngest daughter of the king of Muang Sua (the former name of Luang Prabang), a beautiful girl of 15 years, picked the fruit from the floods and ate it. Five to six months later the royal court was in upheaval: the young princess was pregnant. Neither she nor the royal diviners could come up with a plausible explanation. She gave birth to a boy - Hat Ang - who at birth was as tall as a three-year-old and who came to charm the whole court with his intelligence. One day, Hat Ang fell severely ill and the royal diviners stated that he would have to see his father in order to be cured. Again they interrogated the spirits of the realm and, this time, they came up with the name of the hermit. The king sent troops up the Nam Ou to find the ‘savage’ forest dweller. They took him to the palace, where the boy took his hand and recovered right away. The marriage of the uplander and the Lao princess was arranged and the princess gave birth to a second son, but her husband remained a clumsy outsider at court. Through various intrigues he eventually fell from royal grace and the king decided to expel the young family. They travelled the Mekong on a raft equipped with food and agricultural tools and, after 15 days, disembarked at Don Chan (the well-known sand bank of Vientiane). Hat Ang’s father left for the mountains to prepare upland fields (hai) but the trees he felled used to grow back after a while. Confused, one night he hid in the forest to investigate this strange phenomenon. He spotted a black-and-white monkey hitting a gong. With each strike of the gong, a tree rose up again. Hat Ang’s father jumped at the monkey, threw him onto the ground and threatened him to reveal his secret. The monkey told him that his magic gong could produce valuable essences, whole villages and fruit trees. The man set the monkey free again in return for the gong and two other special tools: an awl by means of which one could produce humans and all kind of animals from the earth, and a hoe which could cut solid rock. When, after his return, he told his story, his wife at first held him an idiot. However, when he demonstrated the power of his new tools, his family was stupefied: men, women and children emerged from the ground, a big village with pagodas gleaming in the sunlight, gardens with flowers and coconut trees - Vientiane! (Plunian 1905: 126-8). Raquez’s version differs from this interesting detail - a mixed ‘Tai-Kha’ origin of Vientiane (cf. the related origin myths of Chiang Mai and Chiang Saen in Thailand; Évrard 2019: 235) - in that the story starts in Vientiane right away. These inconsistencies hint at the political shifts in the 18th and 19th century when the different muang of Houaphan were contested between Vientiane and Luang Prabang - and either of them could be a potential focal point of upland mythology. According to Raquez (1905: 1398-9), the Lao princess from Vientiane found the fruit in the Mekong, ate it, became pregnant and finally gave birth to a boy who cried day and night. Neither the midwives nor the doctors nor the astrologists were able to find out the reason. One day, a Phong man travelled down the Nam Ou and the Mekong to visit Vientiane. When he gave a mak san to the boy, the royal offspring stopped crying. The king took this as heavenly sign and offered his daughter’s hand to the Phong man. Both versions of the myth take a similar trajectory in describing how the young couple moved to Don Chan Island, where they tried in vain to establish swidden fields (hai) in the nearby hills. However, the mythical monkey is missing from Raquez’s story; instead the Phong man is blamed for the couple’s misfortune. The king accuses him of being a malevolent spirit himself and sends the couple into exile, up to Houaphan. In Raquez’s version the present-day settlement of the Phong in Houaphan is clearly the result of a malfunctioned ‘Tai-Kha’ relationship, with Hat Ang’s father being a kind of outcast, associated with malevolent spirits. Even if the myth articulates the upland-lowland divide between the upper Nam Ou and Luang Prabang/Vientiane, relations and interactions at first suggest a common ‘Tai-Kha’ social a by the set of the of relations of the group The myth an between Lao and Phong the story of the Lao princess an fruit - with some kind of of Hat Ang’s the of this special fruit is for a relationship. The marriage with Hat Ang’s ‘Kha’ father an ambiguous The different versions of the myth indicate more or less instead of a - a of the relationship across ethnic between Hat Ang’s father and his Lao Plunian’s version that the princess is the youngest daughter of the Lao According to the Lao the youngest daughter is to at home and for her ‘Kha’ would find himself in an a position of towards his Lao (cf. In other relations were a for Tai to complex that ethnic As and Wichasin relations a of and economic relations to people and in Tai muang contexts. The of a daughter would produce a that of and of Hat Ang and his Hat up to be young They received the magic tools from their father and moved out to new - indeed a pioneering muang While Hat moved and took the gong with Hat Ang travelled the northern mountains for a to establish a new One day he the awl into the ground Muang Tai-Lao muang in Muang the first Phong in Houaphan after their migration from the Nam Ou and a of deer emerged to the by of tall with and Hat Ang moved on and, that the of was still for this used the awl to produce another the people to he on to for a to a palace, the of his By the Nam River in Houamuang he was to find a the gong to produce whole villages but and the hoe to he to a which the whole of Houaphan’s present to the for their king (Plunian 1905: While Plunian’s version on the pioneering muang in the Hat Ang had already a muang in Houaphan in the versions noted by Raquez and who not mention Hat Ang is as an Phong who received (Raquez 1905: from a according to similar version of the a gong, a hoe with a and an With the of the Hat Ang could produce a from and to upland swidden With the he could By hitting the gong, he was able to spirits. the of the king of Luang Prabang for a time, the Phong the to the of Lao and their Luang Prabang sent an but was by the Phong, to their The Phong kingdom and Hat Ang became a king by (Raquez 1905: In the of one day, people were in the when a (Raquez or a quite some The Phong the turmoil with an from the Lao and, in a the gong. The troops to but but the with a in The spirit this and back the gong. Hat Ang and his people due to the (even if they were able to the but had no from the this was a of a Hat Ang, being of mixed ‘Tai-Kha’ is clearly as an as the offspring of an couple and as the of an upland Through the Lao muang with and a palace, he seems to the authority of the lowland with the example of among the - in - not to tools by powers mythical monkey, a The are a key of the the gong, the awl and the hoe refer to functioning and all of them key to agricultural and social The Phong the tools in the and/or Ang’s father the monkey in the or - which out to be ambiguous the for the return of the tools by the spirits. important is the fact that the tools are of origin and to relations with the and sources of potency are thus and interesting the Lao tools that Hat Ang’s father tried to use for his in Plunian’s version to be The fact that tools not for upland that social reproduction relations with the with sources of potency 2016). would have it that the and to upland cultivation - an of the The gong is of the and that Austroasiatic groups as the of which is associated with power (see Évrard et Sprenger versions that Hat Ang a Phong a genuine mountain muang. One day, the king of Muang Prabang - in fact Hat Ang’s - the of Hat Ang’s He her as a for his Hat Ang him version). The king became but from he Hat Ang’s magic tools and a royal from Muang Sua at Hat Ang’s court and his He told him to his tools to their after this the tools their the king of Muang Sua his on the Phong However, Hat Ang’s troops the a of another from Muang Sua again took of Hat Ang’s He him to a the realm towards Muang that himself would see it and would return the power of the tools as a for this Hat Ang his people to cut trees and a and later took his to the of his They of and spotted the Mekong and the of Muang (the old Lao name for the people had their to the the Lao set to the which was by and the Phong people Muang Sam Neua where the of the la du des (Plunian 1905: Plunian (1905) adds that the of Houamuang were to be used for Hat Ang’s by the people after the of their king (cf. 2016). The of the also the on the between Muang and Muang where a few the According to Plunian’s the of the in the was in fact the of the former spirits of the He that this (Plunian 1905: was in villages the the Tai had the realm and Houaphan. The version differs in some after the king of Luang Prabang had the of the gong, he decided to the He sent his to the of Hat Ang’s Unlike in Plunian’s Hat Ang was very the and the the took the magic tools and threw them into a In he Hat Ang into a that the Phong king and his could the beautiful city of Luang When Hat Ang and of Phong the the set to the As if this enough, the Lao the Phong people into and a few of them - de la (Raquez 1905: - it to the in to the of due to to relations the relation to the Lao the of lowland Lao is as an for the decline and of the Phong This is in contrast to the myth by Sprenger where the people cut the tree of money that the fruit up in the lowlands - the tree was villages and Even if both myths suggest an ‘Tai-Kha’ relationship, of upland agency and aspirations the ethnohistory of the see as 2020). In the Hat Ang a key By the time he received the tools in Raquez’s Hat Ang had an upland and a potential for lowland muang - as a as a of forest and indeed as a for as the history of Laos and used to a of and of them of and from notables or other Tai and Condominas the different versions of the Hat Ang myth are not in this in Plunian’s Hat Ang the marriage between his daughter and the Lao in Raquez’s version he to with the could be the for this The would a position of the and the of the to the of the This would Hat Ang’s in Raquez’s since it would be a very The as if we the marriage as a of the perspective of the Lao such a marriage would be a sign of - a of relations and an towards the Lao. on of thus to the of in Southeast Asian The inter-ethnic relationship between Tai-Lao and ‘Kha’ is certainly the of the after Hat Ang - himself being of mixed ‘Tai-Kha’ origin - a kingdom in the the Lao king him with and left a the perspective of the Phong, this is a story their and to James Scott’s Jonsson of the Phong as and as a result of and Hat Ang’s political power the and of the Lao took of Phong and in order to them. an oral history in I the Phong village of Ban as a point to more the of one night in the the local myths and the which date back to the time of the of Province - by the in the (see 2016). man who was able to also told the story of Hat Ang - in a version those and discussion and The between a story - magic - and a the historical and present-day the Lao as and was also a issue as by the of The old Phong man that Hat Ang a city which was the the of the of the village He that the king of Luang Prabang Hat Ang when he

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.13092

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