The charms of Chiang Khan has drawn countless tourists to the northeastern province of Loei, all eager to experience the laid-back ambience of this old town and the scenic views it offers of the mighty Mekong. Few of them realise, however, that a mere 15km to the southeast of the town, there is another destination worth visiting especially for those who love ethnic culture.
The residents of Ban Na Pa Nat maintain a small museum to show off the different types of traditional Tai Dam dwellings. The three model houses you can see in the photo are a good deal smaller than a regular family home. They were built without doorways or window openings because they are merely shells, intended to demonstrate the exterior structure of a traditional house and the various types of khao kut, decorative roof features similar in purpose to the kalae (crossed boards) placed above the gables of traditional Lanna houses in northern Thailand. The Tai Dam once used khao kut to indicate the occupation or social status of the head of a household. Resembling a pair of antlers, the piece of wood adorning the roof of the house on the far left indicates that it is the residence of a policeman, civil servant, military officer or anyone with an official government position. The fishbone-style khao kut (middle) advertises the home of a shaman (what the Tai Dam called a mo mot) and the stylised buffalo horns decorating the house on the right shows it is the home of an ordinary villager, most probably a farmer or manual labourer. Nowadays, however, very few Tai Dam people bother to attach khao kut to their roofs, hence the value of this museum, admission to which is free of charge.
The place is called Ban Na Pa Nat and it is home to a couple of hundred families of Tai Dam (Black Tai) who have lived there for more than a century. They still preserve their tradition and open their village for visitors to learn more about their lives.
"Our ancestors migrated from Muang Thaeng [which is the present Dien Bien Phu in the northwestern part of Vietnam] in Sib Song Chu Tai during the 1880s when our town was attacked by Chinese Haw rebels from Yunnan," according to Pettabong Paisoon, president of the Museum of Tai Dam Houses.
He said Tai Dam have lived in many provinces including Phetchaburi, Nakhon Pathom and Ratchaburi, but only 15 families settled in Loei. They initially called their village Ban Kok Song Dam before renaming it to Ban Na Pa Nat due to the plenty of ton nat, the ngai camphor tree (Blumea balsamifera) found in the area.
Tai Dam women in traditional attire.
Upon arrival, every visitor is required to pay their respects to the guardian spirits of the Tai Dam who are venerated at Ho Chao Ban, the village's main animist shrine which comprises four separate spirit houses.
"There are four guardians who have protected and blessed us since we have settled here around 1907," he said. "The first guardian is Chao Tai Dam, our ancestor spirit. The second is Chao Anouvong, the ruler of the Lao kingdom of Vientiane, who gave us a safe passage to Thailand. Third is Chao Phu Kaew, the spirit of Kaew mountain, which gives us a fresh water supply. Fourth is Chao Phu Huat, the spirit of Huat hill, which gives us land for cultivation," he said.
To show their gratitude to the spirits, Tai Dam people hold two major offering ceremonies for which all families gather together at Ho Chao Ban. The ritual is related to their way of living because the majority of them are farmers.
Kraiwan Sodduang, left, poses with other women from the village in traditional Tai Dam attire. The ensemble comprises a headcloth (in the photo all the women have this piece of fabric draped loosely around their necks), a tight-fitting blouse, a sash, and a sin taengmo, a black tube-skirt with thin white (or light blue) stripes meant to imitate the pattern seen on watermelon (taengmo) skin. They also typically wear a set of silver accessories including a hairpin, pair of earrings, necklace, bracelets, rings and a belt. Tai Dam women also display their marital status via the position on their heads in which hair has been coiled into a bun. Kraiwan's bun is towards the front of her head and on the right-hand side, meaning she is a widow. If a woman wears her bun on the left-hand side of her head it indicates she is either separated or divorced. If the bun is worn in the centre of the back of the head (like a ballerina), it means that the woman is married or already too old to consider marrying. Single women sport ponytails, pigtails or a bun worn low down above the nape of the neck.
They hold the first ceremony before the rainy season to ask for good crop yields. The second offering is made at a thanksgiving ceremony held after the harvest has been gathered in.
"Every family has to bring food and spirits to offer to the guardians. The offerings can be boiled chicken or pork, cooked food and steamed rice," he said, adding there would be plenty of food to share with everyone as the food would be the guardians' blessing," he said.
Apart from working in the rice paddies, Tai Dam women are also skilful weavers. Like other ethnic villages, housewives weave clothes for their family members. They use indigo for dyeing their cloth which gives a dark blue colour as well as mud and fruits of makluea (ebony tree) which make their cloth black (and the reason why they were originally referred to as the Tai Dam, meaning "black Tai").
Today, Tai Dam will wear their traditional uniforms when there are ceremonies. "We must wear our Tai Dam dress in our rituals so that our ancestors will recognise that we are Tai Dam," he said.
The old national flag of the Tai ethnic group is exhibited in the Tai Dam museum. It was used before the French colonial period in 1888. The flag has three vertical stripes; blue, white and blue and has a Sun with 16 rays in the middle of the flag, representing 16 provinces of the Sib Song Chu Tai.
Some houses still have wooden looms for women to weave cloth. Rich families tended to weave and wear silk fabric and decorated their shirts with silver buttons while others wear cotton cloth with knot buttons.
While we had our quick tour in the village, we saw some villagers created small mobiles called tum-nok, tum-nu by using brightly colourful yarns and bamboo sticks. The mobiles are also used as offerings to the guardian spirits and to decorate the home.
Tai Dam alphabets are displayed on the model house of the cultural centre. The alphabets are different from Thai language. The Tai Dam language has 40 consonants, 20 vowels and six tones. The language is still taught in Ban Na Pa Nat School. There are also alphabet textbooks and a book for practising writing for sale to visitors if they wish to learn about Tai Dam language.
Although Tai Dam still worship the spirits, the majority of them are Buddhists and some are Christians. They still use their Tai Dam language while talking to each other. The language is also taught in school and the young generation is also required to wear their traditional attire to school on Fridays.
Ban Na Pa Nat also offers a homestay facility for visitors who want to learn more about their culture by staying with a local family for a short while.
"It is our good fortune that we still have knowledgeable people in the village. We hope that we can still preserve our tradition as it has been for more than a century," said Pettabong.
TRAVEL INFO
From Chiang Khan, take road number 201 to Tambon Khao Kaeo and turn left onto local road number 3011 which will take you to Ban Na Pa Tat.
GPS: N17 47 53.33, E101 44 16.56
Ban Na Pa Nat offers home stay service which is priced at 180 baht per person per night. A cost per meal is 80 baht per person. If a group of visitors require to see a traditional dance, the charge for the performance is 2,000 baht.
For more information, call Adisak Srimongkol, president of Tai Dam Cultural Centre, on 088-536-9278 or visit the websites of the Thai Ecotourism and Adventure Travel Association (www.teata.or.th) or the Tourism Authority of Thailand (www.tourismthailand.org).
These small brightly coloured mobiles are used to decorate the home and are for good health and fortune. Tai Dam call the mobiles dokmai Tai Dam, or flowers of Tai Dam. It has six designs. For example, a house-shape is called tum-nok, tum-nu, believed to used to protect residents of a household from evil spells and other forms of black magic. The cubic shape is for good fortune and the heart shape is for goodwill.
The people of Ban Na Pa Nat organise a 'Tum Hom Pi Nong Tai' ceremony every April, to thank their ancestors and guardian spirits for a plentiful harvest and for bringing happiness to their lives. During our recent visit, villagers demonstrated a dance called 'Fon Se Pang, Se Khaen' for us at the Tai Dam Cultural Centre. The dancers initially gathered in a circle around a ton pang, a living tree decorated with colourful mobiles, each of which is an offering by some villager to the spirits. Then they began to dance slowly to the rhythm created by a small group of musicians. A line of people, each holding a length of mature bamboo in both hands, strike the ends of these bamboo tubes against a plank of hardwood that rests on the ground in front of them, making hollow knocking sounds, while another musician hits a metal gong. According to Adisak Srimongkol, president of the Tai Dam Cultural Centre and also the shaman for this village, there are no less than 14 types of dances for the guardian spirits. In years past, a major ritual to ask the spirits to grant continued good health to the villagers was held once every three years; it would last for three days and two nights. This has now become an annual event at Ban Na Pa Tat to which Tai Dam people from other parts of the Kingdom are invited along with any tourists who happen to be visiting the area and are interested in witnessing the proceedings.
The Tai Dam call their traditional black-cotton shirts suea kom. Formal wear for a woman might include this blouse with ornate silver buttons meant to represent butterflies (tobee in the Tai Dam tongue). A charming story is told to explain the origins of the tobee design. Local legend has it that there was once a widow so disconsolate about the death of her husband that she prayed constantly for the return of his spirit. One day, as she was praying fervently, a butterfly flew in through her bedroom window. Assuming that the tobee was the reincarnation of her lost love, she fashioned a set of new buttons for her shirt in the shape of a butterfly so that she would always feel him close to her. Later, tobee buttons came to symbolise faithful, monogamous love in Tai Dam society. For Tai Dam men, formal wear might constitute this traditional, Chinese-style shirt with long sleeves. It is fastened down one side with exactly 11 buttons made from silver in the shape of morning glory flowers. The significance of this, according to Adisak Srimongkol, the village shaman, is that Tai Dam people, like the morning glory plant, can endure inhospitable conditions and thrive just about anywhere.
The decoration of the gable roof represents the Sun surrounded by stars. It imitates a house of the ruler, according to a local Sumek Chonpiayung, 63. He said the traditional house of Tai Dam was a lifted house with each house pole put on concrete pillars or large stones. "We do not build our homes directly on the ground. With this design, we think it is more stable and easy to relocate the whole house when needed," he said. Tai Dam people have an extended family. When a couple get married, the man will live in his in-laws' house for a few years until the parents of the woman are assured that he is a good husband to their daughter, then the married couple can have their own family and home.
