The Tai and Thai Agriculture

Beginning as lowland wet rice growers in China more than a millennium ago, the Tai brought in their southward migration, glutinous rice associated with their muang fai irrigation technology, which with refinement proved sustainable into the 20th century. Integrating with the existing Mon-Khmer system, the Tai widened their agricultural capabilities and administrative system to utilize water from larger northern Thai rivers. They evolved a complex blend of animism and Buddhism, which incorporated traditional ceremonies relating to rice and agriculture from their own, and the cultures blending to form the Thai. Despite modern searches for Tai historical environmental values, modification of the natural environment seems to have been more important than its preservation, although retention of holy wood lots and spirit worship may indicate a level of interest in forests above that of other agricultural communities. This is the second of four papers dealing with the history of Thai agriculture