Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Online ISSN : 2424-1377
Print ISSN : 0563-8682
ISSN-L : 0563-8682
Inter-ethnic Relations in the Making of Mainland Southeast Asia
Being Lue, Not Being Lue:
Guardian Spirit Cult in the Borderless Age
Yuji Baba
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

1998 Volume 35 Issue 4 Pages 716-737

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Abstract
This paper focuses on how the Tai Lue of Thawanpa districts, Nan Province, Northern Thailand express their ethnic identity.
 After the Tai Lue migration from Sipsong Panna to Thawanpha in the 19th Century, their cultural patterns became almost undistinguishable from those of the Tai Yuan, the majority population in Northern Thailand.
 Although they have mostly lost their own language, Tai Lue can identify themselves based on their system of rituals for guardian spirits, especially the legend of migration from Sipsong Panna expressed in the pantheon of spirits. However, at the individual level, they do not dare to express the Tai Lue identity in their everyday life, which is the same as that of Tai Yuan.
 The expression of Tai Lue identity in recent years has been to promote Tai Lue culture among outsiders as part of a village development program.
 In this movement, monuments have been built at two villages which are competing with each other in rural development. They imply the historical memory of each village, and have become important expressions of Tai Lue identity instead of the pantheon of spirits.
 Tai Lue culture has been promoted at the village level, not the individual level. Now it is being promoted at the transnational level.
 It is often reported that the Tai Lue in Thawanpha maintain a strong identity. In fact, however, “being Lue” now means “performing as a Lue”; rather, it is “not being Lue, ” the loss of identity at the individual level, that is progressing.
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© 1998 Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
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