This paper intends to show how the Lao revolutionary forces, Pathet Lao (PL) used the Lao language (Lao) in their process of building up the Nation, in which the ethnic Lao had played a leading role. At the same time, it also examines the ideology they created to make Lao the national language, regardless of the fact that the ethnic Lao, who used it were not the majority of the population. In other words, this paper mainly analyzes the PL's policy on education and propaganda.
To mobilize the people to their revolutionary movement, PL conducted a vigorous literacy campaign in their liberated zone. Since around 1964, they began to carry out the policy of promoting Lao among their people and developing the languages of the minority people. However, although among the minority languages, only the Hmong language was given to literation, PL did not actually intend to promote the minority languages to the same level as Lao. So, until the end of 1960's, Lao became the only medium of instruction for all levels of the PL schools and, served as the national language in a way.
On the other hand, it was the moral education that supported this institutional superiority of Lao in ideology. In PL's textbooks, Lao was regarded as the heritage of their ancestors who also included the heroes of the minorities, and love for the Lao was regarded as the way to reach love for the nation. Here, literacy of Lao was regarded as the base of all kinds of progress, and a means for all people to have an equal opportunity for progression. Furthermore, while some textbooks illustrated each minority like a member of the big “Laos” family, they also suggested the dominance of “progressive” ethnic Lao. Since the textbooks written in Lao were virtually the essence of political education, Lao became the foundation on which to form a nation by conveying the PL political ideology to ethnically divergent peoples.
Moreover, in the area of Royal Lao Government (RLG), which had a tradition of “colonial and slavish” French education, the PL's propaganda that emphasized on “Lao language education” as “national” education attracted many people, who had been struggling to rise up to the “language nationalism” to support PL's movement.
As a result, Lao was selected as and became the only “national language”. This also served as the means to create the nation by taking two forms. To the PL liberated zone, it meant to infiltrate the thought of ethnic Lao's superiority into their minds, and to the RLG area, it meant to stimulate the growing consciousness of the “Lao language nationalism”.

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Bach Coc settlement is located along the right riverbank of the old Coc River, a branch of the Nam Dinh River in the lower region of the Red River Plain, and shows elongate shape in plan like “S” character and approximate 2, 000 people resides in the settlement. Both the east neighbored settlement Phu Coc and north neighbored settlement, Tan Coc show well-ordered square shaped in plan. West neighbored settlement Duong Lai, is also elongate in plan.
Geological and archaeological research confirmed the first human occupation go back to the marine regression period in the Late Holocene. The small-scale excavation research at Bach Coc, Duong Lai and Phuc Coc combining together with surface survey revealed various occupation evidence like burial, residence, hearth, ritual feature and intensive waste of the habitation remains. Heaping soil for heightening in altitude is also frequent observed archaeological features, which was aimed for higher residence avoiding flood water.
Detailed glazed ceramic chronology revealed occupational frequencies at the studied area and two epoch-making periods can be pointed out. The first is the 13th century, which made possible the first stable and vast habitation in this area. This may be related to the first large-scale dyke construction in the Red River plain Furthermore very possibly some descendants of the settlers in this period still resided in Bach Coc and economic prosperity indicated by the artifacts in the 14th and 15th century can be related to taking advantage of the riverine transportation and the appearance of the leading lineage which turn out some high official in the central courts. The second is the 17th century with an expansion of Bach Coc settlement and re-establishment of the Phu Coc and Tan Coc settlements, which were probably caused by enclosure type dyke system after the large flooding. The ancestral type of the present villages can be dated to the 17th century.
Archaeological research combining geological, geographical and historical research will provide new understanding of the Vietnamese settlement formation history.

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Songket is a woven cloth decorated with motifs interwoven using supplementary gold thread. Palembang songket is characterised by a red background on which various motifs, such as flowers, stars and rhomboids, are interwoven with gold thread. The figures are categorised into three groups, i. e. flora, fauna and others, and these are combined to create certain patterns and designs. According to one artisan, all figures and patterns are traditional ones which have been woven for a long time.
It is likely that songket was already woven in Palembang by noblewomen in 1670. Since the gold thread was previously made of real gold of 14 carats, this cloth was very expensive and restricted to noblewomen before the Palembang sultanate period was abolished by the Dutch in 1824. The regulation of wearing songket seems to have been strict; the design and colour which a noblewoman could wear was regulated according to her social status; songket was an important status marker of noblewomen. During the Dutch colonial period (1824-1942), the use of songket expanded to noblemen and the wealthy Chinese and Arabs. In the 1930s, songket weaving started to decline due to the Great World Depression and shortage of materials, and it was driven to the verge of extinction in the 1950s.
In the mid-1960s, however, songket weaving was successfully revived, recruiting young people as new weavers and introducing new materials and technologies. Cheap versions of songket woven with artificial gold thread started to be sold in the market. The cheap versions of songket, the eclipse of the concept of ‘nobility’ after the Second World War and adat (customary law) protocols which stipulated that people should use songket in rites of passage encouraged the ordinary, less wealthy people of Palembang to wear and use songket in ceremonies. Songket has indeed been democratised and popularised, and its use has become a ‘new’ tradition for ordinary people. Nevertheless, it is also true that differences in the quality of songket still tend to differentiate the wearers in terms of wealth and status. Nowadays the regulations of wearing songket are no longer strict. People can wear whatever colours and designs they like. People try to follow adat as closely as they can when they use and wear songket, and songket has become an identity marker of people of Palembang.
New styles of songket fashion are produced to attract younger female customers. These activities to expand the market are necessary for the development of the songket industry of Palembang. New designs and colour combinations are important factors which would attract new customers inside and outside Palembang. On the other hand, old people of Palembang tend to prefer traditional colours and designs; Palembang songket culture seems to maintain an appropriate balance between commercial-based culture and the local, relatively conservative one so far. No matter whether the design is a traditional or modified one, people of Palembang realise their identity when they wear Palembang songket.

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The purpose of my paper is to clarify that the plan of the foundation of the University of Malaya seeks implicitly how to create the productive and rational labor force for the future nation state. This study will mainly focus on the Report of the Commission on University Education in Malaya submitted in the end of the British colonial period, and examine how the institutionalization of the colonial knowledge is planned in terms of technology. I will analyze the report from the following two points. The first is the transplantation of the Western technology and the training of local technocrats. Although the University of Malaya is given name of university, it is planned for a vocational school to train local technocrats rather than to create the Western type intellectuals. The stresses on the faculty of medicine including hygiene and tropical medicines might also be related to the purpose to create and train the rational labors. The second point is the technology to solve the ethnic problem of Malaya that is regarded as the obstacle for modernization and national integration. The Report recommends to create not the department of Malayan studies but the three different departments to conduct research on the language, culture and the society of the three major ethnic groups of Malaya. It seems that the Report gropes for multicultural national integration and modernization in today's sense.

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Buton Kingdom is supposed to have been founded in the thirteenth century on Buton Island in Southeast Sulawesi; the kingdom existed until 1960. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the historical process of the formation of the Buton Kingdom through the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Written materials such as official letters of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) and the English East India Company, diaries of foreign sailors, and other historical monographs will be investigated.
In the sixteenth century, the Buton Kingdom was socially and symbolically situated at the periphery of the Maluku World and was regarded as the “child” of a “father-like” Ternate Kingdom and the “brother” of other kingdoms of the Maluku World. The Buton Kingdom accepted Islam under the strong influence of the Ternate Kingdom in the latter half of the sixteenth century.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, because of its strategic location as a trading port and its possession of various kinds of commodities, the English East India Company and the VOC showed interest in Buton Kingdom/Island and made contact several times with some of the sultans of Buton. However, the entities did not form a maritime trade center on the island. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Buton Kingdom was involved in keen competition among the Gowa-Talloq' United Kingdom in Makassar, the VOC, and the Ternate Kingdom, each of which was eager to grasp the maritime network and to establish authority over the sea areas in Eastern Indonesia. Under such a situation, the “father-son” relationship between Ternate and Buton was kept, and Buton offered tribute to Ternate to receive protection from its “father”. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Ternate was subordinated to the VOC. The Buton Kingdom, at the time, was on the side of the VOC and Ternate as they faced the menace of Makassar. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the united forces of the VOC —which were made up of Ternate, Bone, Buton, and the like— defeated Gowa-Talloq' United Kingdom in the Makassar War.
The decline of Gowa and Talloq' led to the further expansion of the VOC, and eventually to the decay of the Ternate Kingdom under its subordination to the VOC. Buton lost the protection from its “father”, and thereafter the VOC interfered intermittently in the domestic affairs of the Buton Kingdom.

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