Thai ethnic group

Proper name: Tay or Thay.

Other names: Tay Thanh, Man Thanh, Tay Muoi, Tay Muong, Hang Tong, Tay Do and Tho.

Local groups: Black Thai (or Tay Dam) and White Thai (Tay Don or Khao).

Population: 1,040,549 people.

Language: Thai language belongs to the Tay - Thai group (of the Tai - Kadai language family).

History: The Thai originated from inland Southeast Asia where their ancestors have lived since ancient times.

Production activities: Early in their history, the Thai adopted wet rice cultivation, using suitable irrational networks. The work can be summarized in the Thai saying "muong - phai - lai - lin" (which means digging of canals, consolidating of banks, guiding water through obstacles, and fixing water gutters) in the fields. While the Thai once grew only one sticky rice crop a year, nowadays they have converted to two crops of ordinary rice. They also cultivate swidden fields, where they grow rice, corn, and subsidiary crops, especially cotton, indigo and mulberry for cloth weaving.

Diet: Today, ordinary rice has become the main food of the Thai, while sticky rice is still being eaten traditionally. Sticky rice is steeped in water, put in a steaming pot and put on a fire and cooked. A meal cannot go without ground chili mixed with salt and accompanied by mint, coriander leaves and onion. Boiled chicken liver, fish gut, and smoked fish called cheo could well be added to the meal. Ruminate meat should be accompanied by sauce taken from the internal organs (nam pia). Raw fish should be either cooked into salad (nom) or meat-in-sauce (nhung), j or simply salted or sauced. Cooked food processing ranges from roasting, steaming and drying to condensing frying, and boiling. The Thai enjoy food with more hot, salty, acrid and buttery tastes, in contrast to those that have sweet, rich and strong tastes. They smoke with bamboo pipes, lighted by dried bamboo pieces. Before smoking, the Thai maintain their custom of hospitality by inviting others to join in, much as they would do before a meal.

Clothing: Thai women are beautifully adorned in, short and colorful blouses, accented down the front with lines of silver buttons in the shapes of butterflies, spiders and cicadas. Their blouses fit beautifully with their tube-shaped black skirts. The belt is a green colored silk band. They wear a key chain round their waists. On festival occasions, Thai women can wear an extra black dress, with an underarm seam or like a pullover which has an open collar, thus revealing the silver
buttons inside. The black dresses are nipped at the waist, include large shoulders and
decorative pieces of cloth that are attached to the underarms or to the front of the shoulders in a manner similar to the White Thai. Black Thai women wear the famous pieu shaw with colorful embroidery. Thai men wear shorts with a belt; a shirt with an open collar and two pockets on either side. White Thai men have an additional upper pocket on the left and their collar is fastened with a cloth band. The popular
color of all clothes is black, pale red, striped or white colored.
On festivals people wear long black dresses, with split underarm seams and an internal white blouse. A head turban is worn as a headdress, and in ceremonies the turban should be the length of an arm.

Housing: The Thai live in stilt houses with roofs of different designs: those houses with a round convex roof like a turtle shell with two ends called khau cut; those with a four paneled roof and a rectangle floor and corridors; those houses with a long and high roof and with rooms at either ends being used as halls; and those with a low roof and narrow interior, which is close to the Muong house style.

Transportation: Carrying is the main way to transport things, while using a gui or back carrier is also popular. Baskets may be carried with the aid of tump lines tied around the carrier's forehead; at times, pack horses are used. Along large rivers, the Thai are famous for transporting goods and people using swallow-tailed boats.

Social organization: The original social structure is called ban muong, also known as the phia tao regime. The Thai lineage is called Dam. Each person has three key
lineal relationships: Ai Noong (everybody born from a common fourth-generation ancestor); Lung Ta (every male member of the wife's family throughout generations); and Nhinh Xao (every male member of the son-in-laws).