Pathom Hongsuwan
Mahasarakham University
This paper aims to study the myths and rituals of Tai women in relation to their lifestyles, culture and society. The researcher has collected myths and ritual about women in various Tai communities located in the Mekong river basin, including in and outside Thailand. The data collected is in the form of written documents and oral literature.
Through an analysis of the social and cultural relations of Tai women through myths and rituals, the researcher has come to an understanding of the legends as being holy narratives. These narratives have been part of the traditional knowledge and wisdom of the Tai representing the power relations in negotiation to add value to nature. Tai women think from a cultural perspective, as well as create a moral relationship between women and nature, both of which involve supernatural power. The women are a form of nature that represents life and are a sacred continuity of the spiritual, cosmic and physical spaces.
The research findings reveal that the contents of the myths and rituals can be categorized into four thematic groups: 1) women and social status; 2) women and religious beliefs; 3) women and cultural politics; and 4) women and ethnicity. All these themes address the submissive roles of women. Furthermore, another crucial finding of the study is that Tai women’s femininity in the myths and rituals is blurred, diverse and contradictory, flowing among tradition and society along the aspect of time or dynamic everyday life. Such a representation of Tai women is that of physical, gender and ethnic perspectives where conflicts and mix of ethnicities can be found.
(Presented in the 2020 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum : Thai-Tai Language and Culture, 20 July 2020, The St.Regis Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Department of Thai, Department of Linguistics, Southeast Asian Linguistics Research Unit, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University)