Cangyuan to Mengding: the Dai and Wa of the Border Lands

 

                                                                   by Jim Goodman

 

       For a long time the precise border between China and Burma remained undefined.  This was especially true for the southern part of Yunnan’s Lincang Prefecture, a long way from the capitals of both China and Burma.  Small autonomous Dai states, run by hereditary sawbas, lay in the plains on both sides of what is today’s boundary, while the Wa resided in the hills.  With their reputation as fierce warriors and headhunters, Wa villages were de facto autonomous as well, both from plains authority and each other.  No government made any effort to subjugate them

       The British conquest of Mandalay and northern Burma suddenly riveted Beijing’s attention to the border issue.  The government sent armed forces into Lancang County 1887-92 to establish its authority, while the British began advancing towards Yunnan to fix its own delineation of the international boundary.  There was no question about Dehong, which had long been on the Southern Silk Road into Burma and was always a recognized part of China, even though the ethnic groups who lived there also lived on the Burmese side.  Burma had claims on Xishuangbanna, but the British renounced them.  The main problem was who would rule over southern Lincang.

       While they did not claim the right of jurisdiction over all Dai/Shan populations on both sides of the border they did insist that Wa-inhabited area should not be similarly divided but must all be administered by Britain.  Resisting this demand, the Qing government eventually broke off negotiations, which were not revived when the dynasty fell and China became a republic.  The British did not send any military forces to assert their ambitions and the border stayed peaceful and basically ignored until after the British left Burma.  Even then, it was not until the mid-1960s that the two countries took the step of physically demarcating the boundaries.

       It was still a remote area when I visited before the turn of the century.  Cangyuan County, encompassing most of the once disputed zones, was only accessible by road via Gengma to its north, entering the county at Mengsheng.  A new airport and a highway from Gengma city directly to Cangyuan city early this century has brought more outside influences, but back then modernization was mostly only in the urban areas.   The countryside was hardly affected, especially in the hills, higher and steeper than those in Gengma County, dominated by old-fashioned Wa villages of thatched bamboo and wood houses

      Cangyuan is an Autonomous Wa County, so designated where an ethnic minority occupies over 50% of the land and/or comprises over 50% of the population.  In this county the Wa are virtually the only people living in the hills, other than a few Lahu and Yi around Mengjiao.  And they were the first inhabitants, long, long ago.  The rock paintings on the cliffs of Ai Hua, just beyond Menglai, about 30 km north of the county capital, depicting hunting and other scenes, are believed to be the work of ancient Wa artists.

       Traditional Wa culture included, and was much influenced by, the practice of headhunting. The Wa were farmers, of the slash-and-burn type, and fretted over threats to their crops. They believed that a human’s soul-force resided in the head.  It could be used to protect the crops.  So every spring, prior to planting, they went on expeditions to secure one or two heads to mount on tall poles overlooking the fields.  The further away they went the better, for then the soul-force couldn’t find its way back home.  Its power only lasted two years, usually the time when the field had to be changed, and another expedition would go out.

       Of course the family of the victim of a headhunting raid was not likely to pass it off as part of traditional culture, therefore OK.  They would want revenge, another reason why the expeditions traveled so far from their homes.  But just in case the revenge parties took the trouble to come, or closer villages opted to make raids in their vicinity, Wa villages built fortifications.  They surrounded the residential area, usually a hundred houses or more, with sharpened bamboo stakes and thick thorn bushes.  There was only one entrance, concealed by thorn bushes like the rest of the perimeter, but those who lived there knew where it was.

       With the establishment of the People’s Republic change came to the Wa Hills.  The government announced the banning of headhunting, slavery and the killing of twins, but gave the affected societies (Wa, Jingpo and Hani) until 1956 to phase such customs out. As for headhunting, it had been in abeyance for some time already.  Expeditions had ceased many years ago and the last recorded incident was one motivated by revenge, not protection for the rice crop.  The main effect of the decree was that Wa villages dismantled their fortifications. 

       Many of the larger villages broke up into smaller ones, but in the late 90s, when I visited the area, big old Wa villages still existed, like Nanpie near Nuoliang and Wengding near Mengjiao, the latter unfortunately consumed by fire this year.  Bamboo and wood was the main building material.  Houses stood on low stilts, with very steep sides, the roof thatch hanging nearly to the ground, with a small entry niche in the front.  Inside one small window allowed the smoke to escape.  The hearth was in the center and a tray suspended over the fire place held gourds, bamboo tubes and other items that the smoke would cover and make them impenetrable to insects.

     Cangyuan town, formerly called Mengtung, lies in a broad plain and is just ten km from the border.  Mountains rise just three km past the urban zone.  It’s not very large.  One can walk from end to end in half an hour.  The original Dai town lies along a small knoll just above the main market street.  As in Gengma, also once an autonomous Dai mini-state, each neighborhood has a posted name.  Some Wa have resettled in the town and, now that malaria has been eradicated, some Han have immigrated here to set up shops.  But the majority of Cangyuan town’s residents are Dai.

      Most of the Dai are farmers and on market day, held every five days, lay out vegetables for sale in the city streets.  Dai men and younger women tend to wear modern clothing, but the older women still prefer traditional clothing.  This consists of a sarong, long-sleeved, side-fastened jacket and a white turban.  The colors are usually subdued; dark blue, dark gray or black for the sarong, lighter shades for the jacket. 

       By contrast, the Wa women dress somewhat more colorfully.  They may be wearing a modern blouse or jacket, but usually don wraparound skirts with colored bands, woven ny themselves on a back-strap loom.  They are also distinguished by their long silver pipes, which practically every woman brings with her to the market.  The Wa have the greatest percentage of female smokers among all of Yunnan’s nationalities.  The Cangyuan Wa are not as colorful as their counterparts in Menglian, but they are just as friendly and very polite and hospitable to any surprise Western visitor.

       The same could be said about the Dai here.  Visiting temples and Dai neighborhoods I was frequently greeted with huanying—“welcome” in Chinese.  Their dialect differs from that spoken in Dehong or Xishuangbanna, but they share the same religion—the Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia.  Introduced by missionaries from Sri Lanka, where it originated, it took hold in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and in southern Yunnan among the Dai south and west of the Red River, the De’ang and Bulang.   

       The earliest Theravada temple in Cangyuan County, the Jinlong Temple, was erected in Mengjjiao, north of Cangyuan town, in 1380.  It remained the most prestigious temple in the area, but was leveled by Red Guard fanatics during the Cultural Revolution.  Reconstructed in 1980, an earthquake flattened it eight years later.

       In Cangyuan town, the Guangyunmian Temple dates its construction to 1828, sponsored by the Yunnan government.  Its style is a mixture of Burmese and Chinese, with gilded rising dragons flanking the entrance and a three-tiered separate building in the courtyard.  Murals of the Buddha’s life and contemporary social activities adorn the interior walls.  It had a few resident monks and about twenty novices when I visited, evidence that at least some Dai families were still following the Theravada custom of enrolling their sons for a temporary stay at the monastery.

       After 1956, when headhunting was officially abolished, Dai Buddhist monks began proselytizing among the Wa.  While most Wa held onto their animist beliefs, a significant proportion adopted Buddhism, especially around Ban Hong in the western part of the county.  The temple resembles an ordinary thatched Wa house on the exterior, but the interior is just like a Dai temple.   Like rural Dai, Buddhist Wa villages construct a special house for the sacred village pillar.  Besides adopting the Dai religion, Buddhist Wa also took other features of Dai culture, such as the garments of the women.  Buddhist Wa women still smoke, though.

       The road west from Banhong runs through hilly territory until it reaches the checkpoint at Mengkaba next to the Nanding River.  From here the road turns northeast and runs about a hundred meters above the river through a narrow gorge before descending back to the plain and passing several Dai villages on the way to Mengding.  Once a little Dai state with its own sawba, today it is scarcely more than a business center, only really active on market days, held every five days. 

       The scenic and very fertile plain along the Nanding River is home to two kinds of Dai.  The Han Dai, the original inhabitants, live away from the river, in houses sited on the ground, mostly north of the town and east of the highway.  Their women dress like those in Cangyuan County, usually in black sarongs and pale jackets, though with a very tight bodice that seems designed to flatten the breasts. They may also wear a conical cap of split bamboo over, or instead of, their turbans.  Their main temple in Mengding, of stone, wood and tiles in the Burmese style, has long been a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists in the area.

       The Shui Dai immigrated here from Xishuangbanna in the Qing Dynasty and established villages along the river south of Mengding.   Their women choose brighter colors for their outfits, often donning the same color sarong and jacket.  They live in houses above the ground, though they may use brick piles rather than wooden stilts, and usually have adjoining balconies.  Besides rice, sugar cane and vegetables, some of them have rubber tree plantations at the edge of the settled area.

 

      Nongmu, one of the largest Shui Dai villages, lies within walking distance south of Mengding, very near a bamboo plank suspension bridge over the river.  About a hundred meters long and three or four meters above the river, the bridge sways a bit when crossed and is used not only by people on foot or bicycle, but also three-wheeled taxis and loaded tractor-trailers.  Unlike some of the smaller villages, Nongmu has its own temple, an odd-looking building of gray stone with arched columns and a multi-gabled wooden roof.

       Besides the local Dai, Mengding’s market day also draws those from across the border. Many of the women smear tanaka wood paste on their cheeks, a common practice in Myanmar, that is supposed to keep their cheeks soft and smooth.  They often inscribe patterns on the paste, resembling the tattoos of the Dai men.  Wa and De’ang also turn up for market day, both to run stalls and to shop for themselves.

       Both the Wa and De’ang around Mengding are Buddhists.  Villages of both are small to medium size, with traditional stilted houses of wood, bamboo and thatch.  Not many have their own temples, yet they do have their sacred village pillar like the Dai.     

      The De’ang are one of the smallest minorities in Yunnan and have been Buddhist as long as the Dai.  In Myanmar and Thailand  they are known as Palong and distinctive for the women’s wide silver belt.  Such an item is rare among Yunnan’s De’ang, but they often wear rattan rings around the waist instead.  The sarong is usually black with thin red stripes, worn with a front-fastened, long-sleeved jacket of light green or blue, with broad red panels down the front.  Several De’ang villages lie around Qinshui, beyond Mangmei, a Wa and Lahu area, north of Mengding, and Junzhai, across the river.

       In a couple short trips I could not explore everything of interest on the Cangyuan to Mengding route.  Nature parks, remote villages, unobserved market days and attending Dai and Wa festivals still remain on my list of things to do on a future excursion.  And that would include more encounters with friendly, hospitable Dai, Wa and De’ang in their attractive, sometimes gorgeous, natural settings.

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Instant Friendships--Lisu Encounters in Nujiang

  

                                              by Jim Goodman

       After my first journey to Yunnan in 1992, I wanted to see every prefecture in Yunnan and eventually visited Nujiang in the summer of 1998.  Gongshan County was still closed to foreigners, so after a brief stay in Liuku I spent several days in Fugong County.  The mountain scenery along the river kept getting more beautiful further north.  Snow-capped peaks of over 4000 meters were already visible before Fugong city, even though it was the warmest month of the year.  Steep slopes on either side were lined with terraces and settlements speckled the hillsides.  Thick forests swathed the tops and some areas between the villages.

       I had good weather on my arrival and the enchanting landscape provoked me to vow to come again at different seasons.  But by the time I departed I had other reasons.  Nujiang was not on the usual tourist trail and I didn’t know anyone in Yunnan who had been there.  It was an Autonomous Lisu Prefecture because the Lisu made up the majority of the population.  So what would be the Lisu reaction to a Western visitor?  Would they ignore me?  Be too shy? Feel intruded upon by my camera?  Well, as it turned out they were quite friendly, easy to engage with, and only initially shy.  They were as curious about me as I was about them.

       The other attraction of Fugong that reinforced my desire to return was the very visible presence of traditional Lisu culture.  A large portion of the women, young and old, dressed in Lisu style, with long skirts white, blue, black or pinstriped gray, a side-fastened vest over a long-sleeved blouse, a beaded cap and ornaments of beads and shell disks. Some of the men wore the traditional front-fastened shirt of pinstriped gray, often with black cuffs and collar.  And both sexes carried the Lisu-style shoulder bag, even when they wore all modern clothes.

       Fugong stages market day every five days and it’s the most interesting in the whole prefecture both for the show of traditional garments and the range of products on sale.  Women run stalls selling Lisu skirts or jackets, others display ornaments, but besides the usual cosmetics, toiletries, shoes and such, other traditional Lisu products were also available.  These included an array of bamboo cups, beer mugs, spoons, ladles, smoking pipes and bongs.  Others sold baskets of split bamboo and there were several places to buy crossbows, crossbow bolts and bearskin quivers.  You could also buy crossbow victims, like the carcasses of flying squirrels and field rats, along with other animal parts—hooves, antlers, turtle shells--used as medicine.

       Crossbows are one of the salient traditions characterizing the culture of Nujiang.  Men took them to the fields just in case some edible prey appeared and carried them from their villages down to the city on market day, where the stalls selling them were busy with potential customers.  Nujiang is not the only place with crossbows.  They are popular in the Wa Hills, too.  But nowhere else are they so widely in use.

       I also spotted men with crossbows while taking a taxi north to Nujiang’s most famous mountain, called the Stone Moon after the big oval hole just below the peak.  The road rose above the river to provide a suitable viewpoint, as well as a tavern where the driver and I could share a couple drinks. I paid a hundred yuan for the excursion and the next day hired him for fifty yuan to take me to Dapuluo, a village north of Fugong that according to the map looked close to the main road.

       The map was deceptive.  The village lay up a steep slope.  The driver took me to the junction and informed me he could not take his vehicle up to Dapuluo but promised to come back to pick me up when I returned.  The road uphill was more like a wide dirt path, only suitable for tractor-trailers, and so rutted I preferred to walk anyway, which took an hour.  The houses, mostly wooden with slate roofs, lay in a cluster surrounded by rice fields.  It was planting time so most villagers were at their farms.

       After wandering around taking pictures, it was time to go back down and meet the driver, who was already waiting for me.  Before taking me back to Fugong he wanted me to have a meal at his home first.  Maybe he felt guilty about charging me so much just to go several km to the Dapuluo junction.  It was a lavish and leisurely chicken dinner, washed down with rice liquor, with conversations about my life in northern Thailand, the Akha and Lisu there, my research in Yunnan and me learning how to say things in the local Lisu dialect.  My new friend later spread the news about me, for the following morning during market day in Fugong I overheard men speaking about the American from Thailand researching ethnic minorities.  A few introduced themselves and asked me to compare Yunnan and northern Thailand.

       Well, it was going to be easy to make friends here, so two years later, after Gongshan County was open to foreigners, I decided to make Nujiang the primary focus of my Yunnan research.  I started with a few days in Gongshan, including Bingzhongluo and the First Turn of the Nu River.  On the long bus ride to Gongshan I became familiar with another major feature of the Nujiang canyon—rope-bridges crossing the river.  Formerly made of split bamboo, which required changing after a while, now they were wound steel cables, almost all in pairs, and still in regular use, especially those near market day venues.

       Leaving Gongshan, I opted to spend a night In Lishadi, in Fugong County north of the Stone Moon, a picturesque town with tall pointed peaks right next to it.  After arriving I headed for the rope-bridge just north of the town that connected the riverbank to the Lisu village of Heizao.  From a distance I observed two men crossing over to the other side, but they were long gone by the time I reached the hook-up point.  However, after a few minutes four little girls came to the other side, hitched up with two harnesses on single cable hooks and then, without parental/adult supervision, the two pairs crossed and re-crossed the swirling river several times.  Witnessing this I deduced 1) it can’t be dangerous and 2) it must be fun.

       On the way back to Lishadi I stopped at a small sewing shop because a beautiful young Lisu woman in full traditional clothing and ornaments was inside visiting her friend the owner.  I took the opportunity to try using the Lisu language small talk I had picked up so far.  She was surprised, of course, and blushed a lot, but the short conversation was successful.  She was from Heizao so I asked her if she rode the rope-bridge.  By way of answering she reached into her pack-basket and pulled up her rope harness and cable hook.  Everyone who lived there had their own gear. 

       So the next time I visited Fugong I asked a Lisu woman I knew running a handicrafts shop to purchase a harness and cable hook for me.  But the nearest rope-bridge was one of the rare single cable types, where I would have to pull myself over from halfway across the river.  A Lisu man in the area came over and I explained, in simple Chinese, what I wanted to do and why here was not the right spot.  He offered to take me to Damedi, several km south, with its ordinary sloping pair of rope-bridges.  And there I experienced my first crossing of the Nu River in the time-honored traditional way.

       My next ambition was to use the Lishadi rope bridge with the excuse to deliver photos of the kids I had watched the previous trip.  It was market day but still early and a young man had just crossed when I arrived at the hook-up point.  He offered to take me to the village.  He left his own cable hook behind and hitched his simpler belt harness to my hook.  We failed to locate the girl I met in the shop but we did find the little girls.  My new friend kept repeating how delighted the girls were with their photos, while the parents plied us with steamed buns and cups of rice liquor. 

       Rope-bridges are not unique to Nujiang.  I saw my first one in use near Qiaotou on the way to Shangrila.  And there are still some along the upper Lancangjiang.  But, like the crossbows, only in Nujiang are they so widely in use.  I took my harness and cable hook with me on several subsequent excursions to Nujiang.  I counted 28 rope-bridges in the canyon, two of them single cables and the rest in pairs.  I rode across the Nu River at eight locations, some more than once.  It was a great way to make a favorable impression on the local people, especially those who had never ridden one themselves.

       It helped make new friends, too.  I carried the cable hook and rope harness in a shoulder bag so part of it was visible and recognizable to people in, for example, Lumadeng on market day.  Very quickly a Lisu man approached, guessed why I had such gear and offered to take me to the rope-bridge a few km north of the town.  He took his own gear along, made sure I tied up correctly and we rode across in tandem and back.  After that it was off to his house for snacks and beers, where his wife happened to be weaving at the time.  That was a skill I knew well and had even picked up a lot of the Lisu vocabulary about it, enabling me to make a few relevant comments to her and compare her narrow loom to similar Akha looms in Thailand.

       I returned to both Lishadi and Lumadeng a few times over the years, both for the rope-bridges and the colorful market days, where most Lisu dressed in traditional style.  They each had areas for drinking local maize beer and rice liquor.  Villages on the slopes were fun to visit because most were non-Christian, unable to pass up a chance to meet their first foreign guest and eager to demonstrate their hospitality by getting that guest pretty inebriated.  Their houses were usually wooden, stilted when on steep gradients, with thatch or tile roofs, simple interiors and minimal furniture.  The hearth was in the center with a bamboo tray suspended above where they stored bamboo baskets and vessels, which would be cured by the smoke from the cooking fire. Hunting trophies, like horned heads of barking deer, they might also mount above the hearth. Big ovens and storage containers flanked the rear wall.

       South of Fugong the houses are usually on stone foundations and most are Christian.  They are just as friendly and hospitable and eager to impress a guest.  They serve tea, though, not alcohol, because Christians, the sect here anyway, don’t drink or smoke.  They could make exceptions, however, as I found out on a trip to Anicha, a Christian Lisu village high up in the Gaoligong Mountains a little south of Fugong, site of a Dulong Cattle ranch.

       Dulong Cattle are raised for their meat and never used as traction animals. They are easy to manage and would provide an extra income for the village.  The project was started by Bobby Morse from Chiang Mai, whose family had been Protestant missionaries in Nujiang before 1949.  His Fugong manager took me up there.  As our hosts prepared our dinner they asked me if I drink liquor with my meal.  “Sometimes,” I answered, not to obligate them.  But perhaps it did, for they went out and fetched a ‘lax’ Christian villager to bring a bottle of corn liquor and drink with me.  I had my alcohol and a companion to converse with

       My final trip to Nujiang coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival.  But aside from moon cakes in the Fugong market there was no sign of the celebration.  The Christians don’t mark it and neither, apparently, do the animists.  Told of a traditional village high up the slope not far from the city, I hiked there hoping for good news.  Alas, more than one resident informed me nothing was scheduled. It began to drizzle so a family invited me into their house.  

       Inside I spotted a crossbow in the corner and two trophies, an eagle and a pheasant, mounted on the wall.  Both were headless, probably because their heads were inserted into bottles of home-made liquor, like I’d seen among the Yi of Ninglang.  They also had a loom that was used for making straw floor mats, with stones tied to weight the heddle threads.  Hadn’t seen that before.

       The rain stopped before I got too drunk.  I thanked the family for their hospitality and thanked the rain for delaying my departure and enabling me to learn about one more aspect of Nujiang culture.  If I ever make it back, I’m sure there is more to discover.  All I need to do is make new friends—easy among the Lisu of Nujiang.

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In Search of Lampang’s History

                                                                    by Jim Goodman

 

       The third largest city in Northern Thailand, Lampang, straddling the Wang River and home to a variety of temples and other attractions, gets a good share of the tourist visits.  Just a hundred kilometers from Chiang Mai, its major sites can be done in a day-trip, even when combined with a stop in the elephant camp on the way.  Overnight excursions are also popular, especially weekends, with their evening street markets.  Fridays the venue is Cultural Street, in Wiang Neua, the oldest part of the city.  Saturdays and Sundays it’s on Kad Kong Ta, along the river, a street featuring splendid, century-old houses built by merchants from the teak wallah years.  

       While exploring these neighborhoods, visitors get a feel for the city’s antiquity.  Many of the old town temples date from the Kingdom of Lanna era, 14^th-17^th centuries, while the Kad Kong Ta houses, Burmese-style temples, clock tower and railway line and station represent Lampang’s special prosperity in the golden years of the teakwood business.  But these are just part of Lampang’s history, for it is the second oldest city in all of Lanna, established many centuries before Thais had even begun living in Northern Thailand

         The first city was Haripunchai, now called Lamphun, founded in the 7^th century and ruled by Queen Chamadevi, the most remarkable and accomplished woman in Thailand’s history.  Although no contemporary written records exist, no scholar challenges the fact that Chamadevi was a real historical person, even if her life story has been embellished by legend.

       She was born in a village west of Lamphun.  While still a baby she was supposedly grabbed by an eagle that flew to Doi Suthep.  The hermit Wasuthep, after whom the mountain was eventually named, harried the bird into dropping her into a pond, where a lotus flower sprouted to receive her.  Wasuthep raised the girl, named her Vi, taught her martial arts as well as other lessons of life and at her puberty divined her future.  Discovering she was destined to rule a new state, he decided to send her down to the Mon state of Lawo, today’s Lopburi, to be properly trained for this role.  He dispatched her on a boat all the way down to Lawo, which took a few months, with a pair of monkeys as companions, said to be the origin of contemporary Lopburi’s large monkey community.

       Lawo’s rulers assumed her surprise arrival to be an auspicious event.  They adopted her into the royal family, renamed her Chamadevi, and after a few years formally installed her as a princess.  She was already quite beautiful then and aroused marriage suits from princes in other Mon states.  When she refused one offer the suitor led an attack on Lawo in order to seize her.  Chamadevi aroused Lawo troops and allies and led the successful counterattack.  She did get pregnant later by a lover who enrolled in a monastery afterwards.  Meanwhile, Wasuthep up north decided it was time for Chamadevi to return to administer the newly laid out city of Haripunchai. 

       Chamadevi left Lawo by boat, a journey that took several months, and after being ceremonially installed as Haripunchai’s sovereign, a week later she gave birth to twin boys, Mahantayot and Anantayot.  She sponsored Theravada Buddhism as the state religion and several years later she mortally defeated the local Lawa chieftain Viranka, taking his domain under Haripunchai’s jurisdiction, yet diplomatically arranged for her sons to marry Viranka’s two daughters. 

       Chamadevi then pushed south, over the Kuntan Mountain Range, and founded Khelang, today’s Lampang. Khelang, 70 km south of Haripunchai, lies on the Wang River and was an important post on the trade routes to other Mon states.  Its layout was in the shape of a conch, surrounded by walls and moats, just like Haripunchai.  After abdicating as queen, leaving Mahantayot as Haripunchai’s sovereign, she retired to Khelang, where her other son Anantayot was the ruler.  At the age of 89 she died in Khelang and her son had the corpse taken to Haripunchai for the cremation. 

      Khelang continued to be the second most important city in the state.  It also bore the brunt of three Khmer attacks in the 12^th century.  Haripunchai repulsed all of them and the victorious Mon king, head of the only Mon state not to be absorbed by Angkor’s expansion into central Thailand, built the golden chedi at Wat Haripunchai over what was Chamadevi’s original residence, and the chedis at Wat Chamadevi.  An earthquake flattened the latter, but in the early 13^th century they were rebuilt  The smaller of the two contains her ashes.

       By then Tai Yuan had begun emigrating to Haripunchai and in the mid-13^th century they were able to overthrow the Mon dynasty and install a Tai Yuan sovereign.  Later that century King Mengrai of Lanna conquered the city with the local royal family’s cooperation and Khelang was soon absorbed as well, its name subsequently changed to Lakhon.  Still, the city retained its local autonomy and prospered enough to afford new temples, many still extant, in the classic Lanna style.      

         The legacy of Lampang’s Haripunchai era is not very visible.  The city does have a Chamadevi shrine and a few famous temples nearby, like Wat Phra That Sadet, Wat Pang Yong Khok and Wat Lampang Luang, are restorations of ones originally founded in Chamadevi’s time.  Within today’s city limits the oldest extant relic is the stump of a brick chedi in the grounds of Wat Don Tao, first built by King Anantayot in the early 8^th century.  More extensive ruins are at Wat Muen Khruen, from the early 13^th century, just outside Pratu Ma, the northeastern gate.  The tapered, bell-shaped chedi has been restored but otherwise only the foundations of other buildings remain from a compound built three generations before the Lanna conquest.

       A few other temple ruins augment Lampang’s historical atmosphere.  In the heart of the old Wiang Neua quarter stands a relatively well preserved compound gate called Ku Chao Ya Suta, built in the late 14^th century.  It is embellished with full relief sculptures over the arch and on the sides and is the entrance to Wat Kak Kaeo, where only the foundations of the other buildings remain. 

       Similarly, at Wat Pa Phrao, constructed in the mid-15^th century, also outside Pratu Ma in the same neighborhood as Wat Muen Khruen, only the chedi still stands and it’s missing its upper spire. Its name can be translated as ‘place of the coconuts’.  It was outside the city walls, so may well have originally been, along with the older Wat Muen Khruen, a kind of forest temple.  A third abandoned ruin, in Wiang Neua, is the big but dilapidated chedi of Wat Umong, the only surviving remnant, tucked inside a crowded residential neighborhood.

       Other temples erected in the Lanna era are still is use, renovated in a manner that reflected the original design, of wooden buildings without the addition of paint or plaster, with roofs of dark tiles.  Wat Pathuton in a quiet part of Wiang Neua is an outstanding example, featuring fine carvings on the doors, classic Lanna viharn and a black chedi with gold embellishments.  It was named after one of the city’s former gates and part of the old city wall flanks its courtyard.

       Even more interesting is Wat Pong Yang Khok, southwest of the city past Lampang Luang.  According to the origin legend, Chamadevi was on her way to Lampang Luang when her elephant suddenly stopped and bowed.  The queen decided to spend the night there and prayed for a miraculous sign.  Then a halo of Buddha relics flashed over an anthill.  Chamadevi ordered a temple built over the anthill.

       The rather small viharn here is named after Chamadevi and renovated five hundred years ago.  The tall and wide building behind it, called the ‘castle’, went up around that time and now serves as the monks’ quarters.  A statue of Chamadevi stands outside on a pedestal across the street.  Within the compound is also a small shrine to the elephant that bowed to the Buddha, originally constructed, like the viharn, in 710.  Another shrine features a portrait, behind the Buddha image, of Po Thip Chang, the Lampang hero who freed the city from Burmese rule in the 18^th century.

       A similar origin story narrates the founding of Wat Lin Hai, also in the same area.  An elephant carrying a Buddha relic from India stopped to bow at this site.  In 1683 a prince from Kengtung in northeast Myanmar, sponsored the construction of the temple here.  The viharn is in classic Lanna style and the entry gate features wonderful stucco sculptures.  The temple’s museum contains many antique artifacts, household goods, jewelry and sculptures

        As the southern part of the Kingdom of Lanna, Lampang was a target for attacks by Ayutthaya, which captured the city in 1515, but later withdrew.  The Burmese Kingdom of Ava conquered Lanna in 1558, but left local rulers as autonomous governors.  In 1660 King Narai of Ayutthaya marched his armies north and expelled the Burmese from most of Lanna.  But when Ayutthaya withdrew after Narai’s death, Ava reasserted control and installed its own governors.

       Still, Lampang was a long way from Ava and never fully resigned to foreign rule.  Revolts broke out periodically and in 1732, led by native Po Thip Chang, Lampang recovered its autonomy, which Ava reluctantly recognized and it was a quarter century before Ava re-imposed its rule.  In 1767 Ava destroyed Ayutthaya, but the survivors regrouped and founded a new state, the Kingdom of Siam, its capital on the Chao Phaya River, and began challenging an Ava in retreat just fifteen years later.

       Lampang under its ruler Kawila declared independence from Ava and made an alliance with Siam.  Ava attacked and besieged Lampang for three months in 1783, until an army from Siam relieved the city and drove the Burmese from the area.  Kawila’s forces continued to push Ava out of northern Thailand and re-established the state of Lanna as a vassal of Siam.  (From then on Lakhon became officially known as Lampang.)  Yet the Burmese threat persisted for another couple decades and one of the first tasks of the new government in Lanna was to strengthen its cities’ defenses.

       Lampang rebuilt its walls but these gradually disappeared as peace endured, the threat ended and the city expanded.  In recent years Pratu Ma, the Horse Gate, was reconstructed and on each end of it some remnants of the original mounds, bricks and moat remain in place.  Near the river in Wiang Nuea is the Ho Amok Tower, erected in 1808 and designed to support cannons along the top.  It was never used for defensive action but was left as a legacy of a bygone yet important historical era.

       Over the course of the 19^th century Lanna gradually lost its autonomy and became fully integrated with Siam, politically and economically.  By 1900 Lampang was prospering, thanks to the launching of the teak business.  Loggers cut trees in the forest.  Elephants dragged out the logs and formed them into rafts at the riverside.  These rafts floated down the Wang River to its junction with the Chao Phaya and then on to Bangkok.

       Thai people living near the forests were at that time unwilling to work in them, so the logging captains encouraged immigration from Burma, then a British colony.  As a result many Burmese-style temples appeared in the city, especially across the river from the old town.  With their very different architectural features they add to the city’s variety as well as represent a distinct historical period.

       Likewise, so do the houses constructed for the teak wallahs.  Most of them still house descendants of the original owners, like the mansions along Kad Kong Ta.  The grandest of them is Baan Sao Mak, the House of Twenty Pillars, in a neighborhood nearby, which now serves as a museum, with a fascinating array of antique furniture inside.  A short stroll from Wat Pratuphong stands the old two-story house that belonged to Louis Leonowens, the husband of Anna of Anna and the King of Siam fame.  Not much is left of the furnishings, but in the yard is one of the early 20^th century trucks used to transport teak logs and other displays of the trade.

       The final legacy of the teak trade period is the Lampang train station, which opened in 1916 to connect the city with Bangkok, 642 km south.  Logs moved much more expeditiously after that.  By then Chiang Mai was into the business, too, so construction began to extend the line.  The Kuntan Mountains Range was in the way, so workers created a tunnel through it and then two double-span bridges across streams; the White Bridge just north of the tunnel and the Black Bridge beside Lamphun.  Chiang Mai railway station opened in 1921.

       The logging business has ceased, but Lampang today reflects its commercial success in other trades and industries, including tourism. For visitors Lampang has many relics from throughout its history, waiting to be appreciated.  After all, the city has been continuously inhabited for nearly 1400 years.

   

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