Khon Muang

Book excerpt: The Khon Muang, or 'People of the Principalities; inhabit the hills and valleys of Northern Thailand - formerly known as Lanna, or the 'Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields.' In times past the people of the north spoke a different language to the central Thais. They dressed differently, women wore their hair long in contrast to the men covered their bodies with intricate tattoos to ward of sickness and injury in the times of war. The Golden Age of the Lanna Kingdom was in the 13th-15th centuries, when Chiang Mai, the region's capital, treated on equal terms with Siam, Burma, Laos, and even distant Sri Lanka. Then came Burmese Conquest, Siamese invasion, and subsequent cultural domination by Bangkok. In recent years, however, amid signs of a general cultural rebirth, the Khon Muang have strated to rediscover their past.