| Society-CENTRAL-THAI Central Thailand covers an area of about 62,000 square miles, and is bordered by the Bilauktaung Range on the west and the Phetchabun Mountains on the east. The Chao Phraya (Menam) River flows through the central plains area, and each year, by flooding its banks, deposits the fertile silt that has made this region the largest producer of rice in all Thailand. The Thai language is spoken by 85 percent of the population in Thailand. Except for the Chinese and Indian minorities, the Muslim Malay of the south, and some tribal groups, all people in Thailand speak one of the four dialects of Thai. These dialects (Northern, Northeastern, Central, Southern) correspond to the four main geographical areas of Thailand. As of 1960, there were 10 million speakers of the Central or Bangkok dialect in Central Thailand. This dialect is the official language of the country and is taught in the schools and used for official communications. Also, because Bangkok is the cultural and political center of Thailand, the Central Dialect is the most reputable. Dialect differences are becoming less important in interpersonal relations due to improved communications and educational facilities and to the Thai government's attempt to strengthen the national consciousness of the Thai people. There has been much controversy in the linguistic literature as to how the Thai language should be classified. Generally, it has been included within the Sino-Tibetan phylum. More recently, however, Benedict (1975) has made a strong case for classifying Thai within a Kadai language group, which forms part of an Austro-Thai macro-phylum, along with Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) and Miao-Yao. According to the 1960 census, the population of Thailand (excluding the migratory hill tribes of the north and northeast) was 26,392,000. Using 3.1 percent as the estimated growth rate, as given by the National Statistical Office, the population for 1975 can be estimated at approximately 43,000,000. The Chao Phyraya Valley in Central Thailand is the most densely populated area of the country, supporting between 800 to 1,000 people per cultivated square mile (in 1960). This area, which comprises 30 percent of Thailand's land area, contains 40 percent of the total population. Although the Thai government is aware that measures must be taken to control the rate of population increase, it has not yet formulated an official population control policy. And even though the population is steadily increasing, there is no evidence of population pressure, at least according to Asian standards, and there is enough land to support an increasing population, even with an improving standard of living. The Central Thai can be characterized as rural rice agriculturalists who work their own land. Their settlement patterns are of two types. In the first, a line of houses faces a waterway or road, with only occasional clustering; unfenced fields are located at the back of the houses. In the second type, a circular group of houses is set among the fields or fruit trees and is connected to the main road by a path. Because most communication is by boat or foot, each house must have access to the road or waterway. The settlement pattern is more dispersed in the central plains than it is in the north, where the arrangement is more compact. The size of settlements ranges from 300 to 3,000 people. Agriculture forms the basis of the economy, but all rural people also fish. The principal crop grown in the heavy, dark, clay soil of the central plains area is nonglutinous rice, mainly for export. Usually, wet rice is grown in permanent fields which are worked by both men and women. Other commercial crops grown include sugarcane, tobacco, rubber, coconuts, condiments, and cotton. Crops grown for domestic consumption are yams, cassava, chilies, eggplant, and beans. In this area, 75 percent (in 1953) of the farmers work land they own themselves. Landownership however, is declining. Renting land is on a cash or crop basis. Descent is reckoned ambilineally, and lateral connections are made by grouping siblings together with cousins and their spouses. Two types of kindred groupings are found in the central plains. The first is the multihousehold compound in which siblings' parents and married children, cousins, and co-wives and their children live adjacent to each other in two or more separate houses facing a common area. The people in this type of arrangement cooperate with each other in common enterprises. The second type is the hamlet cluster in which each household is independent, with its own compound. The group of houses forms a distinguishable unit, whose members exchange labor. In social relationships, the emphasis is entirely on age. This emphasis is reflected in the Thai language in which the relative ages of people are indicated by most kinship terms. Kinship terms are also used in colloquial Thai to express respect and affection toward nonrelatives. The family is composed of those people who cook and eat meals at the same hearth and who also participate in joint economic enterprises, usually farming. The most common minimal domestic unit is the nuclear family often joined by various relatives. In marriage, the choice of a mate is left to the young people and opportunities for courtship are common. Elopement (usually) occurs only among the poor. Contemporary marriages are monogamous, but polygyny was common among the nobility in the past. After marriage, the couple usually establish their own household; among the poor or rural people, however, the couple may elect to live briefly with the bride's family. Village endogamy is preferred. Divorce or separation is by mutual agreement. Property is divided equally, and the children may accompany either parent. Social stratification is based on age, occupation, wealth, and residence. On the social scale, the rural farmers rank below the artisans, merchants, and government officials, but there is social mobility in Thai society. The priesthood is considered to be apart from the rest of society. In rural areas, provinces are subdivided into districts, communes, and villages. There are also administrative units, with headmen who are elected from hamlets and communes. The duties of these headmen are to communicate with the people of the district and to recruit labor for special tasks. The central government of Thailand provides public and social services through local agents while the district government uses unpaid local labor to maintain highways, schools, irrigation systems, and so forth. The major religion in Thailand is Theravada Buddhism; only a small percentage of the population is Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or Confucian. Religion is the dominant force in Thai life, and the people devote much time and money to festivals, rituals, and merit-making. The temple symbolizes their religion, and Buddhist monks are held in high esteem. Buddhist values have such an important role in Thai culture that they can be found in the mores, arts, literature, metaphysics, and so on. Animism is also prevalent, and this belief permeates Thai Buddhism. For more extensive information on Thailand, including the Central Thai, see Moore (1974) and Hanks and Hanks (1974). The data in this file focus on the community of Bang Chan, located approximately 20 miles northeast of Bangkok. Bang Chan was chosen by the Cornell Thailand Project (Southeast Asia Program) in the early 1950s for a study of cultural change. A 1956 village census of Bang Chan states that there were 1,771 people, comprising 296 households. The village is spread out over an area of five square miles, allowing the people to be near their fields. Bang Chan contains a Buddhist monastery and an elementary school, giving the dispersed village its identity as a unit. It is composed of seven hamlets. Both of the settlement types mentioned above are present, but the linear pattern predominates. Because of a decentralized administration, divided between the hamlets and two communes, community-wide projects and a sense of village solidarity do not exist except for religious festivals. The nuclear family and the loosely-defined kindred are the principal groups with which the people identify. The school, the monastery, and the nation-state are the only other institutions that serve as foci of loyalty. Only one hour by road and three hours by canal from Bangkok, the people of Bang Chan are much more cosmopolitan than their more rural neighbors. Bangkok provides jobs, schools, markets, entertainment, and mass communication that are not available to most rural Thai. Despite their proximity to Bangkok, however, the people of Bang Chan are basically rice-cultivating peasants whose lives are centered on the land. See Hanks and Richardson (1964) for an overview of life in Bang Chan. Culture summary by Heather M. Fellows Benedict, Paul K. Austro-Thai: Language and culture, with a glossary of roots. New Haven, HRAF Press, 1975. Hanks, Lucien M., Jr. Siamese Tai. By Lucien M. Hanks, Jr. and Jane Richardson Hanks. In Frank M. LeBar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John M. Musgrave. Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964: 197-205. Moore, Frank J. Thailand. With chapters by Clark D. Neher. New Haven, HRAF Press, 1974. Phillips, Herbert P. Thai peasant personality: the patterning of interpersonal behavior in the village of Bang Chan. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1966. 14, 231 p. tables. 7836 | |
|
