Page 43 - A History of Siam

A HISTORY OF SIAM 41

hair, rare among men of pure Tai race, is often to be
seen there, and the curious chanting voice and clipped
words of the Peninsular Siamese is to bear some
[said
resemblance to Sakai
speech.
In northern Siam dwelt a different race, the Was
or Lawas. These have like the been
people not, Sakais,
almost exterminated. To the north of Burma
they
still inhabit several extensive districts. They are there
divided into the wild and the tame Was. The former
are known their habit of
chiefly through collecting
human heads, and decorating the approaches of
their with rows of skulls. The tame Was
villages
of the Shan States, and their brethren the Lawas of
Siam, have long since abandoned these ghoulish
and live as cultivators or hunters
practices, peaceful
in their mountain Most of the Lawas of
villages.
Siam are now Buddhists. 1
The Was and Lawas are rather tall, of fair complexion,
and in and manners.
generally pleasing appearance
The present Laos, or Tai of northern Siam, show distinct
traces of Lawa blood. 1
Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before
the Christian era, another race of men settled in southern
Siam, and gradually dispossessed and almost exterminated
the inhabitants. These
aboriginal Negrito (Sakai)
intruders were the Khmers. Their is
origin uncertain,
but were members of a race which now numbers
they
many millions of descendants in the Indo-Chinese
1
Heylyn, in his Cosmo graphic (London, 1664), says that the Laps were obliged
to seek the protection of Siam owing to constant attacks by the hill tribes, called
"
Guc'om," who used to kill and eat their prisoners. This may point to a tradition
that the Lawas of northern Siam were at one tune head-hunters.
*
In the southern Shan State of Kengtung, the present inhabitants of which
arc Tai, a curious custom still exists. At the inauguration ceremony of each
ruling Prince, two Was are brought down from one of their mountain villages,
and take a prominent part in the proceedings. This is supposed to be an acknow-
ledgment that the Was were once masters of the country. Ethnically and
linguistically the Was or Lawas are allied to the Mon-Khmer race.