Anthropological Archives Database

Village Questionaire 1969

A questionnaire in which information is collected about village names, headmen, tribal affiliation, other tribal residents in the village, the village history, village personnel, rice, livestock, remunerated livelihoods, special purchases, hiring, relations with other villages, specific contacts and special features of the village.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

Changing the guard (General Tuan Shin Wen visit)

Lucien Hanks visited General Tuan Shih-wen, leader of the 93rd division of the Kuomintang, in Mae Salong in 1979. Previously encountered in 1964 as a military camp, by 1979 it was a village housing many refugee Chinese, and opium cultivation had given way to tea plantations. While there, Hanks investigated the background of General Tuan Shih-wen.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

First monthly report of the Benington-Cornell Survey of a Hill Region in Thailand

6 December 1963 – Hanks report to the Department of Public Welfare, the Border Police, and the National Research Council from Nikhom Chiengdao, Mae Taeng District, Chiang Mai Province. Included in the report are details of the researchers’ life there, information on members of the research team, ethnic groups in the settlement and their relationship with Thai people, their participation in national life and the education of their children.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Bang Chan, Bangkok

Entourage in Southern Thailand

A pyramidal patronage system exists throughout much of Southeast Asia, in which the power of the leader to attract acolytes depends on individual relationships. Politicians gain acolytes through deals they make in return for co-operation. An acolyte of one leader may in turn become a leader of his own personal group.Social solidarity runs along hierarchic lines rather than in the typically layered group of equals. The poor seek protection from the well-placed, while the wealthy grow richer by investing in people rather than by amassing impersonal wealth. The entourage system thus appears as the cardinal principle for understanding social behavior.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Bang Chan, Bangkok

The Overseas Chinese in Southern Asia

Many of the overseas Chinese who have emigrated to Southeast Asia married and settled down in the new country, only perhaps returning to China towards to end of their lives. With emigration a typically male phenomenon, many Chinese emigrants have married local women, thereby expediting assimilation. However, a combination of Chinese pride in their ancient culture and hostility among the indigenous inhabitants has meant that assimilation has not always been smooth, and this problem has become acute with the rise of nationalism. As a result, many overseas Chinese, even several generations down the line, still retain their Chinese customs and behavior. The economic role of the overseas Chinese is the key to their political importance, filling as they do the gap between the indigenous high government officials and native peasants. The oldest group of overseas Chinese are the Yunnanese Chinese Muslims known as “Haw”. Yunnanese Chinese, a remnant of the Kuomintang army, now live in the northern border region of Thailand.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

Persia and China : their responses to the Mongol Invasion

Lucien M. Hanks compares the responses to Mongol invasion of both societies to a typical laboratory procedure in science, whereby acid is poured over two unknown substances, the reactions of which to the acid are indicative of their characteristics.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

Lahu (pp 249 et seq)

The Lahu live in China, Thailand and Myanmar. Although most are uneducated, education and military conscription are eradicating the traditional Lahu way of life. Nonetheless, education can be seen to have advantages for the Lahu people, who through education learn how to live more hygienically and how to take better pride in themselves. While appearance and language are changing, the traditional religion remains strong, with strong animist tendencies. In Thailand, Lahu are only known by official class, and they rarely intermingle with the people of the plains. As a result, their understanding of the wider world is limited, and, cut off from society, they find it difficult to make progress

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

Akha through Time and Space

Originally from China, the Akha settled for many years in Myanmar’s Shan State before crossing over into the mountainous areas of Chiang Rai Province in Thailand, where Hanks’ informants were based. The Akha are the southernmost extension of the Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples that include the Woni and the Hani in China. Like other Tibeto-Burman speaking groups, they maintain their tribal and personal history through oral recitations of the names of people and places.

by : Lucien and Jane Hanks

Upland people in Northern Thailand

The Power of Akha Women

Jane R. Hanks began her research in 1963 by surveying the upland tribes living in the Mae Kok/Mae Kham rivers drainages in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province. The Akha way of life reflects balanced gender roles. In the context of the community and household, a demarcation is made between the areas of male and female capacities and responsibilities, and between the practical and ritual spheres. In her work Hanks sketches a woman’s life and projects it into the cosmological sphere, where the meaning of sexual intercourse among the Akha is developed. The power of Akha women to conceive is perceived in its relation to Akha society and the spirit world.