Lung and Pa


    The Lung, and more especially the Pa, play an important part in the subsequent history of the race. At the early time of their mention in the Annals, the Pa were living under a government of their own: for a Chinese minister was sent them. Whether or not thier government was one with that of their Mung brethern, already so well established in the same general region, is matter of conjecture, not of record.
    And whether the three kindred tribes of the race living in western Sze-ch'aun at that pre-Herbraic time had taken on the race-name Lao or Ai-Lao or not, is matter for another conjecture. They may easily have done so and the name not appear in the record. For it is common thing today for members of this race to bear at the same time the race name and also a tribal name. The modern Pa call themselves Tai, but would appear in any Chinese record as Pa-yi. The Lu, Hkon, and other tribes of the Tai acknowledge both race-name and tribal.
    What the modern Pa do, their ancestors may have done. No argument against a raceconsciousness or a race-name can be drawn from the silence of history about them, or the occurrence of tribal names, either in 1971 B.C. or 2200 B.C.

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  • THE TAI RACE , by Dr. William Clifton Dodd, Thirty-three Years a Missionary to the Thai Peoples in Thailand, Burma and China, page 4-5.
  • THE TAI RACE RESEARCH, by Luang Vichitvatrakran, Colonel, Bangkok, Thailand, 1969