A brief history of Lanna

By Dave Besseling

Visitors to the north of Thailand will quickly notice that the word ‘Lanna’ is used to tout everything from massage parlours to coffee; one of the most prominent usages being tourist-orientated ‘events’ such as Khantoke dinners and Lanna dancing shows that masquerade as the proud traditions of the region.

This commercial opportunism in the guise of authenticity is a shame since the real Lanna culture never rose to such prominence compared with its Khmer neighbours, for example. This modern codswallop is effectively taking the region’s name in vain while we are all too ill-informed to know true Lanna from the packaged version.

Hundreds of ancient temples are Chiang Mai’s legacy

The area known as Lanna covers a fairly wide geographical space and a wide array of native tribal cultures. Looking at the clothing of the hill tribes, you can see who has borrowed what style from whom and which formerly separate groups have merged. These people wear their homelands on their sleeves, literally. This must be studied carefully however, as these days the percentage of people wearing their true ‘colours’ in Chaing Mai are few and far between.

The ancient kingdom spread from Shan state of eastern Burma, across Yunnan province in southern China and into the western valleys of Laos. What is now referred to as northern Thailand was in fact the epicentre of Lanna, formerly known as Sip Song Panna: the land of a thousand rice fields, an agrarian utopia.

The citizens of Lanna have always been farmers, the population comprised of extensive pockets of hill tribes that spread throughout the mountainous terrain and the most fertile flatlands. The region’s specialty crop was and still is a special rice grain grown only on Lanna turf, that when steamed becomes viscid and glutinous, known as ‘sticky rice’. The citizens of Lanna, the land of a thousand rice fields, are the sticky rice eaters.

So fertile is the land in Lanna, that farmers can grow two crops of rice a year, meaning the work-year totals to about four months, leaving plenty of time to digest the notoriously heavy sticky rice. Modern observers of this lineage may even equate the easy-going nature of the Lanna people to the fact that they’re often too full of sticky rice to be very active or ambitious.

The three kings who founded three early Northern Kingdoms

Even today in Chaing Mai, the former capital of the Lanna kingdom, founded in 1262, the people’s heritage shines through. The Three King’s Monument in the old town is a rallying point of history honouring King Mengrai and his two royal friends from Phrae and Sukhothai. Their relaxed nature makes life here seem a laid-back affair, but try and do business here and the ‘sabai sabai’ lifestyle will demand some lessons in patience.

Religion runs deep in Lanna, with Theravada Buddhism complementing the animistic worship of the people. On each side of the Buddha in any number of temples in northern Thailand, you’ll see two hanging pieces of oblong-shaped fabric. These are animistic totems to dead ancestors, who are venerated in every home of the kingdom.

Chedi Luang was the tallest structure until the 1950s

If you visit a Lanna family and there are many guests, as a foreigner you may find yourself sleeping under a shrine full of melted candle wax and photos of dead family members. Superstition runs high here, and a Thai would think twice before sleeping in the prayer room, especially if they’ve had a few whiskies after dinner, which means you may have the place to yourself.

Anyone who has been to Thailand before will have seen the spirit houses placed outside homes and businesses. The bigger the business, the bigger the shrine, and there are a few outside shopping malls and hotels that may provoke you to ask: at what physical size does sentiment fade into garish ostentation?

Perhaps one reason Thailand and its people are so smiley and friendly is that besides the fact that they are generally a good natured bunch due to their relatively peaceful history, they have never been colonised by a foreign power. The English had Burma and the French had Laos and Vietnam, making the Lanna paradigm all the more pure in Thailand.

The contemporary north is still the best place to explore the history of Lanna culture, even if the region is in danger of distorting its true heritage into something unrecognisable from the real thing.