Khammu man's work

Being a Kammu boy meant to be born in a bamboo house in a Kammu village on a mountain slope in Northern Laos. The village was surrounded by jungle with dangerous wild animals and evil spirits, and the people were poor. Everyone have to learn some good skills in order to escape from dangerous situations and poverty. We were born at a place where people lacked clothes and city education.

Khmu boy’s work

Being a Kammu boy meant to be born in a bamboo house in a Kammu village on a mountain slope in Northern Laos. The village was surrounded by jungle with dangerous wild animals and evil spirits, and the people were poor. Everyone have to learn some good skills in order to escape from dangerous situations and poverty. We were born at a place where people lacked clothes and city education.
All boys from five or six years of age learned to be a most careful and how to live safely and have good life conditions. We learned how to make small cross bows and to construct small traps for catching small animals such as jungle rats and birds. After five, or six year of age we also learned to wear trousers and shirts. It is perhaps a bit astonishing, but in fact the boys learned how to procure food before they learned to wear trousers and shirts.

In the Kammu Yùan region, all boys from four or five years of age moved out of the family house to stay with the unmarried men in the common-house which their families belonged to. The common-houses were their schools, and they learned to make the materials for all kind of traps, and made bamboo strips for weaving baskets. They also learned about the village society and how to behave to their kin. Stories were often told in the common-houses, and some boys learned to tell folk tales. They stayed in the common-house until they found girlfriend and when they got married they moved back to stay with their parents in the family house.

When the eldest son got married, he and his wife must stay with his parents in order to let his parents' house succeed. The eldest son was not allowed to move down from his parents' house. If he and his wife moved down, they may get bad luck in the future, because the ancestors would punish them. He and his wife and their children must thus stay in his parents' house. When the second, third or fourth sons got married however, they may move down to build their own houses. They may also all stay together in their parents' house if the house was large for them and they were good friends...

All the sons had to share their parents' legacy and lands for growing rice. The eldest son would get ½ of it. The second and third sons shared the rest. Their sister/s should get some money or a water buffalo as a dowry from their brothers.

It was thus not until he got married a man moved out of the common-house, and if he did not marry he stayed there all his life. What then did a boy do there from early childhood to marriageable age? He was in fact busy all the time, and here are some examples of his works. In my common-house there were four men who did not marry, and they stayed in our common-house for the whole of their lives. They were our good teachers, they taught us how to tell stories, to make materials for all kinds of traps, and to play traditional instruments. During the rainy season, the winged termites came out from their holes and flew away. About 5 o'clock in the evening when it was getting a little cool, the winged termites came out from their holes. The boys took bamboo tubes and went to collect the winged termites and kept them in the bamboo tubes. Such bamboo tubes should be fresh and cool otherwise the termites would die. Early next morning the boys got up and took their bird-traps and the bamboo tube with termites inside and went into the forest at a place where there was a small path and many birds. When they arrived at the place where there were birds, they cut a small branch to put one of their traps on and baited it with a winged termite. (See figure No. 3). They set the bird-traps like this one by one along the small path and baited them... When they had set all the traps they went back again to examine. While the boys set the bird-traps, they whistled in order to call the birds to come. When the birds heard the sound, they came and saw a winged termite on the trap. They tried to get the termite on the trap but got caught instead.
Hunting, fishing and trap construction were not sports, but ways to procure food and thus strengthen family economy. Younger boys hunted small birds, jungle rats and squirrels, in order to let their family get something good to eat. One small bird was actually enough to make a stew for the whole family. The bird's meat was then mixed with vegetables and crushed rice. Younger boys did not only have simple traps but also small crossbows for shooting small birds, jungle rats, and even small fish.

Before people began weaving walls for the houses or barns, they had to split the bamboo open, dry it, and then weave. To open the bamboo stems and weave the walls was hard and difficult work for the young boys, but they had to learn to do it from the grown-up men. The work required good skill, and one needed three or four persons to weave the walls or the floor. Young boys from five years of age must learn to do this difficult work. While you weave a wall, you should lift up the opened bamboo carefully, because the edges are sharp as a knife. It could easily cut your fingers.

During the hot season birds and animals came to drink water many times every day. The wind blew on the trees and the leaves felt down, many kinds of trees were totally leafless. When we walked around in the forest we stepped on the dry leaves and that could be heard. There were now many kinds of cicadas making sounds in the bushes both sides of the path, and many bulbul birds. Pycnonotus, kró were singing everywhere in the trees.

Sometimes two or three boys brought their small crossbows and went to build a hunting shelter beside a small pool at the stream. When the hunting shelter was ready they crept into it and sat inside waiting for the birds to come and drink at the pool. All the Kammu boys knew how to build a hunting shelter, since they had learned it from the adults living in the common-house or from their fathers. When the birds came to drink they shot them with their crossbows. (See Damrong Tayanin and Kristina Lindell. Hunting and Fishing in a Kammu Village. Studies on Asian Topics NO. 14. Curzon Press, page 47-48, 1991.)

Laying in wait beside a small pool at a stream.

Once, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, my friend Laay Torm and I took our cross-bows and went to lay in wait for birds to come and drink water beside a small pool at the Spirit Stream, òm róoy. It was in March and the weather was rather hot and there were irritating sounds from different kinds of cicadas everywhere in the bushes beside the path. There were dried leaves on the ground and that made it difficult to walk since it was slippery as if it had been raining. Most of the trees were leafless. The sky was blue and a thick haze covered the mountains, so that we could not see very far. During this period both people, birds and animals were thirsty all the time because it was very dry and hot - sometimes 35° - 40° Celsius.

We walked towards the Spirit Stream, and when we reached there we walked down stream. There we found that someone had built a hunting shelter from wild palm leaves beside the small pool. We looked at the pool, and all the sticks, which the hunters had placed beside the pool for the birds to alight on when they were to drink water. We saw that every stick was wet because birds had alighted on them and drank water and bathed. We heard many kinds of birds, some were singing in the bushes nearby other singing in the trees high up. When hunters built a hunting shelter like that, they placed some sticks over the pool in order to let the birds to alight on the sticks and drink. The hunters made a small hole through the shelter, so that they could look through it and see the birds, when they sat on the sticks. While we sat hidden inside the hunting shelter, we heard a lot of sounds from the different kinds of birds. Most of them were bulbuls; there were some four or five kinds of bulbuls singing in different voices. There were some other sounds as well, especially from various cicadas making noises in the trees.

A few minutes later we heard something running on the roof of our shelter, I took my crossbow and put an arrow on it and looked up through the palm leaves with which we had covered the roof. It was a squirrel with red chest, which was up there. I shot at it, and it fell down into the pool. We both ran out and took it up. We got it! It was the first time that I shot a squirrel with my crossbow. About five o'clock in the afternoon, many birds, some were bigger and others were small, came to drink and bathe in the pool and we shot them one by one. Even if the birds were rather small, we were both very happy when we returned home, since we knew that there would be good dinners in both families. When boys were 10 years old, their fathers or someone who was good at making crossbows, made bigger bows for them to shoot squirrels and larger birds. Already when the boys were 11 or 15 years of age and had learned how to shoot with riffles, their fathers bought real riffles for them. When a boy was 15 years old, he was regarded as adult and no longer a child. After 15 years of age he also had to pay tax.