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Mlabri are an important people, one of the few remaining cases of mongoloid hunters who hunt using spears, rather than bows and arrows or blowpipes. Documentary records made by local Buddhist priests inform that Mlabri offered honey, rattan, wax and other forest products to the kings as tribute every year (Bernatzik 1938).

Most studies about the Mlabri prior to the 1970’s described them as a nomadic group living in the jungle, with some contact with outsiders such as exchanging forest resources for tools and rice (Bernatzik 1951; Nimmanahaeminda and Hartland-Swan 1962; Seidenfaden 1919; Young 1961; Wanadorn 1926). Studies after the 70’s began to mention a transition in the patterns of exchange – not only for bartered goods, but also labor was exchange for goods, especially for food (Trier 1992; Pookajorn 1992).

The Siamese elite in Bangkok attitude to the Mlabri as “khon pa” and considered them completely different from the Thai (“khonthai”). The “khon pa” are defined as “early men” or “old humankind” (“khonderm”) who are still living in the jungle (Pookajorn 1985). Other ethnic groups, such as the Lawa, the Yang (Karen), the Khmu, as well as the Hmong or the Lahu, are sometimes also included in this classification (Na Nan 2007). For the Mlabri, the term “phi pa” (“forest spirits”) was sometimes used and referred to their lack of permanent settlements. All these peoples, especially the nomadic Mlabri, were of little interest to the Kingdom of Thailand until the 1970’s (Na Nan 2016).

Thai exonym to the Mlabri is “Phi Tong Luang” (lit. “spirits of the yellow leaves”). According to the Thai perspective, this nomadic group would move to another places whenever the banana leaves (“tong”) covering the roofs of their shelters turned yellow (“luang”) and it was said that they could move as quickly as if they were spirits (“phi”) (Kerr 1924).

Their endonym – Mlabri – consists of two words: “Mla” means “people” and “bri” is “forest”. The term “Yumbri” with the same meaning was in use in the past times (Nimmanahaeminda 1963). Diffloth put Mlabri and Yumbri in two different branches of the Mon-Khmer subdivision: Mlabri to Paluangic and Yumbri to Khmuic (Diffloth 1973). Bernatzik also separated Mlabri and Yumbri (Bernatzik & Bernatzik 1958), but Rischel assumed that they were varieties of the same language (Rischel 1995).

The Mlabri were also called “Phi Pa” (“forest spitits”) or “Khon Pa” (“forest people”) in Thai and “Mang Koo” in Hmong. The Laotian know them as “Kha Tuang Luang”. They usually call themselves “mlaq” (“human beigns”) and “mlaq briq”, but they are better known to the general Thai people as “phi tong lueang” (“spirits of the yellow leaves”): “spirits” is an allusion to their hiding in the forest to avoid to contact with outsiders, and “yellow leaves” refer to the fact that they abandon their windscreens when the palm or banana leaves they are made of turned yellow (Bernatzik 1951; Surin 1992). Later, the attitude of the State changed, and the Mlabri, as many other upland ethnic groups, were classified as “chao kao” or “hill tribes” (Rischel 1995).

The Mlabri speak an Austro-Asiatic language belonging to the Khmuic branch of the Mon-Khmer language family. Some scholars (Boeles 1963; Flatz 1963; Nimmanahaeminda 1963; Chazée 2001) refer to the Mlabri as “Mrabri”. However, Danish linguist Jørgen Rischel, who researched the Mlabri language in Thailand and Laos in the late 1980’s, argues that, from a linguistic perspective, “the alleged ethnonym Mrabri is simply phonetically erroneous” (Rischel 2000).

The origin of the Mlabri is still debated: Proto-Mongoloid (Bernatzik 1951), Paleo-Mongoloid (Flatz 1963) or Austroloid (Trier 1981). A genetic study conducted by Hiroki Oota suggests that the Mlabri descend from a very small founder group that split 500—800 years ago from an agricultural community and later reverted to a hunting-gathering subsistence mode (Oota et al. 2005). This would imply that they have not always been hunter-gatherers but what Endicott calls “re-specialized foragers” (Endicott 1999).

Mlabri firstly appeared in Thailand in Chaiyaphum, Loei and Chiangrai (Seidenfaden 1919). Many scholars argue that the Mlabri residing in Thailand today migrated in the early 20^th century from the Lao province Sayaburi bordering the Thailand province Nan (Bernatzik 1951; Boeles 1963; Trier 2008). Some scholars declare that a few Mlabri still live in Laos: in 2000, 28 individuals according to Chazée (Chazée 2001), 40 individuals according to Schliesinger (Schliesinger 2003). There could also be a few Mlabri living in Myanmar (The Lahu National Development Organization 2005).

Nowadays the Mlabri live a sedentary life in permanent settlements in Phrae and Nan, engaging in wage labor, cash crop cultivation and ethnic tourism, they traditionally used to lead a nomadic life in the forests of northern Thailand, spear-hunting wild animals such as boars, monkeys and barking deers, catching small animals such as bamboo rats, mole rats and lizards and also gathering various kinds of wild yams, plants and fruits (Nimonjiya 2013). Like other hunter-gatherers elsewhere, the Mlabri used to live in “bands” which constituted autonomous social units. A band consisted of two to five families, totaling twelve to twenty-five individuals. The bands changed their campsite every five to ten days (Pookajorn 1988).

Many scholars of the Mlabri noted, that they were extremely afraid of outsiders (Bernatzik 1951; Boeles 1963; Trier 2008). The reason for such behavior seems to be that the Mlabri had fearful memories of their kin being shot dead or raped by outsiders (Bernatzik 1951; Seidenfaden 1926; Trier 2008). Some Mlabri were even exhibited in a zoo in the Bangkok shopping mall alongside various rare animals (Baffie 1989).

From as early as at least the late 1910’s the Mlabri sometimes went out to visit Khmu (Khamu), Karen, Lahu, H’tin, Hmong and even those Thai who live in the hills to exchange forest products for consumer items such as salt, steel, tobacco, blankets, clothes, pigs and rice (Vongvipak 1992). The ethnic group with whom the Mlabri had the closest relations were the Hmong (Ikeya and Nakai 2009; Morrison and Junker 2002). According to Trier, this preference emerged very soon after the arrival of the Hmong in Thailand (Trier 1992) back into the 1930s. The Hmong sometimes employed the Mlabri to work in their fields (Bernatzik 1951). Bernatzik pointed out that the Mlabri trusted the Hmong more than any other ethnic group because they “never took advantage of their own superiority; they gave them protection and assistance” (Bernatzik 1951).

Ikea and Nakai (2009) proposed a model that divides the relationship between the Mlabri and Hmong into 3 stages. In the first (before 1980’s) the Mlabri were forest hunters and gatherers while the Hmong were highly mobile farmers (as well as occasional hunters and gatherers, but living in permanent villages). In the second stage (1980’s – 1998), the Mlabri remained nomadic hunters whereas the Hmong settled in the areas where they have continued to live until the present (Culas & Michaud 2004; Geddes 1976). During the third stage (1998—2004) the Mlabri regrouped and began a sedentary lifestyle under Thai government initiative, living in many places near the already settled Hmong communities (“chao bannok”, villagers).

In 1973, a lumber company from Song district in Phrae obtained an official logging permit and began to cut down the forest from Huai Rong, which is next to the Phrae – Nan highway, to the forest between Phrae and Nan where the Mlabri lived. At the end of the logging in 1981, the forest no longer provided any of the natural resources that the Mlabri had been depended upon (Seidenfaden 2005). As a result, the Mlabri started to sell their labor to the Hmong (Nimonjiya 2013; Na Nan 2009).

Some studies suggest that originally, the natural environment the Mlabri inhabited was confined to the provincial borders of Phrae and Nan (Seidenfaden 1926; Bernatzik 1951; Nimmanahaeminda and Hartland-Swann 1962), but according to a recent study (Trier 2008), until 1970s, the Mlabri population was scattered all over northern Thailand, especially to east and north (Nimmonjiya 2013).

However, since 1950s onwards, this area progressively shrank (Na Nan 2013). One obvious cause was large-scale deforestation in northern Thailand (Rischel 1995), but it is not only one. According to Delang, there were three main causes: agricultural expansion, logging and road construction (Delang 2002).

The contacts between the Mlabri and the Hmong became frequent and closer after the 1970s. The Mlabri worked in the fields only during the peak seasons and spent the rest of the time in the forest (Nimmonjiya 2013). At the beginning, the Mlabri were able to sustain themselves without the support of the Hmong for a large part of the year, but as deforestation worsened, the Mlabri’s dependence on the Hmong gradually increased: the labor period increased (Na Nan 2009; Seidenfaden 2005). It was one month in the 1970s, two or three in the 1980s, and four or five in the 1990s (Trier 2008). Also, the items exchanged between the Mlabri and the Hmong changed: in the 1980s, the Hmong traded rings, earrings, watches, flashlights, shampoo, medicines, radio in exchange for the Mlabri’s baskets, rattan mats and labor (Vongvipak 1992). As a natural resource that the Mlabri depended on the forest has dramatically decreased, the Mlabri have to increase their economic dependence on other hill tribes, especially the Hmong, by working as wage labors (Vongvipak 1992).

The Mlabri distinguish three seasons: hot season (“nyam thu. ul”), rainy season (“nyam mèq hot”) and cool season (“nyam takat”). Moreover, they consider that forest has various characteristics: dry evergreen forest (“briq cabor sung”), tropical dry evergreen forest (“briq mëk/briq krum”), mixed deciduous forest (“briq citce”), sparse forest (“briq praw”) and so on (Nimonjiya 2015).

Bernatzik described their daily life as getting up and scattering in search of food in the forest, then the meal is cooked and eaten and the family rest under the windscreen, after three or five days they wander slowly then set up the new camp (Bernatzik 1951).

A Danish anthropologist Jasper Trier who conducted a fieldwork among the Mlabri in the late 1970s, also described their daily life in a similar way – men leave the camp early in the morning to hunt small game, dig out bamboo rats, collect roots and honey and, occasionally, to catch fish from a small stream, sometimes staying away for several days; women and girls collect roots, edible plants, crabs, etc. not far away from the camp. Each family usually eats separately. They often take short rests and go to sleep early (Trier 2008).

A set of widescreens (géng) was a social unit of a band. The group size was not fixed, depending on the time and situation (Nimonjiya 2015).

Hunter-gatherers generally do not produce any food but exploited natural resources. Like other hunter-gatherers, the Mlabri’s nomadic life mainly depended on ecological factors (Herda 2007). Thus a composition of band was not stable, it tended to split up during the dry winter season because food became increasingly difficult to find (Trier 2008). The Mlabri’s main diet was obtained by gathering and digging (Nomonjiya 2015). Main diet was roots and tubers while wild animals were indispensable protein (Trier 2008).

The Mlabri hunted with spear (kòot), spade (soq), spear point (khabok) and knife (tòq) and they got the cooperation of the dog (Nimonjiya 2015). Several types of animals were hunted, like muntjucs (polh), deer (ciak), wild boar (cabut briq / ngay), hedgehog (qudok), bamboo rat (koc), mole (met lèk), mouse (hnèl), big lizard (pye). The Mlabri’s spears were not for throwing but for stabbing by hand (Bernatzik 1951). Their traditional weapons and utensils were made entirely of wood and bamboo (Seidenfaden 1919; Trier 1981, 2008). But since mid-1980s hunting gun was introduced so they were able to hunt for monkeys (thawak), birds (ac), fowls and squirrels (Osawa 2014).

The Mlabri traditionally used bamboo tubes for boiling and wooden skewer for roasting. Large pieces of meat were thrown directly into the fire. They ate and shared everything with all of members in a band (Ikeya & Nakai 2009; Pookajorn 1992).

The Mlabri’s traditional lifestyle continued until around 1975 (Trier 2008), but it has gradually changed since then. The main cause was deforestation (Rischel 1995) due to agricultural expansion, logging and road construction (Delang 2002).

The Mlabri are still practicing hunting and gathering today, but it is much more limited. Mlabri’s consumption of food directly hunted or gathered from the forest has decreased since 1970s and at present amounts to only 7% of average food weight. Under the influence of cash economy, they sometimes sell the the games to the Hmong because they can get more food from that amount of money. The money or bought food is sharing according to the traditional social principle of sharing (Nimonjiya 2015).

Nimonjiya informs that sedentarization also has an impact on the social life of the Mlabri. Young generations were born and raised in permanent settlements, the adults usually work so hard in the fields that they didn’t have time to go into the forest (Nimonjiya 2015). Mlabri traditional ecological knowledge is losing ground – in place of the oral history TV attracts all of them nowadays (Nimonjiya & Holzinger 2014), only during the rainy season when power supply stops occasionally do parents tell their children old stories (Nimonjiya 2014).

Estimated consumption of food in % by weight (Trier 2008):

Marriage rites as performed in most societies do not exist in Mlabri society. Since its population is very limited, the marriage of any couple is known without any public rite (Herda 2002). Remarriage can be done only after a divorce or the death of the former spouse. One can’t marry a person who is a relative. The rate of divorce and changing of spouses is rather high in this society. There are several normative rules that have to be abided:

– Sexual relations between close kin are prohibited. There is the incest taboo which controls the relations between siblings including co-siblings.

– Sexual relations between cousins, including both cross and parallel cousins, are also prohibited.

– Premarital sexual experimentation is not allowed in any case.

– Sexual relations can’t be done with anyone other than his spouse (Paiyaphrohm 1990).

Pookajorn (1985, 1988) gives the information about the mobility of Mlabri. Their residental moves per year are 24 times, average distance is 19 km (with total distance of 196 km). Logistical mobility is 1 day and primary biomass is 35,7 kg per square meter. Total area of mobility is 2826 square kilometers.

Music and dances were very important in the traditional life of the Mlabri. Music is a part of recreational and ritual activities of human society. For Mlabri music is a relaxation when they success in hunting or have a celebration, a festival, for spirit sacrifice or burial ceremony. The only one musical instrument they have is a khaen, and a type of songs accompanied by a khaen is named “molum Mlabri” (Paiyaphrohm 1990).

Khaen is a type of musical instrument (mouth organ), commonly found in Northeast Thailand. It is made of bamboo tubes, hollow wood and beewax. No Mlabri musicians make it, that may indicate that Mlabri obtain it from outsiders or they had already forgotten how to make it. Moreover, it is remarkable that Mlabri can’t play Hmong khaen even though they have been in contact with them for a long time. Besides Hmong believe that khaen is a high-class musical instrument, they aren’t allowed to play it without some ceremony except for themselves, so Mlabri have no occasion to play on it.

Mlabri songs are in both Mlabri language and in Lao (Harris 1986). It is possible that they copy from Lao songs, which are called molum, because they had lived in Laos before migrating to Thailand. The songs’ tempo is rather slow. They rarely have a rhyme between words or sentences. A singer will chant with the melody made by khaen. The singer continues singing impromptu songs, other persons will dance slowly. Their dancing is kneeing a little bit and raising hands with turning wrist like a circle. Someone will dance like animal’s walking and hopping. Sometimes they will clap to give a rhythm or use bamboo tubes for this purpose. They sing and dance till they are tired and then they finish (Paiyaphrohm 1990).