Thai-Lao Ethnographic Collection
In 1981, Joyce White, who had been conducting field research in Thailand for 18 months in the village of Ban Chiang, received a telegram from the Penn Museum requesting that she make a collection of everyday items illustrative of traditional village life. Ban Chiang was the location for excavations by Penn Museum and the Thai Fine Arts Department in 1974 and 1975. White’s ethnobotanical research was part of the Penn Museum Ban Chiang Archaeological Project, and that work had prepared her well for the task.
Joyce had been working with a local farmer, Li Hirionatha, to collect and document traditional knowledge of plants in the region. Over the course of the final two months of that research, Joyce and Li meticulously put together a collection of representative objects of the area noting the name and function of each piece, as well as where it was purchased and when, and other data. The collection consists of examples of everything from ox carts and fishing traps to looms and ceramics.
In the summer of 2024, Thai-Isaan Material Culture Specialist, Nichanan Klangwichi, spent three months at the Penn Museum updating and expanding the cataloging of the collection. Object names and villages are now in both English and Thai. The description includes fuller cultural context and plant names for materials, as well as bibliographic references for further study.
Below you can explore the collection with various filters such as on material and function. To see, for example, all the objects used for fishing, click on the “Subject” filter on the lower left, then select “Fishing Equipment”.
- Object[34]
- no[34]
- asian[34]
- basket[9]
- bird cage[1]
- bobbin basket[1]
- bucket[1]
- bushel basket[3]
- chicken restrainer[1]
- clothing basket[1]
- clothing storage basket[2]
- cotton fluffer[1]
- eel trap[1]
- fish basket[2]
- fish container[1]
- fish trap[11]
- floating fish container[1]
- floating fish trap[1]
- rice mill[2]
- steamer[1]
- sticky rice basket[2]
- sticky rice steamer[1]
- water lifter basket[1]
- ban bun mi[2]
- ban chiang[8]
- ban kham or[2]
- ban kham ta na[1]
- ban kham yang[2]
- ban non sao khwan[2]
- ban nong lat[2]
- ban om kaeo[2]
- ban pu lu[2]
- ban pueai[1]
- ban tha chuang[1]
- ban thung fon[2]
- ban yang ngam[2]
- sakon nakhon[5]
- thailand[34]
- udon thani[29]
- udon thani (city)[2]
- agricultural tools and equipment[1]
- animal husbandry tools and equipment[2]
- container[1]
- cotton production[1]
- fishing equipment[15]
- food processing tools and equipment[3]
- food service tools and equipment[2]
- household accessory[5]
- rice production[4]
- storage & display accessories & components[4]
- textileworking tools and equipment[3]
- transportation artifacts[1]
- bamboo[24]
- basketry[34]
- clay[2]
- cloth[1]
- coconut[1]
- cotton string[1]
- grass[1]
- iron[1]
- mai bong[1]
- mai bueay[1]
- mai khaaw[2]
- mai khawy[1]
- mai rai[1]
- mai som kob[1]
- metal[1]
- namman yaang khii sii[1]
- nylon[2]
- rattan[8]
- reed (plant)[1]
- wood[5]
- type citation[21]
