Thai warfare

What kind of weapons and shields and armor did the ancient Thai use? I heard they used war elephants. Oh and BTW who were their enemies?

They fought Burma ALOT, sometimes Cambodia, they did use elephants and later adopted European matchlocks speedily.  They also made use of Japanese mercenaries whos reputations were so good they used them at the head of their armies to scare the enemies.

I dont know where to get pictures but I think it was very Indian influenced.

AFAIK, the Thais had a great rivalry with the Malay kingdom of Melaka. The Thais used to control the northern states of present-day Malaysia.

Also before the Melakan empire, the Thais were also fighting with the Majapahit empire of Java.

Hi!

They mostly fought with themselves, they were deivided into several kingdoms. On top of the other foriegn foe mentioned there's the Mon, the original occupants of the country who they pushed out into Burma.

Check out "Suriyothai" on google. It's an epic movie about their war with Burma, with all forms of arms and costumes depicted. If you can't afford the DVD try a picture search the stills are awesome.

 

nice

The Thai people originally came from most South-Western part of Modern PRC that is just below Tibet, right?

Evildoer:  Yes, the original Thai kingdom was named Nanzhao, and it existed in China's Yunnan province until the Mongols destroyed it in 1253.  The largest ethnic minority in the PRC, the Zhuang of Guangxi province, are closely related to the Thais.  However, the Thais started migrating south long before Nanzhao fell.  They were a pretty restless lot, always looking for new land for their sons.  When they found good land, they didn't always drive away the previous tenants, so the ethnic population was mixed wherever they settled down.

In fact, with the exception of the Negritos, just about every group in Southeast Asia lived in southern China originally, and they moved south when the Chinese expanded and pushed them out.  The Tibeto-Burmans appear to have come from the same neighborhood as the Thais, or possibly Sichuan.  The Vietnamese lived at the mouth of the Yangtze; the kingdom of Yue, in Zhejiang province during the "Age of Warring States," was mainly populated by them.  In fact, the Min, an ethnic group in Fujian province, are Vietnamese in origin, and still dress very much like their cousins in Hanoi.  The Malayo-Polynesians probably came from Taiwan; there is a non-Chinese community of "Formosans" still living on the east coast of that island.  The main group whose path of migration I cannot trace is the Mon-Khmer group; the Mons and Khmers once lived north of their present-day locations, but I don't know exactly where.

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Paul:  Yes, my wife is from the Philippines, so I have long been interested in that part of the world.  On my main website I posted what I know about Southeast Asian history, at http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/seasia/index.html .  Over the years I have gotten a few nice e-mails from people who say they can't find this material anywhere else on the Internet, so I guess I succeeded in creating something special.

In Chapter 2 of that series, I wrote that the Thais were a minority in their own country when the Ayutthaya kingdom got started, around 1350.  I did know about the Chinese influence and the close relationship between the Thais and Laotians, but I didn't know they were still a minority in Thailand today.

Regarding the costumes, I have seen relief sculptures from Angkor of Khmer women going topless; are you saying the Thais did that, too?


Edited by Berosus

I have seen several photos of Thai women from Mongut's time (Yul Brynner). There's a good group shot of his queens (about 30) and lots of individual shots of some of them including Chulalongkorn's mother in a book about Anna Leonowens all wearing only loinclothes. But this level of research is unnecessary there'snot a person in the whole country that doesn't know this fact and point it out to you first historic soap on tv.

Thais a minority in their own country hmmm. Lets see, there's about 80 million nowadays and most below 30 years old. About 20 million Laos, 5 Million Malays and 12 Million Chinese. Add 8 Million for all others and the rest goes to Central Thais and Northern Thais about 40 million. I'd say they were slightly a majority.

But the remarkable thing about Thailand is all these groups would never consider themselves anything but Thai, they've melted to a degree we can't comprehend in the west. The only exceptions would be the super rich Chinese who regard themselves more akin to Singapore and Taiwan. And the Hill Tribes who are not regarded Thai by the Thais. It's always a remarkable sight to see a 2nd generation Chinese/Thai complaining about the hill tribes being foreigners with no right to live there.

Your webpage on Thai history is very interesting. One incident in Thai history I'm especially interested in is the Thai/Lao border wars of 1987/88 and 1991, both of which Lao won. It unknown by anybody in Thailand, covered up and not spoken of. If you tell a local about them they simply won't believe you and even if you convince them with facts will 'forget' whithin 5 seconds. In Lao there's a whole museum commemorating them.

Do you know anything about them.

Edited by Paul

Very interesting. I heard of Dravians but I never immagined Melanesians could have lived in India!