Ban Yang is a village in

Luang Prabang district Luang Prabang ( Lao: ຫຼວງພະບາງ, pronounced ), historically known as Xieng Thong (ຊຽງທອງ) and alternatively spelled Luang Phabang or Louangphabang, is the capital of Luang Prabang Province in north-central Laos. I ...

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

. It was established around 1935 by

Lao Loum The Lao Loum (; , , ) is an official Lao People's Democratic Republic designation for lowland dwelling Tai peoples, including the majority Lao people. The Lao Loum, literally meaning 'lowland Lao', are the inhabitants of the river valleys and ...

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

who used to live in Ban Pha Quang village in Phu Phang Mountain. Ban Pha Quang village is 20 kilometers northeast from Mueang Nan district, Luang Prabang province. When they arrived, they saw this region had immense forested mountain, fertile land, abundant water source in the Huoi Sieu stream, and was convenient for living and farming. They also discovered a big tree with its roots crossing the Huoi Sieu stream like a bridge. The tree root that later was named as Yang, means '''crossing the stream'''. Since then, people have called this village Ban Yang.

Geography

Ban Yang is about 45 kilometers south of Luang Prabang city. The village lies at an average altitude of 410 meters above sea level. In November 2016, Luang Prabang district authority and Office of Agriculture and Forestry (DAFO) with the support of SPERI and CCFD legitimized the traditional territory of about 5,300 hectares for Ban Yang. This territory is characterized by diverse topographies such as hill, high mountain, stream and valley. Specially, it includes different spirit forestlands and rich tropical forest located in the upper catchment of the Kuang Si Waterfall. Human ecology in Yang village

Ban Yang is bordered by six villages of different ethnic groups, including: Ban Noong Bua Kham and Khokmanh (

Khmu The Khmu (; Khmu: ; or ; ; ; ; ; ) are an ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The majority (88%) live in northern Laos where they constitute the largest minority ethnic group, comprising eleven percent of the total population. Alternative hi ...

and

ethnic groups) in Luang Prabang district in the north; Ban Thapene (Kha Hok, Lao Loum,

Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related ...

and Yao ethnic groups), Luang Prabang district and Ban Noong Khoai (Khmu and Hmong ethnic groups) in Xiang Nguen district to the east; Ban Tu Ho and Ban Huoi Long (

) in Mueng Nan district in the south, and Ban Huoi Han, Ban Huoi Chia, Ban Huoi Han which are currently merged into Ban Nong Bua Kham next to the

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's List of rivers by length, twelfth-longest river and List of longest rivers of Asia, the third-longest in Asia with an estimated l ...

in the west.

Demography

In December 2016, Ban Yang has 119 families with 447 ethnic

people, including 232 women.

Culture

Ban Yang village is home to the

. Life,

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

and prosperity of the people in Ban Yang is tied to

nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

. So they have established the sacred forests as ''Pa Xim'' for worshiping both

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

and Nature's Spirit, ''Pa Lieng Phi Ho'' for worshiping the Spirit of the Village, also known as the ''Pa-Ho''; ''Pa Leng Nam'' for respecting the Spirit of the Water Dragon; ''Pa Khouang'' for praying to the Spirit of the Forest, and ''Pa Xa'', the Cemetery Forest. Yearly, the entire villagers together give offerings to these Nature's Spirits through traditional

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

s. To preserve the traditional

religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

belief A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...

s, since the establishment, Ban Yang has formed and maintained the

unwritten rules Unwritten rules, also called unspoken rules, are behavioral constraints imposed in organizations or societies that are not typically voiced or written down. They usually exist in unspoken and unwritten format because they form a part of the logica ...

to regulate people's behavior to the spirit forests of the community.

Economy

Economy of the village is mainly subsistent, which heavily depends on traditional slash-burn agriculture, growing

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

, Luang Prabang

upland rice Upland or Uplands may refer to: Geography *Hill, an area of higher land, generally *Highland, an area of higher land divided into low and high points *Upland and lowland, conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level *I ...

sesame Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for ...

and

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, raising cows and buffalos, and collecting

forest product A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in f ...

Agriculture

Like many other residents in northern Laos, Lao Loum families in Ban Yang still practice the traditional rotational

shifting cultivation Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cul ...

. This method is translated into practice as '''xong pi ham, xam pi khop, meaning that, production in one specific plot of land for one year is equivalent to two years of the fallow for recovering

soil fertility Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality.

and

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

. Depending on the need for foods, availability of labor forces and

natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...

s capital, that each family would decide whether more or fewer pieces of land be included this method of

traditional agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food ...

Slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody p ...

and poking holes for planting seeds are the main technics of the traditional rotational

. On a piece of sloping

agricultural land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...

villagers often practice

intercropping Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice that involves the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field, a form of polyculture. The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land ...

between different local varieties such as ''Khao Hay'' (local

), ''Mac Duoi'' (

), ''Mac Nga'' (

) and ''Xa Ly'' (

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

). Presently, villagers in Ban Yang also grow ''Mac Thua Dao'' (

Plukenetia volubilis ''Plukenetia volubilis'', commonly known as sacha inchi, sacha peanut, mountain peanut, Inca nut or Inca-peanut, is a perennial plant in the family Euphorbiaceae, having small trichomes on its leaves. It is native to tropical South America and ...

) as a new crop introduced from outside. These crops are rotationally planted and mixed. A specific crop variety is often never fixed in a plot of farmland but is rotated through a shifting cultivation cycle of 3–4 years or longer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:BanYang Populated places in Luang Prabang Province