ABSTRACT
The natural world surrounding each village supplies the needed family food and tools. Forests, scrublands, and waterways provide lumber, firewood, clay for kitchen utensils, and wild animals, fish, and plants for food and medicine. Throughout Laos, a “village” refers to buildings, local services, contiguous gardens and fields, and nearby forests and streams utilized by village residents. Buddhist monks, male elders, and schoolteachers were accorded the greatest respect in rural, pre-1975 villages. The economy of most Lao villages has probably never constituted a completely closed subsistence system. Village unity was maintained through ceremonies, festivals, villagewide cooperation, and labor exchanges. In the spirit of the Buddha, the host villagers prepared to be charitable hosts, but community members were anything but detached as they organized housing, food, water, and ceremonial items for visiting villagers and monks. Gender has always been an important aspect of village life, determining one’s activities and level of authority in both the family and the community.
