ABSTRACT
T He Mass Migrations of the Tai in the thirteenth century were both arduous and dangerous. Most of the migrating families followed routes that had already been travelled, and they probably had guides. Even so, whether they were entering today's Burma, Thailand, or Laos, they would have had to face the freezing hardships of crossing at least one mountain divide and each must have taken its toll of the old and the weak. The mountains towered some 3,000 to over 6,000 feet above the struggling groups of migrants as they pushed their way up into the passes. At night, the temperature probably fell below freezing, something that would have been unusual in the villages they had just left, where year-round it was more likely to be about a pleasant 20°C.
