FEMALE LOWER GARMENT OR HOLY MANUSCRIPT WRAPPER?
Speaker: Suriya Smutkupt

To the people of Isaan, Laos, Lanna people and even the Thais from the Central region, pha sin and bai lan manuscripts are considered to have come from two totally different cultural contexts. Pha sin is of a worldly origin, made by women and used as skirt, while the manuscripts belong to the sacred world of Buddhist religion. The idea of why ancient Isan people wrapped bai lan manuscripts in pha sin was therefore unthinkable. How could the two be closely related and what is the rational behind this idea? Such a combination seems extremely odd. Theoretically, the two should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.

Introducing
SURIYA SMUTKUPT

Suriya Smutkupt, who was raised in Chiangmai, spent time during his teenage years assisting foreign scholars with anthropological field work in Thailand. He also served for two years as interpreter for the Special Forces (Green Beret) in Lopburi, Thailand . He then attended college in the USA, studying anthropology under Prof. C.F. Keyes from 1976-1980. He returned to Thailand to conduct fieldwork in Ban Tae, Uthumpornpisai, Sisaket. He worked very closely with the silk weavers of Ban Tae which is how he became interested in the Isan textile producers and everyday practices. In 2001, he and Pattana Kitiarsa worked together on studying the use of pha-sin (woman’s tubular skirt) as a wrapper of Buddhist palm-leaf manuscripts. They published a paper on this topic in 2003. Other published research papers on textile include: “Politics of the Loincloth [Pha Khaw Ma]” (2000); “Thai Shoulder Bags: An Identity Marker in Thai Traveling Culture” (2000) ; and Ways of Isan Weavers: Development of Textile Production and the Changing Roles of Women in Contemporary Isan Villages (1997). Suriya taught anthropology for over twenty years before retiring recently.