Ban Yang is a village in Luang Prabang district, Luang Prabang province, Laos. It was established around 1935 by

Lao Loum The Lao Loum ( lo, ລາວລຸ່ມ; th, ลาวลุ่ม, , ) 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 L ...

ethnic group 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 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 to ...

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 (

ethnic group) 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 trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...

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

ethnic group. Life,

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

and prosperity of the people in Ban Yang is tied to

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

. 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 tradition, he was born in L ...

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 ordinarily 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, mela, or eid. A festival ...

s. To preserve the traditional

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...

s, since the establishment, Ban Yang has formed and maintained the unwritten rules 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, Luang Prabang

upland rice Upland rice is a type of rice grown on dry soil rather than flooded paddy field, rice paddies. It is sometimes also called dry rice. Introduction Today nearly 100 million people depend on upland rice as their daily staple food. Almost two-thi ...

, sesame and

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

, 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 fo ...

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 cu ...

. 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 and

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characte ...

. 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 or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

Slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed veget ...

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 forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with ...

villagers often practice

intercropping Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice that involves growing two or more crops in proximity. In other words, intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field. The most common goal of intercropping is ...

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

), ''Mac Duoi'' ( sorghum), ''Mac Nga'' ( sesame) and ''Xa Ly'' ( corn). Presently, villagers in Ban Yang also grow ''Mac Thua Dao'' ( Plukenetia volubilis) 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