The orphan-hero is the archetypal protagonist of a distinct cycle within Khmu oral literature. Fatherless and motherless, poor and often mistreated, he is the least among his community, yet the tales turn on his rise: through wit, patience, kindness rewarded, and the intervention of spirits, animals, or a celestial bride, he confounds the rich and powerful and secures fortune or a wife. Individual tellings give him no stable personal name, presenting him simply as 'the orphan,' so he functions as a recurring type-figure rather than a single biographied individual; the cycle nonetheless articulates a persistent Khmu moral vision in which the marginal and dispossessed are vindicated. Storytellers recorded in the multi-volume Kammu corpus recount many variants of his adventures.