Khun Borom
Tai Dam (Black Tai) · demigod · Tai Dam (Black Tai) traditional religion; continuing · demigod
Khun Borom is the primal ancestral lord of the Tai origin narrative, sent down from heaven by Then to govern mankind. After the flood, humanity is reborn at Mường Then—Muang Thaeng, the plain of Điện Biên in the Black Tai heartland—where a great gourd (nam tao) is pierced and the ancestors of the Tai, Lao and neighboring peoples issue forth; Khun Borom's sons then disperse to found the several Tai lordships. The tradition is shared across the Tai world and appears in Buddhist Lao form as the Nithan Khun Borom; sources differ on the extent to which the Black Tai telling is independent of, or colored by, that Lao chronicle, but the gourd's placement at Mường Then anchors the myth firmly in Tai Dam territory.
Parentage
Domains
- ancestry origins
- kingship
Powers
- fathers the Tai peoples from the gourd
- sends his sons out to found the mương
Epithets
- Pú Khun
Relations
- child: Then Luông
Sources
- Charles Archaimbault, La naissance du monde selon les traditions lao: le mythe de Khun Bulom, Sources Orientales I (Seuil, Paris, 1959)
- James R. Chamberlain, Thao Hung or Cheuang: A Tai Epic Poem, Mon-Khmer Studies 18–19 (1992)
- Jean Michaud, Historical Dictionary of the Peoples of the Southeast Asian Massif (Scarecrow Press, 2006), 'Muang Thaeng / Dien Bien' and 'Khun Borom'