Thạo Hùng
Tai Dam (Black Tai) · demigod · Tai Dam (Black Tai) traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Thạo Hùng, also called Thạo Chương or Cheuang, is the warrior-hero of the great Tai epic (Thao Hung Thao Cheuang), a poem of some tens of thousands of lines recounting protracted wars among rival Tai lords and against the Kha peoples; among the Black Tai it circulates under the title Chương Han. Regarded as the paramount indigenous epic of the Tai world, it preserves a heroic-age memory of the pre-Buddhist Tai polities. Sources differ on whether its hero Chương/Cheuang is a purely epic figure or is to be identified with the Black Tai migration-ancestor Lạng Chượng (Khun Chương), whose name he shares.
Domains
- war
- heroism
Powers
- wages the great wars of the epic
Epithets
- Thạo hàn — the valiant young lordJames R. Chamberlain, Thao Hung or Cheuang, Mon-Khmer Studies 18–19 (1992) (secondary)
Sources
- Thạo Hùng / Chương (Thao Hung Thao Cheuang) is the warrior-hero of the great Tai epic, a poem of many thousands of lines recounting wars among Tai lords and against the Kha, known in Black Tai versions under the title Chương Han.: Chương Han (Táo Chương), Black Tai epic recension (primary); James R. Chamberlain, Thao Hung or Cheuang: A Tai Epic Poem, Mon-Khmer Studies 18–19 (1992): 14–34 (secondary)