Phuan people

rdf:langString Phuan people

rdf:langString Phuan

rdf:langString E.B. Gould

rdf:langString Young Phuan women in traditional clothing.

rdf:langString Phuan

rdf:langString ພວນ, พวน

rdf:langString Letter to Knox, 4. August 1876

rdf:langString The captives were hurried mercilessly along, many weighted by burdens strapped to their backs, the men, who had no wives or children with them and were therefore capable of attempting escape, were tied together by a rope pursed through a sort of wooden collar. Those men who had their families with them were allowed the free use of their limbs. Great numbers died from sickness, starvation and exhaustion on the road. The sick when they became too weak to struggle on were left behind. If a house happened to be near, the sick man or woman was left with the people in the house. If no house was at hand which must have been oftener the case in the wild country they were traversing, the sufferer was flung down to die miserably in the jungle. Any of his or her companions attempting to stop to assist the poor creatures were driven on with blows. […] Fever and dysentery were still at work among them and many more will probably die. Already I was told, more than half of the original 5.700 so treacherously seized are dead.

rdf:langString The Phuan people (พวน), ພວນ Phouan, /pʰúːən/), also known as Tai Phuan, Thai Puan (Thai: ไทพวน) or Lao Phuan, are a Theravada Buddhist Tai people spread out in small pockets over most of Thailand's Isan region with other groups scattered throughout central Thailand and Laos (Xiangkhouang Province and parts of Houaphan). There are also approximately 5000 Phuan in the Mongkol Borei District of Banteay Meanchey Province in Cambodia, as well in Battambang Province. According to the Ethnologue Report, the Phuan number 204,704 and that is split fairly evenly between populations in Laos and Thailand.