Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the LanNa community, a wet rice cultivation society whose pattern of settlement, urban and homeland expansion emerged along the intermountain basin. There was pattern of organized existence, irrigation techniques for the tapping of natural water resources, the so-called diversion irrigated rice cultivation system. This thesis breaks down the scope of the contents into three chapters with the introduction and the conclusion given in separate chapters. Chapter 1. Covers the scope of interpretation of the meaning and historical context in which the term Lan Na originated and the relationship of the settlement pattern and the diversion irrigated rice cultivation system which correlates with such sources as tradition, annals, historic ruins, vestiges of the ancient diversion irrigation channel from the archaeological and physical find. Chapter 2. discourses the limitation of the data from sources and the comparison of the data from the documentary sources such as traditional accounts, annals, legal literature with the present diversion irrigated rice cultivation system reflective of the continuity of the traditional way of life of the Lan Na inhabitants that depicts the historical origins, organization, method of work and the administration of the diversion irrigated rece cultivation system in the Lan Na community which based on the collective labor of the inhabitants enlisted by its rulers and its nobility and involved the mobilization of labour toward the building of huge diversion dams that was beyond the resources of the commoners, including the administration of the diversion irrigated rice cultivation system which materialized through the coordinate efforts between the state and its denizens. Chapter 3. Mentions about the administration of the diversion irrigated rice cultivation system that engendered a social order, existence of societal grouping bound permanently together by a relationship which lasted for a long period of time, the existence of benefit sharing and the joint safeguard of its interest based on the collective efforts of the societal group in order to survive as a society. Furthermore, the administration of the diversion irrigated rice cultivation system lent itself to the creation of caste system that determined and fitted people into roles and duties of the rulers or the guardians i.e. the kings and the nobility on the one end and the subjects or the commoners.