Overview
The Lawa are sometimes mistaken for being the same people as the Lua of northern Laos and of Nan Province, Thailand, who are speakers of the more distantly related Khmuic languages. This problem is compounded by the Eastern Lawa of Chiang Mai Province preferring to be called Lua by outsiders, and by the Thai people generally referring to speakers of these different Palaungic languages as Lua.
Today, those Lawa who have not been integrated in mainstream Thai society, still live a traditional way of life, often professing animism. As with the other mountain ethnic groups of Thailand, they are known for extraordinary craft skills, especially for being ironsmiths.
History
Sources place the Lawa as the original inhabitants of Northern Thailand, pre-dating the Tai migration into these lands. There is evidence that the Lawa inhabited cities before the arrival of the Tai peoples. Chiang Mai, Thailand, was founded on the location of a 5th-century CE Lawa walled city. Legends state that Kengtung in Myanmar was taken from the Lawa in the 13th century CE through cunning and deceit by King Mangrai, the founder of the northern Thai Lanna Kingdom.
Some writers have theorized that at one point the Lawa may have inhabited lands in Central Thailand as far down as Lopburi (Lavapura) based on the similarity between the names Lavapura and Lawa. Erik Seidenfaden wrote that there is no evidence of the Lawa living further south than the middle of the Ping River valley, and that the archeological evidence only suggests that Mon speakers lived in the area.
Lawa in northern Thai legends
The Lawa people are mentioned in northern Thai legends, mainly in connection with the founding of its cities. The 15th-century book Cāmadevivaṃsa, by the Chiang Mai monk Bodhiramsi, relates how the Mon queen Camadevi, a princess of the Lavo Kingdom, established the city of Haripunchai (present-day Lamphun) in the 7th century CE. Vilanga, king of the Lawa, attacked her with 80,000 soldiers. After his defeat she married her two sons to the two daughters of the Lawa king, and the two kingdoms became allies.
The Doi Tung story also attributes the founding of the city state of Ngoenyang, in the 7th century CE, to the Lawa. Mangrai was a prince of Ngoenyang before he established the Lanna Kingdom in the 13th century.
