Field notes on the dietary habits of the Mlabri hunter-gatherers in Thailand

Abstract

The Mlabri who live in the mountainous region of northern Thailand have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers until 20 years ago. While they have begun to live sedentary life and to engage in cash crop cultivation by state-led development project in the late-1990s, they still engage in hunting and gathering in the forest especially during the farmer’s off-season and their traditional dietary habits are still maintained. We conducted a survey over three years to describe these dietary habits. They are extremely simple. Food resources are skillfully obtained through hunting or gathering using the spear (khot), spade (khabok), hoe (soq), bladed instruments (toq/cok), and flint and steel (kl.hlek), according to much knowledge on natural resources that they acquired in their traditional life in the forest. Foods are boiled or steam in bamboo cylinder, or roasted on a fire directly. While the staple of the Mlabri diet is wild yam (eq), they also consume many other foods such as bamboo shoots, palm stalks, mushrooms, etc. Animal protein are got from wild animals such as wild boar, barking deer, monkey, and bird which they can find in the forest. Our research presents as complete and accurate a record as possible of the previously unknown dietary habits of the Mlabri.