{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "sak-kha-lai",
 "type": "tradition",
 "names": {
  "name": "Sak kha lai",
  "th": "สักขาลาย",
  "rtgs": "sak kha lai",
  "local": "ᩈᩢ᩠ᨠᨡᩣᩃᩣ᩠ᨿ",
  "local_lang": "Northern Thai (Tai Tham script)",
  "aliases": [
   "lao phung dam",
   "ลาวพุงดำ",
   "the black-bellied Lao",
   "Lanna leg tattoo"
  ],
  "said": "sàk khǎa laai — to tattoo the legs in patterns"
 },
 "region": [
  "lanna",
  "mainland-southeast-asia"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "family": "poke",
  "status": "dormant"
 },
 "when": {
  "from": 1500,
  "to": 1930,
  "circa": true,
  "label": "Mural evidence from the 1800s; gone within a generation of electric light",
  "label_th": "หลักฐานจิตรกรรมจากคริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 19 หายไปภายในชั่วอายุคนหลังไฟฟ้าเข้าหมู่บ้าน"
 },
 "practice": {
  "method": "poke",
  "tool": "lek-char",
  "ink": "lampblack",
  "placement": [
   "waist-to-knee",
   "waist-to-ankle",
   "belly",
   "back",
   "arms",
   "fingers"
  ],
  "marked": "men",
  "marks": "specialist",
  "status": "dormant",
  "countries": [
   "TH",
   "MM"
  ],
  "first_record": 1800,
  "first_record_note": "temple murals; the written description this site quotes was set down much later, from elders",
  "suppressed_by": "nobody banned it — the volume this site quotes blames electric light and the end of the night courtship it lit up",
  "sessions": "days for one pattern; months or years for a whole body",
  "note": "Northern Thai men, waist to knee or waist to ankle, in patterns dense enough that a mural paints them as trousers."
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "The Lanna leg tattoo: waist to knee, sometimes to the ankle, dense enough that the murals paint it as a pair of black trousers.",
  "story": "A Lanna volume held in the wichaa.net manuscript corpus puts it plainly: temple murals show northern Thai men tattooed *จนดูเหมือนนุ่งกางเกงสีดำ* — \"until it looked as if they wore black trousers.\" Elders quoted in the same passage give the extent: the legs in patterns from the waist down to the ankles, the torso front and back, the arms, even the fingers; some as far as the neck and the crown of the head.\n\nThe enforcement was talk. A man who did not tattoo his legs and torso \"would be gossiped about as being like a woman — lacking the endurance to bear the needle\"; if he had no marks he might as well put on a *sin*, the woman's wrapped skirt. The work went to a master in the community and the fee had a Lanna name of its own, **khan tang** (ขันตั้ง), where central Thai says *khan khru*.\n\n*Inference —* the tradition is described here in the past tense by its own inheritors, not by an outside authority, and nothing in the passage names a law. What it names is electric light: the old night courtship ended, the reason a young man needed to be looked at ended with it, and the marks went out of use within about a generation.",
  "today": "Sak kha lai is not what a visitor to Chiang Mai is offered. What is offered is **sak yant** — the same needle, a different job. The leg tattoo covered a man; the yant marks him with a formula.",
  "notes": "This site treats sak kha lai and sak yant as two traditions on one hand, not one tradition with two names. That separation is the client's correction, and it is the same separation the Burmese record makes between the thigh work and the charms."
 },
 "text_th": {
  "what": "สักขาลาย ของล้านนา จากบั้นเอวลงไปถึงเข่า บางคนถึงข้อเท้า แน่นจนจิตรกรรมฝาผนังวาดออกมาเหมือนนุ่งกางเกงดำ",
  "story": "หนังสือล้านนาเล่มหนึ่งในคลังเอกสารของ wichaa.net เขียนไว้ตรงๆ ว่า จิตรกรรมฝาผนังแสดงให้เห็นชายชาวล้านนาสักยันต์ลงบนร่างกาย *จนดูเหมือนนุ่งกางเกงสีดำ* ผู้เฒ่าในข้อความเดียวกันบอกขอบเขตไว้ว่า สักขาลายตั้งแต่บั้นเอวลงมาจนถึงข้อเท้า สักลำตัวทั้งหน้าและหลัง สักแขน แม้แต่นิ้วมือ บางคนถึงคอและกลางกระหม่อม\n\nสิ่งที่บังคับคือคำนินทา ชายที่ไม่สักขาและลำตัวจะถูกว่าเป็นผู้หญิงที่ไม่มีน้ำอดน้ำทนต่อเข็ม ถ้าไม่มีรอยสักเลยก็ให้ไปนุ่งซิ่นเสีย งานนี้ต้องไปหาครูบาอาจารย์ในชุมชน และค่าครูมีชื่อล้านนาของตัวเองว่า **ขันตั้ง** ซึ่งภาคกลางเรียกขันครู\n\n*อนุมาน —* ข้อความนี้เล่าธรรมเนียมของตัวเองด้วยกาลอดีต ไม่ใช่คนนอกเป็นคนเล่า และไม่มีกฎหมายข้อใดถูกเอ่ยถึง สิ่งที่ถูกเอ่ยถึงคือไฟฟ้า ประเพณีแอ่วสาวยามค่ำจบลง เหตุผลที่ชายหนุ่มต้องถูกมองก็จบตาม และรอยสักเลิกใช้ภายในราวชั่วอายุคน",
  "today": "สักขาลายไม่ใช่สิ่งที่นักเดินทางในเชียงใหม่จะได้รับการเสนอ สิ่งที่เสนอคือ **สักยันต์** เข็มเดียวกัน คนละงาน ลายขาคลุมทั้งตัวคน ส่วนยันต์ทำเครื่องหมายด้วยสูตร"
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "htoe-kwin",
   "as": "The same garment of skin, one border west. The Burmese work is the better recorded of the two.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "shan-tattooing",
   "as": "And the same again to the north, where the tattooers of charms came from.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "sak-yant",
   "as": "The other job the same needle does, and the one still being done.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "khan-tang",
   "as": "The fee, in the Lanna word for it.",
   "rel": "rite"
  },
  {
   "to": "clothing",
   "as": "One of the three traditions whose own sources call the tattoo clothing.",
   "rel": "finding"
  },
  {
   "to": "lek-char",
   "as": "The instrument.",
   "rel": "tool"
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Lan Na",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lan_Na"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:ms6968",
  "s:corpus",
  "s:thwp-ล-านนา",
  "s:milne-shans"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:ms6968"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:ms6968"
   },
   "practice.suppressed_by": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:ms6968"
   },
   "text.notes": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "this project's separation of the two traditions"
   },
   "text_th": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "medium",
 "tags": [
  "lanna",
  "start-here",
  "script",
  "initiation"
 ],
 "images": [
  {
   "file": "sak-kha-lai/sak-kha-lai-2013-wat-phumin-mural-02.jpg",
   "source": "commons",
   "title": "File:2013 Wat Phumin mural 02.jpg",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/2013_Wat_Phumin_mural_02.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "page_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2013_Wat_Phumin_mural_02.jpg",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 3.0",
   "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
   "author": "Takeaway",
   "credit": "Own work",
   "alt": "Murals of Wat Phumin",
   "date": "2013-12-11 09:38:31",
   "primary": true,
   "sha256": "b2cd08a5f7ef9ab3db421f5cdfaf0d6d987cf7b24833fc6c7bed7f019abc8fe1"
  },
  {
   "file": "sak-kha-lai/sak-kha-lai-peinture-murale-wat-phumin2-nan.jpg",
   "source": "commons",
   "title": "File:Peinture murale Wat Phumin2, Nan.JPG",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Peinture_murale_Wat_Phumin2%2C_Nan.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
   "page_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APeinture_murale_Wat_Phumin2%2C_Nan.JPG",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 3.0",
   "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
   "author": "Ellnik",
   "credit": "Own work",
   "alt": "Peinture_murale_Wat_Phumin2,_Nan.JPG",
   "date": "11 may",
   "primary": false,
   "sha256": "006ec453a4d1505e37bbc54eef740d6dc291ae8a17c8a06780c9fafc95402e1e"
  }
 ],
 "x_clothing": {
  "quote": "จนดูเหมือนนุ่งกางเกงสีดำ — until it looked as if they wore black trousers",
  "lang": "Northern Thai",
  "source": "s:ms6968",
  "year": 2010,
  "garment": "trousers"
 },
 "geo": {
  "lat": 18.79,
  "lon": 99.0,
  "precision": "region",
  "source": "s:commons"
 },
 "updated": "2026-09-19",
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "htoe-kwin",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Htoe kwin",
   "as": "The same garment of skin, one border east, and far less written down."
  },
  {
   "from": "sak-yant",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Sak yant",
   "as": "The other job of the same needle, and the one that stopped."
  },
  {
   "from": "shan-tattooing",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Shan leg tattooing",
   "as": "The same work on the Thai side of the line."
  },
  {
   "from": "lek-char",
   "type": "tool",
   "name": "Lek char",
   "as": "What it made."
  },
  {
   "from": "khan-tang",
   "type": "rite",
   "name": "Khan tang",
   "as": "The tradition that names it this way."
  },
  {
   "from": "chiang-mai",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Chiang Mai",
   "as": "What was ordinary here."
  },
  {
   "from": "wat-phumin",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Wat Phumin",
   "as": "What it shows."
  },
  {
   "from": "clothing",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The tattoo is clothing",
   "as": "Black trousers."
  },
  {
   "from": "coverage",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "Who gets written about",
   "as": "The tradition with no article at all."
  },
  {
   "from": "legs",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The leg-tattoo zone",
   "as": "The Thai side."
  },
  {
   "from": "revival",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "Stopped, and started again",
   "as": "And the one with nobody left to ask."
  },
  {
   "from": "murals",
   "type": "art",
   "name": "The murals",
   "as": "What it shows."
  },
  {
   "from": "wichaa",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "wichaa.net",
   "as": "What the corpus was asked about."
  },
  {
   "from": "who-wrote-it-down",
   "type": "issue",
   "name": "Who wrote it down",
   "as": "And the counter-case."
  }
 ]
}