Field reportMon Papermaking among the Tai Lü of Laos

3 November 2025

Photo: Agnieszka Helman-Ważny/Volker Grabowsky

The Tai Lü of Ban Nayang, Laos, continue the traditional craft of handmade mon paper, using local lianas to produce distinctive manuscripts. Agnieszka Helman-Ważny and Volker Grabowsky describe an ancient technique that endures despite the challenges posed by changing environments and modernisation.

Laos, much like Thailand, is renowned for its use of sa (mulberry) paper in writing and book-making. As in other parts of Southeast Asia, papermaking here is a highly valued skill—sometimes recognised as a traditional art form and, at other times, simply as a common commodity of daily life. Perhaps for this reason, papermaking has become part of the tourist industry, with many local workshops transforming paper production into souvenir businesses. Tourists visiting Laos eagerly purchase small paper artefacts as mementoes of their travels.

However, this does not mean that authentic forms of craftsmanship have vanished — though they are increasingly difficult to find as traditions fade. Recently, our team had the opportunity to document papermaking in the village of Ban Nayang, situated more than 130 kilometres north of the provincial capital, Luang Prabang. The villagers belong to the Tai Lü ethnic group, which inhabits a broad area spanning northern Laos (including Müang Sing, Müang Ngoen, and Phong Saly), northern Thailand, and especially the autonomous prefecture of Sipsong Panna (Xishuang Banna) in southern Yunnan, China. Ban Nayang itself comprises two adjacent villages — Upper and Lower Ban Nayang. Over several days, we observed the making of mon paper, produced from the bark of the mon climbing plant, which grows in forests not far from the villagers’ rice fields.

Mon paper is traditionally used to make stab-stitched bound manuscripts. These are relatively rare in the manuscript cultures of Laos and northern Thailand but are popular among the Tai Lü and Tai Nüa (‘Chinese Shan’) ethnic groups. The content of these books is mainly non-religious, such as astrological and medical treatises, or divination texts for fortune-tellers, elaborating on auspicious days of the month and year for particular activities. Such manuscripts — together with Buddhist texts — are among the most commonly recopied, due to frequent use. They were usually made locally for domestic use, which explains their practical forms; for example, they can be easily carried or hung on the walls or pillars of traditional wooden stilt houses. This feature sets them apart from manuscripts kept in temple libraries or cupboards.

Additionally, such bound books are especially common in Tai Lü areas of northern Laos, such as Müang Sing, where each sheet is folded vertically once, making the paper much longer than it is wide. By folding the paper in this way, both sides of a single sheet can be written on. The folded sheets are then sewn together along one vertical side. This type of manuscript is called phap hua (phap means ‘to fold’ and hua means ‘head’). In the manuscript tradition of the Tai Lü and other Tai groups, these are often referred to as phap sa (or pap sa), since they are mostly made from sa paper — although, as we discovered, other types like mon paper are also sometimes used. Among these Tai groups, such manuscripts play a very important role and are even more widespread than palm-leaf manuscripts, which are mostly reserved for religious texts.

When studying and digitising collections in Laos, our team often encountered stab-stitched bound books written on a soft and flexible paper. Manuscripts made of paper are generally assumed to be crafted from sa, as that tradition is well-known, although very few old manuscripts have been scientifically analysed to identify the raw materials used. A survey of manuscripts in the Buddhist Archives of Luang Prabang revealed that various types of paper are used, not only sa paper. This was further confirmed by interviews we conducted with former monks from the Tai Lü community. It was at this point that we learned about the tradition of mon papermaking.