Tai lue

Lue tradition says that their ancestors arrived in southern Yunnan many centuries ago, and the chronicles speak of a kingdom of their own, centered on Sipsongpanna, founded around 1180. For a long time, this kingdom lived between the influence of China and that of the Tai kingdoms to the south, without losing the rule of its own chiefs.

In 1893, Presbyterian missionaries arrived in Lue territory, and a first church emerged in the early 1920s. Persecuted, the believers founded a village of their own, Bannalee, which remains Christian. With the political changes of the twentieth century, the old borders shifted, and the communities came to live under different countries, keeping ties of language, religion and kinship.

Lue life revolves around irrigated rice farming and the rhythm of the seasons. Villages gather families bound by kinship, and the temple is the center of community life: there the festivals, gatherings and important decisions are set. Elders are held in great honor, and courtesy in everyday dealings is highly valued.

Traditionally, boys enter the temple as novices in childhood or early adolescence, and it is there that they learn to read and write the Lue script. The best-known festival is the New Year, celebrated by throwing water on one another, a gesture of joy and purification. The traditional singing called kap, performed with poetry and improvisation, enlivens gatherings and celebrations.

The faith of the Tai Lue is Theravada Buddhism, lived in close connection with the identity of the people. The temple, the monks and the festivals of the Buddhist calendar mark birth, growth and death, and making merit, through offerings and service to the temple, is part of the daily life of entire families.

As in other Tai communities, Buddhism coexists with ancient beliefs in the spirits of the village, the land and the water, who receive offerings to protect the fields and the home. Being Lue and being Buddhist often seems like one and the same thing, and for this reason Christianity tends to be seen as a religion of other peoples, and not as a possible path for someone who wants to remain faithful to their own people.

There is a New Testament in Lu, published in 1933 after portions of Scripture had been translated since 1921, and reprinted in 1992 and 1996. Many readers today, however, struggle with the language and the script of these older editions. Because the culture is largely oral, Bible stories recorded in their own language and traditional singing are especially fitting ways for the Word to reach families.

The main barrier is the union of ethnic identity and Buddhist faith: leaving the temple can feel like leaving the community, the ancestors and the family’s own honor. Added to this are the image of Christianity as a religion of minorities, the dispersion of the people across several countries with very different realities, and the scarcity of understandable materials in the language of the heart, which makes a first encounter with the gospel rare.

The Tai Lue need, above all, a presentation of Jesus that speaks to their hearts, in their language and in forms that respect their culture, such as stories and songs. There is a need for Scriptures accessible to those who do not read the traditional script, and for help so that new generations do not lose their language and their memory.

The few who follow Christ need community, sound Bible teaching and courage to live out their faith without breaking their love for their own family and people.

There has been Scripture in Lu since the last century, the Jesus film exists in the Lue language, and forty chronological Bible stories have already been recorded in the language, suited to a people with a strong oral tradition. The first Lue church was born about a hundred years ago, and the village of Bannalee remains Christian to this day. Small communities of followers of Jesus continue to exist among them, a sign that the gospel has already taken root.