Context (Field collection)
Commissioned and collected by Dr Alisa Santikarn with support from a Crowther-Beynon Grant, during fieldwork with Kui communities in Thailand towards a PhD in Archaeology from Cambridge.
Event Date 2020
Author: Mark Elliott

Context (References)
cf Alisa Santikarn (2022), The Last Elephant Catchers: (In)Visible Indigenous Heritage in Thailand. This thesis explores the imbalances of power that create a national Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) and the subsequent effects of this. It does so by examining the consequences of imposing state values onto Indigenous and minority communities, whose definitions of heritage, and relationships with the environment can often come into conflict with the national AHD. The central research question, therefore, asks: What impact does the Authorised Heritage Discourse have on Indigenous and minority communities and their heritage?


Event Date 2022
Author: rachel hand

Context (Production / use)
Today, the Pakam rope is still made, in order to keep the tradition alive, led by the highest-ranked hmor chang (elephant doctor), Boonma Saendee, who participated in these elephant captures as a teenager. [Alisa Santikarn 01/04/2023]
Event Date 1/4/2023
Author: Mark Elliott

Context (Production / use)
The Pakam rope (เชือกปะกำ) is one of the most important cultural objects for the Indigenous Kui Ajiang community in the Northeast of Thailand. Made from the hide of three male and female water buffalo, ropes were used to catch wild elephants. The Kui have a strong connection with elephants and used to cross the border into Cambodia to capture wild elephants until this practice gradually came to an end in the 1950s and 1960s, following the closure of the Thai–Cambodian border. The Kui men that would catch these elephants are called hmor chang, or ‘elephant doctors’. [Alisa Santikarn 01/04/2023]
Event Date 1/4/2023
Author: Mark Elliott

Context (Production / use)
Pakam ropes contain the spirits of Kui ancestors, and some Kui believe they also contain the community's God, Pakam. As is traditional, a ceremony was performed to invite spirits into the rope at the end of the manufacture process. However as this rope was not made for a Kui person or family it it not thought to contain spirits.
Event Date 11/4/2023
Author: Mark Elliott

Description (Physical description)
Cheụ̄xk pakả. Pakam Rope. Used by hmor chang (elephant doctors) to catch elephants. Made from braided hide of three male and female water buffalo, bound with 6 bands of light coloured rattan fibre, and metal wire. Ropes made for Kui people contain the spirit of the Pakam god and of Kui ancestors.
Event Date 11/4/2023
Author: Mark Elliott