Khun Borom

Khun Borom (Thai: ขุนบรม, Thai pronunciation: [kʰǔn bɔːrom]) or Khoun Bourôm (Lao: ຂຸນບູຣົມ, Lao pronunciation: [kʰǔn bǔːróm]) is a legendary progenitor of the Tai-speaking peoples, considered by the Lao to be the father of their race.

According to the myth of Khoun Borôm, a myth commonly related among Tai-speaking peoples, in ancient times people were wicked and crude. A great deity destroyed them with a flood, leaving only three worthy chiefs who were preserved in heaven to be the founders and guides for a new race of people. The deity sent the three chiefs back to the earth with a buffalo to help them till the land.

The chiefs and the buffalo arrived in the legendary land of Muang Thèn, located at today's Điện Biên Phủ, Vietnam. Once the land had been prepared for rice cultivation, the buffalo died and a bitter gourd vine grew from his nostril. From the gourds on the vine, the new human race emerged. Relatively dark-skinned aboriginal peoples emerging from gourds cut open with a hot skewer and the lighter skinned Tai peoples emerging from cuts made with a chisel.

The gods then taught the Tai peoples how to build houses and cultivate rice. They were instructed in proper rituals and behavior, and grew prosperous. As their population grew, they needed aid in governing their relations and resolving disputes. Phagna Thèn, the king of the gods, sent his son, Khoun Borôm, to be the ruler of the Tai people. Khoun Borôm ruled the Tai people for 25 years, teaching them to use new tools and other arts.

After this quarter-century span, Khoun Borôm divided the kingdom among his seven sons, giving each one of them a portion of the kingdom to rule.

Khoun Borôm is sometimes erroneously identified, apparently without any evidence at all, as having been Piluoge, a historical ruler of the Nanzhao (Ai Lao) Empire. It is claimed that this Khoun Borôm, ruler of Nanzhao, had nine sons, and seven of them became kings in different kingdoms in "Lèmthong":

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Wikipedia