Nai

Nai was born on November 1, 271, in a river-valley hamlet in the forests and fields of what is now eastern Guangxi, where Jin officials claimed authority but village life followed local chiefs and lineage elders. Her household spoke a Kra–Dai tongue and remembered its dead by name at each offering. Food and incense smoke went to the ancestors at a small shelf altar, and offerings of rice, salt, and a splash of fermented drink were set out for the house spirit and the spirits of the stream and ridge.

Her mother, Mae, worked alone to keep the household fed. Nai’s father, Kham, did not live with them and never held the child. Mae worked rainfed plots and garden beds, then returned with a baby tied high on her back, stopping to rinse cloths at the water jar and to mash grain for thin porridge. When Mae went to the fields, Ya Sa, Nai’s grandmother, kept the infant under the eaves and watched for flies on the feeding bowls. Ta Nong, her grandfather, handled visitors and spoke for the family in village matters. Mae’s brother Lue moved between households, bringing news and small trade goods.

After Nai’s first rains and first cool season, she began eating more gruel and drinking water drawn from the stream. In late May of 273 she developed severe diarrhea. Mae boiled water and mixed thin rice-water, and Lue fetched the ritual specialist Phim, who tied a cord at Nai’s wrist and laid rice and egg at the threshold for wandering spirits. Nai died on June 2, 273. Ya Sa washed the small body while Mae sat still. Ta Nong dug a grave at the edge of the family’s fields, and they buried her there with a small bowl of rice beside her, speaking her name once.