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Champasak was once, 1400 years ago, the centre
of power in the lower Mekong basin, later a revered outpost
of the Khmer Angkor empire and, later still, one of the three
kingdoms to rule over the remains of Lane Xang. A fine heritage
that, according to the last prince of Champassak, was brought
to hard times by a former queen's indiscretion.
The beautiful Nang Pao ruled over Champasak
in the mid-17th century. But it's lonely at the top and the
queen found comfort in the arms of a prince from a neighbouring
kingdom. Alas, for the lady's pennyroyal was ineffective,
and Nang Pao fell pregnant. A great scandal ensued and, though
the queen remained in power and was succeeded by her illegitimate
daughter, Nang Peng, the unhappy Nang Pao decreed that all
unmarried mothers in the kingdom must sacrifice a buffalo
for their sins. The practice survived in some local communities
until the 1980s, the unfortunate women being known as 'Nang
Pao's Daughters.'
Though the Kingdom of Champasak prospered
for a while after the final dissolution of Lane Xang, at the
beginning the 18th century, its fortunes faltered quickly
and it was reduced to a vassal state of Siam before the century
had passed. For its part in Chao Anou's abortive attempt to
win freedom from the Siamese for the Lao kingdoms, Champasak
lost all of its territory east of the Mekong. Under French
rule the once mighty kingdom became a mere administrative
block; its royalty stripped of many of its privileges.
"With an unmarried mother as queen,"
Prince Boun Oum na Champasak, the last of the kingdom's royal
line, once said. "Everything started so badly that the
game was lost before it began."
Boun Oum, who died in French exile in 1980,
may have griped about his family's downfall (though he was
not a direct descendent of Nang Pao), but it did not stop
him from using his remaining royal privileges to loot the
nearby Wat Phu. The magnificent Angkorian temple complex was
recently made a UNESCO heritage site and is considered one
of the finest Angkor-inspired edifices outside of Cambodia.
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