The Thai family is patriarchal, but it is common for all the elders of a Black Thai family to equally share responsibility for the rearing of children.    Each small village is called a ban, and several of these are called a Muong.  Larger Thai villages are under the control of a Chao Muong (prince).  Thai families are marked by harmony, hospitality, mutual assistance and community spirit.

Weddings involve a contract between two families. Marriages are arranged, and require the groom to work for his wife’s family for a number of years, sometimes as long as a decade, before returning to the paternal family.  Marriage by kidnapping happens sometimes, which is a form of eloping, and usually involves a love match.  In the latter case, the new couple may not be allowed to return to the paternal home.  Wives take the name of their husbands.

When giving birth, Thai mothers adopt a seated position, and partly support themselves from a rope or belt tied above them.  As with all other parts of life, detailed rules govern every detail.  During delivery, the mother is always kept warm by a fire and is fed rice through a bamboo tube.

Funerals are extremely important ceremonies to the Thai.  Aspects of animism, ancestor worship and sometimes Buddhism can be seen.  The first part of the funeral involves honoring the deceased thought the presentation of offerings.  The body is taken to the forest for burial in the case of the White Thai.  The Black Thai practice cremation.  In both cases, the burial (or cremation) is followed by a ceremony to call the spirit of the deceased to come and reside in the part of the house set aside for ancestor worship.  

The Thais are noted for their irrigation works.  They adopted wet rice cultivation early in their history, and spend a great deal of time working on canals, ditches, water wheels and dikes.  They formerly grew one crop of sticky rice per year, but in recent times they have been raising two crops of ordinary rice in a season.  They also use slash-and-burn (swidden) agriculture on uplands, where they grow dry land rice, indigo, corn, vegetables (cassava, sweet potato, beans, gourds), cotton and mulberry.  They also raise fish in cages along riverbanks.  They still use the forest as a source of building materials and wild food.

The Thai, like their cousins in Thailand, like to eat ground chili, mixed with salt, and often with mint, cilantro (coriander) leaves, and onion.  They eat chicken and pork, but often enjoy fresh and smoked fish.  They smoke tobacco in bamboo pipes.  Rice is the staple food, of course.

Thai houses have thatched roofs, and are built on stilts, perhaps five to eight feet above the ground.  Walls are of woven bamboo, sawn boards, or are often of clay stucco over a woven mat.  The roof of Black Thai houses is shaped like a tortoise shell, with alcoves at each end.  The White Thai build rectangular houses with a porch at the front, or all around the house.  In Than Hoa and Nghe, the Thai houses resemble those of the Muong people group, which build rectangular houses of bamboo, thatched roofs, split bamboo or sawn board walls, that are reached by stairs, without porches.  The interior of a Thai home is spacious with minimal furniture.  But most houses in the mountains have two fireplaces, one for guests and warming and another to cook on.  They sometimes use a bronze stove for steaming rice.