“Tempted,” as he put it, by the “demon of terminological invention,” Malinowski first coined the term “phatic” as one half of a two‐word compound, “phatic communion.” Since Malinowski, “phatic” has often been used to imply a semiotic equation where mere communicative contact automatically produces positive social relations among those communicating. This article explores a genre of “trash talk” on the pétanque gambling courts of Luang Prabang, Laos to challenge this assumption and clarify multiple senses of “phaticity.” With close attention to talk used not for positive communion but for distraction, I argue that communicative contact as a technical phenomenon must be separated from communicative contact as a sign of other kinds of meaning.

The notion of the “phatic” is less a single empirical object than a tangled thread of inquiry, separable into two senses of phaticity: communion phaticity and contact phaticity . The former sense is a shorthand for “small talk” aimed at building relations rather than imparting information. The latter sense captures the extent to which signs are oriented toward communicative contact. Recent work on the phatic demonstrates that people the world over have elaborate ideologies about the significance of contact. Reflecting on such ideologies helps explain why scholars so often entangle contact and communion phaticity and clarifies the big questions at phaticity's core.

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Kri people in central Laos traditionally engage in 'heavy' practices, including a stipulation that houses must be relocated and the flooring discarded upon a death in the family. Such 'heavy' practices are considered 'real Kri', and they are not adhered to by those who identify as Kri Phòòngq. This article examines the adoption of more enduring housing construction among the Kri, and the dynamics of ethnic identity implied by the dilemmas raised for individuals and families who must choose between (a) maintaining the heavy life of real Kri, (b) innovating new and less heavy solutions, or (c) changing identity entirely. The heaviness of being KriIn the upland Lao village of Mrkaa, in an ethnolinguistically diverse valley inside the Nakai-Nam-Theun Biodiversity Conservation Area, we are talking with Vòòk Sam, a senior elder of the community of Kri, who today number well under a thousand. Vòòk Sam is a man who embodies and represents the spiritual traditions that define what it means to be Kri Tàn, 'real Kri' , as he puts it, in a rapidly changing world. Atop the veranda of his rickety house made from light timber, palm leaves, and splitbamboo panelling, Vòòk Sam is explaining to us the most important defining feature of being Kri: rììp nnangq, 'heavy traditions' . Kri are known by their many neighbours in the area for their uniquely 'heavy' cultural practices, which put a noticeable burden on people in their daily existence. 1 Nearby Saek, Bru, Lao, and Vietnamese-speaking people often comment upon this when the subject arises. Vòòk Sam gives us some examples of these heavy burdens. Kri should eat only fish, no red meat. Meanwhile, their environment is teeming with wildlife that most other groups in Laos eat. Kri women who are menstruating should not set foot on the floor of their raised homes, instead staying quu qatak, 'on the ground' , resting and sleeping in purpose-built menstruation huts. And in case of a death in the family, Kri households should abandon their homes and relocate. They may reuse old building materials, but the flooring of the old house must be discarded for good. A new floor is made and installed. These are just a few of the 'heavy' injunctions that define the Kri condition.