Abstract. – Quintessentially, a mountain-dwelling folk with an all-pervading sense of animism, spirit-inhabited natural phenomena, not surprisingly Lahu accord special importance to the spirits of the mountains and dales, where they live and farm. This may be untamed “wilderness”; alternatively, it may be the location of Lahu villages and farming lands. In either situation, Lahu regard the spirits believed to own these mountains as powerful supernatural entities. In the first situation, they are essentially undifferentiated “spirits of the wild,” fearsome powers to be treated with respect and circumspection. In the second, after appropriate demonstration of reverence through ritual propitiation, they may be persuaded to become the specific guardian spirits, the “lords of the place” of the Lahu’s settlements and swiddens. [Thailand, Lahu, indigenous religion, cosmography, ritual]