camp there along with a residential base for personnel. Subsequently, he constructed an elephant pen on the banks of the stream and the area became another village for the Shan settlers, although with a smaller population than that of Ban Pong Mu. After Lord Kaeo had captured the satisfactory quota of elephants and had trained them as instructed, he decided to head back, and so elected the son-in-law of Phakamong, Saenkom, as the kang or village chief to oversee the village and it was then that the village was named Ban Mae Rong Son, or Village of the Elephant Training Camp Bayou; later, the name Mae Rong Son was corrupted to Mae Hong Son, as pronounced in the brogue of the Lannanese (initial r's are often pronounced as h's), and the aforementioned second brook that ran north was named Lamnam Pu on finding water there splashing up from the earth (lamnam refers to any body of flowing water; pu is the sound produced when throwing a stone or brick into the mud or against a soft substance).
The village of Mae Rong Son flourished and prospered and Shan began migrating there in increased numbers. Aside from this wave, in around the year 1856 there arose much political unrest on the western banks of the Salween River which furthered the influx of peace-loving Shan, and again in 1876 when war broke out between the blood-princes of the principalities of Nai and Mok Mai respectively. Prince Kolan of Mok Mai, unable to sustain the battle, moved his family to live with Saenkom in Mae Rong Son along with his wife Nang Khiao, their son Khun Long, their grandson Khun Ae and their granddaughters, Chao Nang Nu and Chao Nang Mia.
By 1874, with the village of Mae Rong Son having become a huge community with a constant influx of migrants and so it was agreed that it should change its status to that of a fully fledged mueang. Lord Inthawichayanon, Lord of Chiengmai, thus elected a Shan named Chankale to be its first partasakti and bestowed on him the title of Phaya
