The name Mlabri is a Thai/Lao alteration of the word Mrabri, which appears to come from a Khmuic term "people of the forest".

However, this was contested in the journal PLoS Biology in 2005 in an exchange of articles between Hiroki Oota and his colleagues and Tony Waters.

In 1938, Austrian anthropologist Hugo Bernatzik published an ethnography of the "Yellow Leaf People" which contained his brief observations of the tribe in the early 20th century.

[5] The houses in the permanent villages that the Mlabri now live in are made of cinderblock and wood, with metal roofs and even electricity.

While still hunting and gathering, the Mlabri now engage in highland farming and hammock weaving, besides working as day laborers.