In my 17 years in Thailand, I have worked with, befriended, partnered and supported 4 indigenous tribes: the Black Lahu people, the Lisu tribe, the Hmong and the greater Karen people, who are actually a community of many smaller and individuated tribes. My former Thai husband - the father of my daughter - is married to a Hmong woman now. And our cousin-uncle Ed, is married to her Hmong 'sister' from the same village.
A much younger me, with my then toddler daughter and our friend, Daa, in his Akha village.
Hanging with extended Lisu and Lahu family at the Lisu New Year celebrations in Mimi's village.
My daughter with her father and half-Hmong younger brother in traditional Hmong clothes for Hmong New Year in what is now our extended family's village in the mountains near Chom Thong. No, mountain people can't afford great phones.
It's fair to say we have more than our fair share of interaction with indigenous people, both privately through friends and family, and through our business partnerships, where we teach the growing of organic mountain herbs and buy them back to make our herbal products at Pure Thai Natural Co Ltd - basically a fair trade, organic, sustainable-livelihood project for indigenous people.
Me showing planting techniques in the Black Lahu villages a few years ago.
And how that same herb, a traditional herb, Wan Sao Long, looked a few months later after the rains. Grown on the Black Lahu lands at Doi Modt near Chiang Rai, for Pure Thai Naturals.
I have observed the passion so many people have to connect and engage with the real "untouched" culture, and I can honestly tell you this: most of what you see when you visit an indigenous community is no longer authentic. It's softened, adjusted and presented to suit a western audience.
Occasionally, at private gatherings, I stumble into raw indigenous culture and I'm shocked. If you've been on Hive longer than I have (2 yrs, 6 mths) you may remember one of my early posts, about the tribal wedding and the selling of the woman. We (and she) were literally sent out of the village immediately after the bride price had been paid! Your can read it here: I Heard Myself Defending The Bride Price.
Our own Thai wedding in the small family rice farm in Thung Saliam, Sukothai, almost didn't happen. On the 4th night of the 5 day wedding, my almost-husband casually dropped something in conversation about the ritual killing of the pig at the entrance to the house. And how we would have to eat the warm pigs entrails mixed into a raw laab (with chili and spices for flavour!) after the mor duu (village fortune teller) had read our marital fortune. 😵 Needless to say, we had a huge fight, I didn't partake, the pig was butchered elsewhere and our doomed marriage proceeded. We divorced 5 years later, amid much tut-tutting and nodding from the village elders who KNEW that was coming! Butchering and eating raw pig guts is nothing I have ever seen in an Amazing Thailand Tourism Authority advertisement, but Thai people always laugh a lot when I tell them that story. Because they know too, that the Thai culture sold to eager westerners is a pretty facade.
What I have learned about westerners is that we seek a purity of existence, and tend to glorify indigenous cultures while we neglect our own. Yes, I have danced in the Lisu village circle for New Year and made the traditional spirit offerings for health, good crops and good seasons.
What has always been important is to go in tiny numbers - not more than 4-6 persons - otherwise the culture is polluted and destroyed very rapidly. We often engage with our Lisu and Lahu friends through the notable and delightful old half-Dutch half-Japanese anthropologist, Otome Klein-Hutheesing, who has lived and worked with these tribes for 60 years. We come as guests and friends of her Lisu and Lahu families.
Otome, hanging with Mimi's mom, after I brought her home from the hospital.
And taking my turn at Otome's bedside - it's expected of extended family.
Today, on The International Day of the World's Indigenous People, I would like to suggest that our collective, endless quest to find purity, spirituality, sanctity, sacred medicine and "real culture" in remote indigenous communities is misguided, at best. We have all that we need inside ourselves.
So why did I personally become involved in the indigenous cultures here (apart from that minor detail of my ex husband marrying into it?)
Because they asked for help. Because people are dying - starving, living rough in the jungles, pushed to places where they are either a tourist attraction, cheap exploited labour for brothels, farms or your iphone factory, or they are treated as criminals. The Karen people, in particular, have invited me to work with them on the herbal project because they have food security issues, no papers and no way to survive in the jungles after some 62 years of civil war, which continues today. The lands they are allowed to struggle for survival on remain one of the most heavily landmined stretches on earth. Next time you see me post about Thai herbs that staunch blood flow, you might understand it a little differently.
We are working to keep tourists OUT of these indigenous areas! To be as non-intrusive as possible. People ask me all the time if they can come and volunteer in the villages, travel with me and the answer is usually no. These people are not a sideshow, and they are intimidated by western people. If the village is installing toilets, electric and water to make the tourists more comfortable, it's already over.
One of my favourite images, snapped very recently on my phone at the opening of the field hospital inside Karen State in Burma, is of a young Karen woman - one of the very first patients to use the outpatient pharmacy for her sick baby. She walked a whole day to reach the clinic and walked away with not only free medicine, but some warm baby clothes (FREEZING up there in the mountains in Dec-Jan!) that had been donated by friends in Chiang Mai.
What it says to me is that SHE needs to choose what's best for her, and her child. If she chooses pink western baby clothes (cos they're warm!) and chooses a life away from her indigenous settlement (bamboo huts hanging off the edge of a mountain) it is HER CHOICE. My need for her to retain her cultural identity is irrelevant. And I need to find my own spirituality, sanctity, purity and connection to Mother Earth where I am. I can't get it through her..
Next year this young woman is likely to be one of the indigenous interns in our new herbal project, based in Hpa-An, Karen State in Burma and in Mae Sariang and Mae Salit in Mae Hong Son, Western Thailand. Our goal is to enable her to make cash money in an organic & sustainable way locally, so she does not NEED to leave her village, her community, her culture if she doesn't want to. In the future, when there is solar electric supply, crypto may enable her to stay in her village and find a future as one of the world's unbankable people. Cos you need citizenship somewhere to have a bank account.
How many Karen people are living in Karen State and across the Thai border areas with a fragile identity, wobbly food supply and few options? Over 5 million people. With one hospital and no legally recognized national identity.
The International Day of the World's Indigenous People is a good day to reflect on what OUR OWN CULTURE is, why we neglect it and seek to live vicariously through others. If you DO choose to travel and visit indigenous tribes for "an experience", please do so only in SMALL groups (not more than 4-6), always as a guest and a personally invited visitor, and NEVER as a paying tourist.
Their culture depends on you not destroying it.
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This is very interesting! It's good to let youngsters know more about the marriage customs/rituals up in the mountains. That will prepare them better if they decide to reside there. For older generation of Indian people, they normally get astrological readings way before deciding to emotionally invest in their potential life partner.
It's a good idea to examine compatibility, however you do that. Not every astrologer is a good one tho!! LOL.... wouldn't want to be making a decision like that based on an arbitrary reading!!
Yes, it IS important for our kids to see life in other settings, cultures and communities.
Appreciate you stopping by! !ENGAGE 15
ENGAGEtokens.Wonderful post, and I heartily agree; we have all that we need within ourselves.
And, should we choose to visit indigenous people, we should be looking to find ways of empowering them, as you are doing, and not of exploiting them.
Nice to see you here @crescendoofpeace - long time no see!! Hive is getting ready for it's maiden moon voyage so a great time to get back into the groove. And yes, we DO have all we need within ourselves!
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ENGAGEtokens.Shame it tough life these people have to keep up with, having to take up the responsibility to alleviate their hardship is something not common in our days.
You are a philanthropist, a beautiful culture they have though.
Their culture and the terrain is both stunningly wild and beautiful, and unbelievably harsh!! Their cultures are raw, threatened and extraordinarily complex. I support their right to stay living the way they have always done, and am working to create cash incomes for those people which won't involve tourists and builds on the herbal-plant-medicine culture they already have. But I equally support any of them to leave it behind for safety and a little more comfort - there are still active conflict areas, landmines and threats of villages being destroyed. Children still regularly die of malnutrition and preventable disease here. Our plan is to enable any who would choose to leave to have options to do that - it's politically very complex, but possible. A long game.
Appreciate your gracious support, @joetunex.
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You know just when you think you are having it rough somewhere in the world there are others having it worse than the other. Your story makes me appreciate life. May you continue to be strengthened to offer them support.
I am never more alive, nor more grateful, than after time in the wild beauty of these rugged mountains in the presence of these simple, earthy and courageous people. I appreciate so many simple things, like clean water, and a blanket and knowing we will eat tomorrow.
Blessings to you, too, Joe. Life is rich and full.
Blessing to you too 🤗
ENGAGEtokens.-we seek a purity of existence- ...this small sentence of yours made me consider and think about some things from a different angle
I'm happy to have been of service that way. And thank you for sharing that little bit of encouragement.
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ENGAGEtokens.What a fantastic post. Thanks so much for this insight.
Aaaww - thank YOU for the reblog and the vote of confidence! 😊
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ENGAGEtokens.Wow @artemislives thanks for sharing this insightful and beautiful post. I feel your life has led you to the Karen and the Karen to you for a very good reason. The herbal project sounds so well thought through too, bless you for all you do and are. xxx.
We're all brought - of our own volition and creation - to the places where our gifts can serve and contribute. It's probably not that amazing that experience and simply being with people gives us the insights to appreciate what they need. More projects start too soon, without connection and really deep observation.
Hugs to you - have been missing you online. x
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ENGAGEtokens.Wow, you are quite the adventurous spirit. It's a real pleasure seeing your appreciation of the Thai culture—especially the indigenous groups. Proud of you for the work you're doing. Proud of you for the mom you are.
Never was much good at conforming to plastic boxes and western culture. 🤣 Don't really think of myself as adventurous either - just live in the moment, with vigor and passion. And usually take the path less traveled.
Thank you for such loving and supportive words - much needed by this solo mom on a busy Monday!!!
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ENGAGEtokens.Such an interesting and thought provoking post. Keeping the culture or development seems to be an issue.
Is there Covid19 there?
Thank you for writing.
!tip
There have been no community transmitted cases of Covid in Thailand for over 70 days - borders are tightly closed and compulsory testing and quarantine in gov facilities. Burma too, has very low levels. The isolation of the mountain people has been a blessing.
Glad you appreciated the post - thank you for showing up to say that!
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ENGAGEtokens.#POSH
This is such a beautiful post. You are doing amazing work. Many blessings to you.
I love every word you wrote about indigenous people - they are indeed not sideshows or curiosities although they are often treated as such.
I like what you wrote about the Karen woman and her choice - It is indeed her own.
You work in such beautiful countries and with great cultures. I enjoyed my trips to both Burma and Thailand but made no effort to visit indigenous people. I have traveled a lot and hearing of such excursions and how they were sold never sat well with me.
I had to smile while reading about your wedding and divorce thinking that everyone would probably declared that it was the refusal of the pig ritual that caused things to end.
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
what you did is amazing ! I am also fascinated about indigenous people, their culture, way of live but now, it's too late for me - I am already too comfortable living in the city and dependent on many things. When I saw my biological mom wandering around the forest and meeting these people, it seemed fun. For me, she has one of the most enjoyable job, traveling and also meeting people from different tribes. Pretty much like in Indonesia, their life is almost endangered. Some of them are forced to leave their tradition behind and to embrace the new culture or what they say " the civilized " way. I am always in favor to keep things the way it is unless they choose to leave.