Discovering the Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand
The hill tribes of Northern Thailand have long been an area of interest for visitors, and I too am drawn to find out more about their distinctive cultures and customs. Although often referred to as ‘hill tribes’, these ethnic minorities are not collectively one tribe but rather, diverse minorities each with their own unique customs, language, culture, and history.
Of the many different groups in this part of Northern Thailand, most prevalent are the Hmong, Lisu, Akha, Yao, Lahu and Karen tribes having migrated from neighbouring countries to escape war, persecution and insecurity.
We begin our exploration of history and culture at the Chiang Mai City Heritage Centre before going onto the Lanna Folklife Centre to gain a further understanding of the early history of Chiang Mai and the cultures and traditions of the people including the ethnic minorities. I come out of there with my head reeling with information, too much to absorb, but I decide of all the tribes and their unique, tribal clothing, the exotic headwear of the Akha women is my favourite.
The surrounding hills of Chiang Mai at Doi Pui, along with Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son, are some of the areas where the Hmong people have settled. Originally from Southern China, they left their homelands in the early 19th Century to escape forced assimilation with China and moved south to the mountains of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. They are the second largest ethnic minority living in Thailand.
Looking across the Mekong River to Laos from a lookout on the Thai side.
Regular tours are available from Chiang Mai to Doi Pui to visit their small village where you will get to see the architecture of their houses, their carefully tended market and flower gardens and their coffee plantations. Along with their traditional dress, their markets display the colourful, eye catching designs of fabric and merchandise that the tribe is well known for.
A small museum offers a glimpse into the lives of the Hmong people. While the village is quite touristy, it is an opportunity to support the community through a small entry fee into their village and the chance to learn about their culture.
However, if you are on a tight schedule, the bustling Warorot Market in Chiang Mai offers an insight into the Hmong culture. In a small laneway, at the back of the market is the Hmong Market, easy to miss from the outside as it looks like an old shed, but inside, over a large area, it is bursting with an incredible array of colour and designs in their exotic handmade clothes, beautiful handbags, cushion covers, quilts and flamboyant jewellery.
Colourful Hmong merchandise in the Warorot Market at Chiang Mai.
It is an amazing introduction to perhaps the most vibrant and distinctive aspect of their colourful culture through the vast array of goods on display. And like the Hmong tribe, the Karen tribe have settled around Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son. They are the largest ethnic group in Thailand, although there are different sub-groups.
There is conflicting research as to exactly where they came from. One source indicates that the Karen tribe were in Thailand during the Mon-Khmer Empire, long before the Thais and may have migrated from the high plains of Central Asia, across China to Southeast Asia, while another source says they have originally come from Tibet to Burma (Myanmar) and across the Thai border.
There are tour companies that will take you to see the Karen people outside Chiang Mai and for a more authentic experience there is the chance to take part in a customised homestay to learn about their culture, lifestyle, farming and remote village life; a chance to get off the beaten track. The Karen community also welcome visitors to their small elephant sanctuary to help feed and care for the elephants thus supporting their local community initiatives.
Tea plantations in the mountains near Chiang Rai.
We leave Chiang Mai and take a three-hour bus journey through the mountains north to Chiang Rai. The Hill Tribe Museum and Education Centre in Chiang Rai has a collection of life size models of the different ethnic minorities, all in traditional dress and slowly we are beginning to recognise the different groups. There are many hill tribe communities scattered throughout this region who offer opportunities to engage with their cultures. We are fortunate to hire an excellent tour guide who is a wealth of information on the hill tribes.
On the outskirts of Chiang Rai, in a small, isolated village, live the Karen people, eking out a living as subsistence farmers, spinning and weaving scarves, making intricate jewellery, and welcoming tourists into their compound in the hope of selling some of their merchandise. Their lives (along with the Hmong and Akha people) continue to be a struggle.
They have access to land for which they pay taxes, but not Thai citizenship and this renders them stateless, leaving them unable to work in the community, or have access to health care and education. Within their own communities they have retained their culture and traditions. Our tour guide informed us that he would take us to meet the Karen people in their community.
Displays of traditional dress in the Chiang Rai Hill Tribe Museum.
I was unsure initially, wondering whether we were being voyeurs, imposing on their lives as I had read articles of some tourists being critical of visits while others treated the tribes like sideshows. However, our guide assured us that we would be welcomed. And we were. Our guide has a respectful relationship with the Karen tribe. He was warmly welcomed, and this was extended to us.
We paid a small fee to enter their compound, the money going to the community to support their living costs. As we enter, a woman from the Akha tribe comes towards me, smiling, holding out their traditional headwear and places it on my head. She doesn’t know that this headwear is my favourite! Inside the entry area are small market stalls with a selection of scarves, trinkets and jewellery.
However, it was deeper within the compound that we meet the Karen people. Their delicate stilt houses, made of bamboo with thatched roofs are very basic – extremely hot in summer and very cold at night. Piles of chopped wood were meticulously stacked alongside the houses; chickens scratched in the dry earth in a large chicken run and small vegetable plots struggled to help support the families’ diets.
A Karen woman weaving their colourful traditional cloth.
The neck rings of the Karen women have a long history. It is believed that a woman was bitten on the neck by a tiger, and as a protective measure, women took to wearing the neck rings. I am offered a neck ring to try on. The rings, placed at the front of my neck were only half of the normal set of rings and were tied at the back of my neck with ribbon.
I am surprised at the weight of it and can understand how wearing a full set of neck rings, which can weigh up to 7-8 kilograms, has over time caused skeletal damage to the collar bone and ribs thus pushing them down and giving women the appearance of having long necks.
I note they have light silk scarves tucked inside their neck rings. One of the young women explains that it is to protect their neck from the heat. These neck rings also make it very difficult for women bending and working in the fields, as well as sleeping. Some of the older women also wore rings on their knees and ankles.
Checking out some earrings at a stall inside the Karen compound.
Girls as young as seven or eight are sitting in the compound wearing the neck rings, although our guide says that in recent times the practice is beginning to die out as more and more of the young women are rejecting the tradition. Not wanting to be seen as different, they no longer aspire to wear the neck rings, and there is no pressure on them to do so.
We browse their market stalls. The young women, some busily weaving and proudly wearing their neck rings were happy to show us their hand-crafted delicate scarves and the jewellery they had made. I feel it’s important to contribute to their handicrafts given this is the only way the village has of making money. I leave with some delicate scarves and earrings.
Our tour guide takes us further north to the once notorious Golden Triangle, the area that borders three countries, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, previously renowned for the poppy fields and opium trade which emerged from this region.
A depiction of the opium wars in the House of Opium museum.
Nearby, the House of Opium is a small museum that provides fascinating insights into the opium industry and the impact on communities and countries, with a wealth of information and visual displays of life during the years when poppies were blooming across the landscape and opium was the currency of survival.
Eventually the resultant opium wars cast a shadow of darkness on all the countries involved. The hill tribes, once a part of the poppy growing culture, have been supported by government and over the years successfully re-educated to replace these crops with tea and coffee plantations for the benefit of their communities.
As we stand at a lookout gazing over the densely vegetated area on the Thai border across the Mekong River to Laos, and across the Ruak River to Myanmar, it’s hard to believe on this sunny, quiet afternoon, that this area hides so many dark secrets.
If I was to do this trip again, I would base myself for a longer period in Chiang Rai and explore the hill tribes from there, as there are many community programs with different tribes that allow a range of interactive experiences. And as fascinating as it was to see the different cultures, it could not be divorced from the very real social difficulties and the impact that comes with being a stateless ethnic minority.
All images: © Vin Coffey
