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By Benjamin Malcolm
It takes a fair deal of effort to get to the Karen village of Ban
Huai Hee
One has to travel slowly into the mountains, along dirt roads that
cut and weave between forest and cliff, fighting for space with
10-wheeled trucks that come out of corners and cul-de-sacs. As you
rise into the mountains, you can catch rare glimpses of the main
city of Mae Hong Son, receding far into the forests below.
After an hour of such travel, you are there, almost suddenly, coming
down into a cluster of simple wooden houses in the shadow of 1,722-meter
Doi Pui and the smaller Doi Hua Gai, "Chicken Head Mountain."
Come on a Sunday morning, as we have, and the town is curiously
empty and quiet. The reason - almost everyone is attending the village
church service.
"There is one Animist household here," says farmer Joe-loy
Chamsecoonpry. "Everyone else is Christian."
This is a Karen hill tribe village, most definitely, but like all
other hill tribe communities, it is undergoing a slow metamorphosis
and is morphing, if not quite into Thai society, something akin
to it, in simpler form and with a more natural rhythm.
For the 200-person community of Ban Huai Hee, gone are most of
the animist outward appearance and the unfamiliarity with white
faces. It is one of the showcases of responsible eco-tourism - the
village has hosted visitors before and all are in charge of providing
information and assistance to those who wish to visit. Most people
come through the Mae Hong Son travel agency Joe Koe Eco-Trek.
The headman, in this case Annee Kwangtoo, has delegated the responsibility
to host visitors to everyone in the village. They approach this
task as a community. He walks by at one point after church is over,
in his red Karen tasseled shirt and chats amiably with our party,
before walking back down the dusty road to his house.
Chamsecoonpry, a 40-year-old father of two daughters, is one of
the many farmers of the village. He has been waiting for a group
of German boy scouts to show up later in the afternoon and is glad
to sit down with us to talk about traditions and the developments
over the years. He pulls out a mat and soon, some tea is provided,
steaming in a large black fire-boiled kettle.
In the background are the workings of a small farming community
- hanging laundry and weaving, trees and thatched houses. In the
distance, there are fields of vegetables, herbs, banana trees and
even some orchids grown especially by the village. A chorus of sounds
suddenly provides a background to our own discussion - the grunts
of giant black pigs (saved for auspicious feasts), the whisper of
wind in the leaves and the distant babble of children playing in
the street.
In their own language, Karen, they are known as "Pagan-Yaw,"
which translates simply enough into "human." They are
also known as "White Karen" or "Sgaw Karen."
Over 46 percent of all hill tribe people are Karen and they live
from the far north in Mae Hong Son all the way down to Kanchanaburi.
Mae Hong Son is a crossroads of culture, featuring a great mix
of peoples. Other than the Karen, the province has Akha, Lisu, Hmong
and a significant population of Shan (Thai Yai). There are also
the famous "Long Necks," the Paduang, on the outskirts
of one of the refugee camps.
According to our host, the village of Ban Huai Hee has been here
for 36 years, but the community has sequestered itself in these
environs for over 200 years. Daily life is very much taken up with
the demands of agriculture.
The burning of the new field begins in March, at the crest of the
hot season, then planting occurs during the beginning of the rainy
season. Weeding and harvesting follow at the end of the year.
The natural world is intermixed deeply in Karen culture. Their
system of agriculture is not "slash and burn," where people
use and move on, but rotational, in which seven areas of land are
used cyclically, so that people stay in one place but manage to
restore and renew the growing land.
The village obtains some power from solar cells and there is still
some dependence on herbs for healing, although for serious cases,
the hospital is accessible. So tight is the connection with nature
that Karen tradition warrants that a child's umbilical cord should
be wrapped around a tree in a special ceremony.
Chamsecoonpry can't recall where and if an example of this lies
out in the forest, but says that even if it is not done physically,
that tradition is told to and repeated to children as they grow
up. He says most of the younger generation chooses to stay in Ban
Huai Hee, although some do opt to head to urbanity.
"Right now, there are a lot of changes, but it's difficult
for old people to resist," he said. "We want the younger
generation to remember the culture. It's OK for new things to come,
but you should know the old as well."
As if to underscore this point, a bespectacled young man suddenly
stops by to listen to our conversation, neatly pressed in a white
button shirt and black pants from church. Over everything is his
bright red Karen shirt, forming an intriguing combination of old
and new.
The Karen is the only hill tribe to use elephants, but there are
none here. Chamsecoonpry remembers them from his grandparents' time,
10 years ago, but apparently they did not give birth and the elderly
tuskers moved on to another village.
Later, our party wanders about the village, enjoying the fresh
air and the sounds of people settling into their post-church routine.
The elementary school, staffed by Thai teachers, lies quiet for
the moment. High school students have to travel into the city to
finish their education.
A young woman leads us into a handicraft warehouse, where weaving
is stored in a glass cabinet, for sale to the public. Weaving and
dying are ongoing tasks and unfinished examples lay draped over
railings and in corners. Men, women, and children are all dressed
in some configuration of traditional clothing and other garments,
like the young church-goer.
There is a "visitor's centre" located next to the warehouse
and the remains of what looks like a campfire. There are also several
maps detailing the extent of the community and hiking trails that
lead up into the mountains. There is the wreckage of a Japanese
WWII plane along one of the trails, high up on Doi Pui.
We clamber back into our truck and head back down the long road
home, down the same curves and forested cliffs. Sometime into our
journey, with a clear view of Mae Hong Son in the distance, we have
to pull over for a five pick-up truck caravan coming the other way.
It's the group of German teenagers, clustered in the back of the
pickups in their casual clothes and Boy Scout scarves, heading for
days of hiking and nature at Ban Huai Hee.
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