Thailand’s Hill Tribes

Out of Thailand’s approximately 72 million people, about 1 million are what are often referred to as “hill tribes.” The officially recognized hill tribes are the Hmong, Karen, Lisu, Mien (or Yao), Akha, Lahu, Lua, Thin, and Khamu. We had the opportunity to meet, if only superficially, members of the Lisu, Karen and Mien tribes.

Some hill tribes, such as the Karen and Lawa, have lived in northern Thailand for centuries. Others, like the Hmong and Akha, migrated from neighboring regions (China, Myanmar, Laos) during the 19th and early 20th centuries due to wars, population pressures, and conflicts with the Qing dynasty. ※ ※ ※

Here’s an internet-researched summary of their status. Much of this aligns with explanations, some quite personal, given by our guides.

Official Recognition:

Despite voting in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007, Thailand does not officially recognize “indigenous peoples” as a distinct category. The Constitution refers to them as “ethnic groups.”

Challenges:

Land Rights: Indigenous communities face significant challenges regarding access to ancestral lands due to conservation policies and forest reclamation efforts. Many have been displaced or restricted from their traditional territories.

Citizenship: A substantial number of indigenous individuals remain stateless, limiting their access to education, healthcare, and freedom of movement.

Poverty and Education: Indigenous populations are among the poorest in Thailand and have lower participation rates in education. Language barriers and lack of mother-tongue instruction exacerbate these issues.

Cultural Preservation: Increased tourism has brought economic opportunities but has also led to cultural commodification and loss of autonomy over how their traditions are represented.

Advocacy and Progress:

Indigenous organizations like the Council of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand (CIPT) work to promote their rights. Efforts include advocating for legislation that specifically addresses indigenous issues.

Cabinet resolutions in 2010 aimed to restore traditional livelihoods for groups like the Karen and Chao Ley but have had limited implementation success. (※) (※) (※) (※) (※) (※)

Lisu

We visited Sri Dong Yen village which is very near our interesting rustic hotel: Lisu Lodge. 

Our introduction was a nāga-guarded staircase up to one of the village temples.

If we understood correctly, the stairs, buddha statues, and temples have all been built thanks to donations. These kinds of donations are considered acts of merit, and they accrue to the donors’ benefit.

A young Lisu woman was our guide. She was wearing her tribe’s traditional clothing. 

She explained some details about her village: Members of a few different tribal groups reside in this village; the majority are members of her tribe, but also Shan and Akha. She was proud that her village includes Buddhists, animists, and even Christians. She pointed to a small Christian church up on a nearby hill.

She led us along a couple simple streets among wooden houses. As we were walking, a man’s voice erupted from a PA system; he launched into a rather long narrative. When we asked our guide what he was saying, she said that he was talking about a village-improvement fund, and was reminding the local villagers who had not given their part yet to pay up. Ah, something standard around the world!

The destination of our village stroll was a covered outdoor space adjacent to the home of another Lisu resident, a woman of a certain age. She served us tea and snacks and told us a bit about village life.

The lunar new year was just a couple weeks away. Everyone in the village was gearing up for the celebration: it’s apparently quite a big thing in this village, no matter what religion or tribe anyone belongs to. Everyone parties for an entire week. Fueling that partying is a locally distilled spirit. Our host insisted that we try it. Nothing smooth and subtle about that stuff! 

A neighbor brought out a small tray of chicken bones. She explained that the local shaman (for lack of a better word) reads chicken bones to determine how auspicious major decisions might be. There are subtle little holes in chicken bones which render information. It sounded like marriages are somewhat arranged and somewhat up to the young couple. But if the shaman finds that the bones speak ill of the prospective marriage, that’s it. Find someone else.

Later that evening, after dinner at the hotel, a small troupe of five Lisu musicians and dancers came to perform for us:

They valiantly tried to get us to join in with them, but we were all a reluctant arhythmic group.

Karen & The Long-neck Village

We suspect that, from long-ago National Geographic days, you’ve seen photos of the so-called Long-neck peoples – actually members of the Karen tribe. A standard part of the tourist itinerary between Chiang Rai and The Golden Triangle is one of the villages where some of this tribe live. This little rustic village has been set up with a long outdoor courtyard ringed by vendor stalls and workshops.

Adjacent are a couple dozen simple wood and woven-bamboo houses.

This village has been designed to attract tourist attention and money, and to allow some of the tribal people to continue their traditional lifestyle and artisanal work.

As the summary at the beginning of this post says, the status and lives of some of these tribal people are challenging in Thailand. There’s a cultural, economic and political push-and-pull between indigenous and Thai identities.

Our guide for this stop on the way to The Golden Triangle provided an interesting and personally relevant perspective. While not from the Karen tribe, his parents and other members of his family still live in hill-tribe villages. His grandparents fled their homes in China around the time of the Communist Revolution. It took them many years to make their way to the highlands of northern Thailand where they contributed to the establishment of forest villages much like this display Long-neck village. Even up to today, the lives and activities of both immigrants like our guide’s parents and tribal peoples are separate from mainstream Thai society. Only recently have they been offered citizenship, but not easily. While our guide (a young man of maybe 30) succeeded to attend standard Thai schools, integrating into mainstream Thai society, and (relatively recently) attaining his citizenship, his parents are still not citizens. They, like many other tribal peoples and similar immigrants, are not allowed to travel beyond a specific north-Thailand district.

Children of the Long-neck tribe are welcomed into Thai schools now — but only without their neck rings. So, they have to make choices between their tribal heritage and modern Thai life. Some choose to hold onto their traditions, but many, quite understandably, opt for assimilation.

OK, so that’s our context for this visit. Are we being supportive of tribal continuity, or simply voyeuristic and commercial? Both, it seems. But, we can still learn about the Karen tribe.

What we learned about this practice of wearing piles of brass rings and elongating the women’s necks:

First of all, their necks aren’t technically elongated. The weight of the rings, which is considerable, over time pushes the shoulder bones down from a typical horizontal orientation to a steep slope down to the arms. The lower shoulders and the necessarily erect back posture lead to the impression that the neck is longer.

Why might these members of the Karen tribe do this? It seems that no one really knows. Theories suggest that the rings originally served to protect against tiger attacks or to distinguish them from neighboring tribes during conflicts. They are also seen as a symbol of beauty, wealth, and cultural identity, with elongated necks considered attractive and linked to dragon imagery in their folklore.

We visited a few weavers…

…whose fabrics, mostly in the form of scarfs, were quite lovely.

We bought a few because they are nice and, hopefully, to contribute a bit to their economy.

Mien

January 2025