Missionaries Sterilize the Akha People

CHAPTER TWO

THE AKHAS: A PEOPLE IN DISTRESS

The Akhas living in Thailand are a disturbed, distressed people. Although facing problems is not a new experience to them, the depth and complexity of the problems that now confront them in exponential ways is almost overwhelming. When they are asked "What is the future of the Akhas of Thailand?" the answer often is, "We have no future." Some will say, "If we could get our citizenship, if we could have enough land to work, and if our children could get an education, there might be some hope for the future."

Just as developing countries such as Burma and Thailand are sometimes to be considered "Third World" countries, the Akhas living in Southeast Asia might be considered "Third Class" people of every country in which they live.

Orientation

Identification

The Akhas call themselves Akha, with both syllables spoken on a low tone. The Shan and Thai living in Southeast Asia call them Kaw or Ekaw (Ikaw), a name they do not like. In Laos they are often called Kha Kaw. In China and North Vietnam, the Akhas are often included in the name Hani (Hanni) or Wani, which includes several other ethnic groups as well (Bradley 1975).

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The Akha language is in the Loloish branch of the Lolo-Burmese sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman family. Basically it is the Jeu G'oe dialect of Akha which is spoken in Thailand.

Location

Akhas originated in Southwest China (Lewis 1970a:30). About 1880 they began to migrate southward across the border of Burma into the Shan State of Kengtung, although the main body remained in China, where they are to this day. Some of the Akhas living in the southern part of Kengtung State began migrating about 1915 into the mountainous area in the northern part of Thailand (Dellinger 1969:108). {footnote 1: He quotes Peter Wyss, who computed it on the basis of the Akha cycle of years.}

In their constant quest for new areas to make swidden, the Akhas have continued migrating into Thailand, although occasionally the migration goes the other way, as some households return to Burma when they encounter economic or political problems in Thailand.

As of mid 1977 there were some 117 Akha villages in Thailand. Three of them are located in Chiang Mai Province, one in Phrae Province, and the remaining 113 in the Province of Chiang Rai. (See Figure 1, page 14.)

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Most of the Akha villages in Chiang Rai Province are located in the area north of the Mae Kok River, and west of the Chiang Rai-Mae Sai highway (Hanks et al. 1964). There are nine Akha villages south of the Mae Kok River.

Demography

Three excellent surveys of the ethnic groups living north of the Mae Kok River in Chiang Rai Province were made by Lucien M. and Jane R. Hanks in 1964, 1969, and 1974 (Hanks 1975). Table 1 (page 15) gives a summary of the Akha data they collected in those surveys. {footnote 2: They realize that the crude birth and death rates are probably not accurate, due to various factors beyond their control.}

Over a ten-year period (1964-1974) the Akha population in the area investigated by Hanks et al. increased from 6,270 to 10,695, representing a natural rate of increase of roughly 5.49% per year. Some of this is due to migration (Hanks 1977). It is very difficult to compute migration, since there is migration to and from Burma, as well as some movement to the south of the Mae Kok River. Hanks (1977) feels there may have been an immigration rate as high as 457 net gain between 1964 and 1969, and another net gain of 985 between 1969 and 1974.

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Figure 1: North Thailand (Map based on U.S. Army, Far East, 1964, 1:1,250,000.)

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Table 1. Summary of Bennington-Cornell Survey of the Akha {footnote 3: From Hanks 1975. These surveys include just those Akhas north of the Mae Kok. The figures differ from some of the preliminary surveys.}

1964

1969

1974

Total population of Akhas

6,270

8,272

10,695

Number of villages

55

72

91

Mean population per village

114.0

114.9

117.5

range of population

19-317

20-371

3-297

Total number of households

999

1,284

1,699

Mean number househoulds per village

18.2

17.8

18.7

range of houses

5-48

4-65

1-49

Mean number of residents per household

6.3

6.4

6.3

Crude birth rate

70.5

71.3

94.6

Crude death rate

16.9

9.2

12.1

Annual change

53.6

62.1

82.5

Percentage of population under fifteen years of age

45.4%

44.9%

43.7%

There were about 14,000 Akhas living in 117 villages in Thailand in mid 1977. {footnote 4: This includes villages not covered by the Hanks survey. Most of the data are gathered from surveys made in conjunction with the family planning and inoculation programs I helped with.} At the time the crude birth rate was about 37 per 1,000, and the crude death rate about 10 per 1,000 per year.

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The contrast in Hanks' and my figures for birth rates can be thus explained: 1) his figures were too high to start with (they probably should have been in the 50-55 range), and 2) following the introduction of the family planning program, there has probably been some decrease in both births and deaths.

Dr. Thatsanai (Thatsanai 1976) and his team in the Mae Chan Nikhom area surveyed seven Akha villages and two Yao villages. {footnote 5: The Public Welfare Department has developed several special settlement and development centers for tribal people in northern Thailand. These are often called "Nikhom" in Thai. One of them is located near Mae Chan, and is thus called the Mae Chan Nikhom.} They found a growth rate of 3.7% per year in those villages. This would indicate that there was a birth rate of approximately 53 per 1,000, and a death rate of 16 per thousand at that time.

Recent, reliable demographic data regarding the Akhas living in Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan are difficult to find. Sources tend to be old and generally inaccurate. I would estimate that there may be roughly half a million Akhas in the world as of mid 1977 (Bradley 1975, Kunstadter 1967:154).

Settlement Patterns

The village is the basic political and and social unit in Akha life, with the individual households being the primary units within it. Akha villages are generally located on mountain slopes, in the general area of potential swidden land. Traditionally Akhas did not build their villages near roads, but since the Nikhom has established its center above Mae Chan, it has put in many roads which go through or near Akha villages. (See Figure 2, page 18.) There are advantages and disadvantages to living near a road. Some Akhas (especially those who culivate opium poppies) generally prefer to be away from the road.

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At the entrance of each village is a 'spirit gate' (law kaw), which serves to separate the the habitation of people from the realm of forest spirits. At these gates any stray spirits that might adhere to a person coming from the jungle are frightened off.

The village priest's house is built first, and tends to be in the center of the village. Other houses are built around it in no special design, although there must be a central lane passing through the village.

Akha houses are usually built on piles, although sometimes the 'upper' side of the house (i.e., on the upper slope of the mountain) is built directly on the ground. The house is divided into the men's side and the women's side by a partial partition, with the ancestral altar tied to a roof beam on the women's side near the partition (Lewis 1970b:625-641).

The Akha village is virtually autonomous, at least within the relatively light monitoring given all villages by the Royal Thai Government. There is no pan-Akha organization which binds the various villages into any kind of union. The only inter-village relationship transcending the village is their kinship system.

Figure 2: Mae Chan Nikhom north to the Burma Border (from Bennington-Cornell 1974)

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Akha village size averaged 117.5 in 1974 (Hanks 1975). The largest village had 297 members at that time. In mid 1977, when i took a census of ten Akha villages north of the Mae Kok River, five had a population exceeding that number. {footnote 6: The populations were: 540, 463, 388, 368, and 303, an average of 54.8 members larger than the largest village in 1974.} It is natural that there are fluctuations in village size, but this growth may be more significant. Akhas are having to move to: 1) find safety (there are too many killings and robberies in the smaller villages), and 2) to find food (it is usually the larger villages which have a more abundant rice supply or the means whereby rice may be purchased).

Akha villages are interspersed among villages of other ethnic groups. In 1969 the Bennington-Cornell Survey revealed that along with the seventy-two Akha villages, there were forty-eight Lahu, twelve Lisu, five Lisu-Lahu, eleven Yao, six Karen, nine Chinese and three Shan villages. There is constant jockeying for the best land, and often the Akhas lose out to the more powerful groups they confront. Some land is so rocky, steep, or full of large clumps of bamboo, that it would ordinarily be considered unfit for swidden. Over the past eight years I have seen more and more of such land being used, however, simply because there is not enough arable land to go around.

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Marriage and the Family

Akhas live in patrilineal, virilocal extended families. The men generally marry outside the village but within the tribe. {footnote 7: In Ba Jaw village, during the time of my study, there were a total of eight first marriages, and two remarriages following divorce. Of the ten women married, seven of them were from other villages, three from Ba Jaw.} Any wives brought into the household should preferably come from another clan. (All the marriages in the study village of Ba Jaw during the time of the survey were girl from a different clan from the boy.) If the couple are from the same clan, they ordinarily share no common male ascendant for the last seven generations. If they are more closely related than that, it is still possible to get married, but they must then go through a special ritual first to 'separate the sub-clans' (Lewis 1969:313-14).

The average age for the first marriage (as I computed it from 114 sample couples) was eighteen years of age for males (with a range of fifteen to twenty-five), and seventeen years of age for females (with a range of fourteen to twenty-four).

The Akha ideal is for a man to have his married sons and their families and his unmarried sons and daughters living with him. He is the household head in every sense, and serves as family priest for all Akha household rituals. When a son marries, a 'little house' ( nym za) is built for the couple near the main house (nym ma). The couple will continue to eat in the main house, however. Ritually and economically they will continue to be a part of the extended family.

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After a couple has had several children of its own, they may request permission to have their own ancestral altar and establish their own household. {footnote 8: In Ba Jaw village there is one man with ten children who is still living with his father. One of his sons has moved out, however.} If there is a younger son still in the home to look after the parents, permission is usually granted. A ritual is held which culminates in the departing family receiving a part of the ancestral altar for its new home. During my study in Ba Jaw village, there were only two families that moved out of an extended family. In both cases it was extensive crowding that initiated the move.

In 1974 I investigated a total of over three hundred Akha couples from which I took a sample of sixty couples in ten villages (six per village) to get a profile of completed families (that is, the woman was no longer fecund). They had a total of 213 living boys, and 160 living girls, with 126 children lost through death. How many they had lost through miscarriage I was not able to ask, for cultural reasons.

These sixty couples had an average of 6.2 living children (with a range of 1-11), and an average of 2.1 who had died (with a range of 0-6). {footnote 9: In the developing world the figure for living children is 5.5, and in the developed world it is 2.5 (Caldwell 1975:429).} These figures may indicate that the average Akha woman who has completed fertility has had a total of about nine pregnancies, with six children surviving. {footnote 10: One couple, not included in the sample, had had a total of eighteen pregnancies, with thirteen offspring still alive.}

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Sociopolitical Structure

The most important office in the Akha village is that of the 'village priest' (dzoe ma) (Lewis 1968, 1969:117-141). As 'father of the village,' he has the responsibility for giving spiritual protection and ceremonial leadership to that village. He does not have authority over individual households, unless they have broken some taboo which may bring harm to the entire village. If that happens, he must resolve the matter through fines, or sacrifices, or a combination of the two.

There is usually a political headman (bu seh) for the Akha village as well. The Akha term for the office and the concept of what the political headman should do both come from the Shan and Thai peoples of Burma and Thailand, in whose political sphere the Akhas live. Usually the headman is either appointed by the nearest local Thai official or is ratified by him. Therefore, the position is most often held by a man who knows the Thai language (the Northern dialect) fairly well. There are many instances in Thailand where the 'village priest' holds the office of the political headman as well.

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All of the household heads of a village form an informal council. They will meet together upon the call of the 'village priest' or headman, in order to discuss village matters or to carry out needed rituals. They are the ones who will appoint a new 'village priest' if the need arises.

Religion

Central to the 'Akha tradition' (Aka zah) is the ancestral altar (a poe paw law) which is maintained in each main house in an Akha village. {footnote 11: A family that does not have an ancestral altar to which it is affiliated cannot live in an Akha village.} Nine times a year ancestral offerings (a poe law-eu) are made by each household. The ancestors are expected to assure the present generation sufficient rice, the main food of the Akhas.

The head of each household is the household priest. The 'village priest' is the ritual specialist for the village and all of its sacred areas, which comprise the village gate, the village swing, the main water source, and the village burial site. His principal concerns have to do with the carrying out of the rituals which have been handed down by the ancestors.

For ceremonies that have to do with non-ancestral spirits, 'spirit priests' (boe maw) are the main religious practitioners. They 'speak to the spirits' (neh to to-eu), pleading or threatening and making offerings to achieve the desired results.

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Health

The Akhas living in Thailand face all of the health problems that lowland Thai face, with a few additions. Hookworm is a serious problem due to the fact that Akhas do not use latrines and usually go barefooted in the jungle. Malaria is endemic in many sections, and a virulent strain of malaria is brought in with visitors and immigrants from the Burma side as well.

Nutrition is a constant problem. They often do not have enough rice to eat. There are greens and other edible plants to supplement the diet that can be gathered by those Akhas fortunate enough to live near a forested area. Fruits are also eaten in season. Meat is generally eaten only when there is a ceremony.

In the past, most illnesses among Akhas were treated either by the 'shaman' (nyi pa) or the 'spirit priest' (boe maw), since Akhas believe spirits to be the main cause of disease. They tend not to depend so much on these practitioners now, often finding it both expensive and futile. More and more are turning to Western medicine, or a combination of Western and indigenous medicine--indigenous medicine being composed of their own and Chinese remedies.

Most Akhas have only recently come to accept inoculations for the prevention of certain diseases. Preventive medicine is a difficult concept for preliterate groups. Even yet a few scattered elders do not concur with the idea of inoculations.

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If a sickness is serious, and if the family can afford it, increasing numbers of Akhas are taking patients to either the Government Hospital or Overbrook Hospital, both in the town of Chiang Rai. The fear that a patient will have his blood sucked out by a were-tiger in the hospital is diminishing. The fact that Akhas have seen many cases where lives have been saved in the hospital tends to 1) erode Akha trust in the shamans and spirit priests who have admitted failure in these cases, and 2) make the Akha population more open to Western medicine. {footnote 12: They perceive 'Western' medicine as 'Thai' medicine, since it is administered to them by Thais.}

However, Akhas have not entirely rejected their own methods of curing. In early 1977 I happened onto healing ceremonies being performed in four different villages. Two were for malaria, one was for a young man who had been sickly for several months, and one was a disease-preventive ceremony for a girl who had returned from Namlat school for the vacation period. The ceremony was performed to insure that her soul would return, along with her body.

Many Akhas in Thailand, perceiving that their death rate, especially among the children, has dropped sharply, attribute much of this to inoculations. I also attribute it to the fact that more and more of them are taking seriously ill children to the hospital.

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Economy

Rice

Rice, the chief subsistence crop for the Akhas, is grown on upland swiddens in the vicinity of their villages. Rice is much more than just food to Akhas. It is a religious element central to their whole way of life (Lewis 1969:224-34).

They also raise other crops, both for their own consumption and for sale. The major cash crop has been opium, although the percentage of Akha villages that cultivate opium has probably decreased. {footnote 13: Out of approximately 2,200 Akha households now living in Thailand, probably not more than 25% of them continue to cultivate opium, and much of that would be for their own consumption.}

Livestock

Akhas raise livestock, especially chickens, pigs, goats, and dogs. All are used for meat, ceremonial offerings, and trading. Those few Akhas who have irrigated rice fields may also have water buffalo to use for plowing the fields. {footnote 14: In the last few years the Thai have stolen so many of their buffaloes that most of the Akhas have sold what animals they still had and now rent buffaloes from the Thai when they plow their fields.} Some individuals, and in at least two instances, a whole village together, own cows. These are not milked or butchered by the Akhas, but are sold or traded to the Thai.

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Hunting and Gathering

Akha men are good hunters, so there is not much game left in the vicinity of most Akha villages in Thailand. Akhas gather various things in the jungle for their own use and trade, but these too are getting scarcer as there are fewer jungle areas left in northern Thailand.

Income

In the Bennington-Cornell report (Hanks et al. 1964) the degree of wealth of the headmen in the area surveyed is given, measured by income, livestock, and such possessions as the the ownership of guns, radios, and lanterns. Akha headmen tend to be at the bottom of the economic ladder compared with those from other tribal groups. The average income of the Akha headmen, for example, was only 57% of that of Lisu headmen.

In my study of Ba Jaw village, I found it very difficult to determine income. Akhas are not anxious to reveal their wealth for fear robbers will learn of it and steal it from them. In that village, I found they planted a total of about 2,800 kg. of rice (140 bip, one bip being equivalent to a five-gallon kerosene tin, or 20 kg.) From rough calculations I estimate that they planted approximately 50 hectares of land, and got a yield of about 24 units of rice for each unit planted. They felt this was low, blaming it on: 1) poor rainfall, 2) overworked soil, and 3) planting at the wrong time. {footnote 15: This compares favorably with the 28 units of rice the Lua' got (Kunstadter 1970:117), and the 28 units of rice the Karen that Hinton studied got (Hinton 1970:16).

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There were also four households in Ba Jaw village who had some supplementary irrigated fields. They got a better yield from those fields, but the sample is too small to be meaningful. The year I made the study the Ba Jaw rice crop was atypical in that it was a bad rice year for the villages in that area. Only six of the thirty-two households did not have to buy rice that year. Those who had to buy it claimed that the total cost would be around $2,500 (50,000 baht).

Another expenditure more costly than rice, however, was opium. There were thirty opium addicts in Ba Jaw village when I surveyed it (the number has gone up since), and they estimated their opium would cost them about $4,455 (89,000 baht) per year, about $148 per addict.

Some of the means of getting cash income are: day labor, serving as auxiliary Border Patrol Police (BPP), and the selling of handicrafts, rice, corn, sesame, chilies, and livestock.

Sharp (1971:13) quotes Oughton as saying that in subsistence agriculture in the hills, on the average a square kilometer of land will support thirteen people. In 1964 the Bennington-Cornell survey shows that the density had attained that figure. That is, there were approximately 18,000 persons for 1,383 square kilometers.

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The 1974 survey revealed that there were 29,613 people in the same area, which means there were then 21.4 people per square kilometer. This does not seem high when compared to all of Thailand (82 per square kilometer, Nortman and Hofstatter 1976:12), but it is far too high a density in relation to the arable land.

Kunstadter could have been speaking of the Akhas as well when he said of the Karens that they "...appear to be getting poorer, both relative to their past condition, and relative to the growing affluence of the lowland population" (1970:144). At present Akha agriculture is not sufficient to provide subsistence without major supplements from wage labor and the sale of various products.

This situation will probably get worse for two reasons First, the population pressure in the hills... second, as a result of economic expansion in the lowlands, expectations are rising among the hill people for goods which must be bought for cash (Kunstadter 1970:144).

Mobility

Akha mobility is largely tied to their agriculture. When land is plentiful they prefer to plant their swiddens in a rotating pattern with an eight to ten year fallow period. {footnote 16: They do not feel tied to a certain fallow cycle, however, since different types of land regenerate at different rates. When there is plenty of available land (as there has been in sections of Kengtung State, Burma) they like to leave their fields to fallow for ten to twenty years, depending on the soil.} When the limitation of land leads to a shortening of the fallow period, and therefore a lessening of crop yields, or to opening up swiddens several hours' walk away, the household heads begin to talk about moving. Fifty year ago there was wide choice. Today that option is no longer available, for the increase in population has forced them to stay where they are, and they have had to shorten their cultivation-fallow cycle.

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Swidden farming at its best supports a particularly sound and permanent self-contained subsistence economy, well integrated into the ecology of the natural environment.... By its very nature however, swidden agriculture can only support low densities of population. (Wanat and Oughton 1970:325)

In the past Akhas could preserve their general culture by moving to a new area as needed (see table 2, page 31). The commonest reason for moving then was to find new land, but there were other reasons such as sickness beyond their ability to handle, or political struggles, either internal of external (Hanks et al. 1965).

If the move involved the whole village, they either joined another village or sought a completely new site. Otherwise, a few households moved in with another village, or sometimes tried to establish a new village of their own. {footnote 17: There is much moving about when there is a crop failure. Households without rice seek to find a village or a household which will lend them enough rice to eat until they can repay it following the next harvest.}

Akhas now find themselves in the position of having no place to move. For a society which was usually either in the process of moving, getting over the last move, or preparing for the next, this is a radical change. Akhas formerly did not think in terms of population explosion, even though their population was doubling every twenty years or so. When an area became overpopulated, they simply moved on, either by family or by village, so that the poulation problem did not catch up with them. Now they are virtually forced to remain in a given area, and they can no longer leave their political struggles, disease, crop failures, or polulation problems behind them.

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Table 2. Akha village change over ten years {footnote 18: This village change may entail moving only a few miles, or it may be a day's journey away. Part or all of the village may move.} (Based on Hanks 1975.)

1964

1969

1974

Same village as 1964

55

43

37

Same village as 1969

29

22

New village since 1969

32

Totals

55

72

91

As pointed out by several authors (Keyes 1977, Kunstadter 1970, Walker 1975, Chapman 1970, etc.), the lowland Thai are now moving up into the area which formerly formed a buffer zone between them and the tribal people. As they move up, they find tribal people moving down. This has caused direct clashes in several places, especially to the east of the Chiang Rai-Mae Sai road. There is keen competition for this land, which at best can only be described as marginal.

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To add to the sense of crisis pressing in on the Akhas, more of their fellow-tribesmen continue to immigrate from Burma. The Thai officials try to turn them back, but often with little success. There are two reasons why there are not even more Akhas immigrating 1) Akha villages on the Thai side cannot accept any more people, since the land they have is already insufficient, and 2) there is no land the would-be immigrants can find where they can strike out on their own.

In 1964 the Bennington-Cornell survey reported, "The people living in the Mae Kok region are approaching the limits of satifactory living set by present methods of making a living and by existing resources..." They foresaw more immigration from Burma (which turned out to be correct) that would put an extra drain on the natural resources (Hanks et al. 1964:60).

When one of the survey team members returned to Thailand in 1971 he said,

Earlier there were indications of population pressures building up... but there was still plenty of land up there... so that it was not a serious situation. But in the last three or four years it seems to me to have become terribly serious with a terrific burgeoning of populations (Sharp 1971:4).

One of the recommendations that the survey team made in 1964 (Hanks et al. 1964:62) was that thirty to fifty tribal villages be resettled outside of that area in the next five years. When the team came back in 1969, they found instead that the 132 villages they had found in 1964 had grown to 162 villages, with a rise in population from 12,665 to 16,918. Again, in the 1974 survey they found 220 villages, with a total population of approximately 29,613. {footnote 19: In the third survey they did not count the population of eleven of the Chinese villages. I am using the figure for the Chinese which was given in the 1969 survey.} Instead of thirty to fifty villages moving out in five years time, there was an increase of eighty-eight villages over a ten-year period, with two and one-third as much population.

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Opium

As long ago as 1890, Akhas and Lahus living in Kengtung State, Burma, were growing and using opium (Scott 1900:359), which skill they had learned from the Chinese while living in China. Akhas found they could use opium medicinally, and could also sell it as a cash crop. The tribal people who grew opium in Kengtung State had to pay part of their crop to the local ruler, the Kengtung Sabwa. Not only was the cultivation legal, but much of the State budget was raised from the opium tax (McCoy 1972:41).

When Bernatzik was in Thailand before World War II (Bernatzik 1947), he found Akhas growing opium. Evidently there was not much addiction among them at that time, for it was only later that it reached epidemic proportions (Department of Public Welfare 1966).

According to data gathered by the Akha field worker in his visits to Akha villages, between eight and nine percent of the total Akha population may be addicted to opium. In over forty percent of the villages contacted, an average of more than fifty percent of the males twenty-one years of age and over were found to be opium addicts. (See also Hanks and Hanks 1975, and J. Hanks 1968 for more on Akha opium addiction.) There are several results of this addiction:

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1) The addict, ceasing to be a producer, becomes a dependent.

2) Much of the family wealth is diverted to meet the needs of the addict, rather than to more vital needs.

3) There is a disruption of family harmony, often to the point of divorce.

4) The children in the family are usually poorly fed and clothed, and almost never have a chance for an education. Some are even sold so that the addict can have money for his habit. {footnot 20: Not only are young children sold, but sometimes older daughters are sold into prostitution. Once an addicted father sold his daughter to a Chinese man to be his wife, although she was already married to an Akha boy in another village.}

Many methods and programs of detoxification have been attempted, but almost all addicts who are detoxified usually go back to the opium pipe. Out of 117 Akha villages now in Thailand, only seven or so of them have been able to bring opium addiction under manageable control. Five of these are Christian villages, where the villagers have campaigns to detoxify and rehabilitate the addicts. The other two Akha villages, by means of their own efforts, have been able to prevent any growing, smoking, or trading of opium by village members.

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Growing opium poppies on the mountains of northern Thailand has deleterious effects on the soil as well as on the people who use it (Department of Public Welfare 1966). Huge savannahs of cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica) have taken over the areas formerly planted to opium poppies. This is the worst possible cover for the land. One reason the man/land ratio is increasingly critical in the mountains of Thailand is that so much land has been abandoned to cogon grass following the intensive cultivation of opium.

Contacts with others

Contacts with Thais

Kickert found the Akhas content in their comparative isolation (1969:40). As I see them today, I would say that for the most part they are neither isolated nor content.

The amount of contact Akhas living in Thailand have with other people depends on several factors: 1) how close they live to other groups, 2) whether or not they grow or use opium, and 3) what social, educational, and medical factors enter into the situation.

For instance, there are now many more Thais living for extended periods of time in Akha villages than formerly (especially those villages not too remote from Thai settlements). These Thai serve in such capacities as forestry workers, agricultural extension agents, Border Patrol Police, school teachers, community development workers sent by the Nikhom, paramedics, and even some University student volunteers from Bangkok who devote their vacation period to helping the villagers in various ways.

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What is relatively new is that there are also more Akhas living in what might be considered a Thai environment. During the 1977-78 school year, there were over sixty Akha students living in Mae Chan, Namlat, Chiang Rai, and Chiang Mai attending government or private schools. Almost the same number of boys were studying in Buddhist monasteries through the north. Many Akhas, individuals and even families, have moved into Thai environments. For instance, in Chiang mai there were three Akha families plus several single people living at the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Centre in mid 1977. Other Akhas come down from their villages to stay with them for a night or up to a month at a time. In addition, many Akha girls have married Thai or Chinese men. When their relatives visit them, there is more contact with the members of these groups.

Akhas today rely much more on Thai practitioners for curing their illnesses than they did two decades ago. They often patronize "injection doctors' (Cunningham 1970), and when that fails, many of them turn to hospitals and health centers in town.

In the economic sphere over the last 10-20 years the contact of Akhas with Thai has greatly increased. Formerly, if an Akha had a surplus of rice to sell, he would let it go at a relatively low price to any fellow-villager who wished to buy it. Now the tendency is to ignore one's needy neighbors and to sell it to enterprising Thai brokers at a higher price.

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There is another important type of contact with the Thai. Many Akhas are locating their villages nearer to Thai settelements so that they can sell their forest products more easily and be available to work for the Thai in job labor during periods when they are not working on their own fields. The Thais often welcome this, since during rice planting and harvesting time it is important that they have all of the workers possible out in the fields.

Many Akhas in the 20-40 year age-group wish to be 'just like the Thai.' In 1976 the headman of Pa Mi village summed up what I have heard many Akhas say, "We want to become like the Thai in every way--education, farming, being soldiers--everything." {footnote 20: He lives in a two-story Thai-style home, dresses like a Thai, drives his own Landrover, sends his children to a boarding school in Chiang Rai, has opened a shop in the Mae Sai market, and seeks to identify with the Thai, while remaining an important leader of his own people.}

In January, 1975, there were thirty Akha men who received training to serve as paramilitary assistants to the Border Patrol Police serving in their area. These men are trying to identify with the Thai in the way they dress, talk, and use their time. Often the older generation of Akhas object to this close identification with the Thai. The fact that the BPP assistants receive a salary of about $22 (440 baht) a month tends to keep the older generation from becoming too vocal in their objections, however.

p.38

In the area of opium trade there has been increasing contact between the Akhas and Thai, both in the buying and selling of opium and in the surveillance of opium traffickers. Since the government change-over in October 1975, the trade in opium has been reduced considerably, but the surveillance has been stepped up.

Contacts with non-Thai

Akhas have a long history of contacts with groups other than the Thai. In China, Burma, and Thailand they have always lived close to Lahus, a tribal groups linguistically close to the Akha but culturally quite different. Since Lahu has been the main trade language in most areas of Thailand and Burma where Akhas live, many Akha men and some women can speak Lahu as a second language. Now, however, Northern Thai is gradually taking the place of Lahu as the lingua franca for the area.

Contacts with Lahus are usually amicable unless land rights or some legal problems are involved, at which time they take the case to the local Thai authorities for settlement. On the other hand, when the two groups are in conflict with the Thai, they frequently stand up for each other as 'fellow-hilltribesmen.'

One current result of the Akhas' contact with the Lahus is a new desire on the part of many Akhas (especially the younger generation) to emulate the Lahus in the field of education. For many years now they have seen Christian Lahus sending their children to school. When the children come back they speak Thai fluently, and are accepted by the Thai as members of their society. Many Akhas are seeking to follow this example.

p.39

Akhas have also had many contacts with the Lisu and Yao people, whose villages, like the Lahu, are intermingled with Akha villages. In some sections, Yao or Lisu headmen have authority over several villages in the area, including Akha villages.

Perhaps a majority of the contacts Akhas have with the Yao and Lisu are related to trade of some sort. Some Akhas purchase opium from Yao and Lisu who cultivate the poppy, buying it for their own consumption and to sell to addicts in their villages. As opium trading is being curtailed through more vigilant government action, this contact has been somewhat reduced.

In the past, Akhas have had close contact with the Yunnanese Chinese (often former KMT soldiers) living in their vicinity. This contact has historical roots in that the Akha came from China originally. Many of the Chinese have married Akha girls, and some young Akha men have served as paramilitary men with the KMT both in Burma and Thailand (Mote 1967:516-18, Geddes 1967:577).

Contact with the KMT tended to be in abeyance in mid 1977 for two reasons: 1) the flow of opium was curtailed by the government, and 2) the KMT were no longer in favor with the Thai as they had been several years before.

p.40

One segment of the Akha population, however, has close and continuing contact with the KMT. There are scattered pockets of Akha settlements which manage to survive on the outskirts of Yunnanese villages and towns withing Thailand (Hanks and Hanks 1975). Almost all of these are opium addicts, who have become virtual slaves of the Yunnanese, since they are paid for their work in opium. The Akhas work every day of the year, therefore, in order to get their daily supply of opium. Since this forces them to give up the nine ancestral offerings each year, the other Akhas of the area feel they are no longer 'real Akhas.'

The Akhas of thailand also have contacts with fellow-tribesmen who live in Burma. The latter may come to visit relatives in Thailand, or to look over the situation with the though of moving down if they can find a place to make fields. As they sit up late at night talking and comparing notes, they often conclude that the plight of the Akhas on both sides of the border, although different in some ways, is very grim. For the Akhas living in Thailand and Kengtung State, Burma, are a people in distress.