Daw Thu Mgu village

We ask to meet another elderly person in the village: she is a lady of 93. She remembers pounding rice for the Japanese army in World War II. She sits beside a very smoky fire because the smoke keeps away insects. It obviously works because we couldn’t see one insect! She tries both pairs of glasses. Either made her sight clearer, but the reading glasses were the favourite. Beneath her cardigan, she is wearing traditional dress including silver drop-earrings that are so heavy they have elongated her ear lobes.

Daw The Mgu a Red Kayin village near Loikaw in Kayah State.

We ask to meet the oldest person in Daw The Mgu to see if he or she they would like to receive the glasses from Raksha. Daw Phye Myas thinks she is about 95. Her children, she has five, would like her to go and live with them. She won’t because she likes her traditional house and can continue looking after one of her daughters, who is about 65, and who has mental health problems. She tried the glasses but said they were not clear. We then found out she can still thread a needle! 

A surprise awaits us: it is a one-day festival when each family visits the others. They take food and drink to share and they include us. My shake is bad, so I wonder how I will go with the rice wine. It tastes delicious and has no ill effects though I don’t drink much – just in case I couldn’t write. Win Kyaing samples the non-vegetarian array and I enjoy sticky rice wrapped in pandan leaves, which are boiled or steamed.

Great grandfather passed away recently. The women wore traditional dress and there was dancing to honour him. The body lay in the upstairs room for two nights then was buried in the cemetery outside the village.

Later, we enter a house where we are invited to view the guardian nat of the kitchen. In one corner stand nat wooden poles decorated with dry teak leaves and next to these stands a gun. The surrounding forests are full of wild pig and deer, which the Red Karin hunt.

Hanging from a beam, and smoked black over the ages, is a basket that once contained choice morsels of pork as well as the pig’s skull and giblets of chickens. On an auspicious day, the pork and chicken is put into a pan of water along with wine and turmeric and then boiled for 15 minutes. The shaman, who is similar to a nagadaw in that what he says they have to do, then makes pronouncements, for example when the next festival should take place.

Daw The Mgu, a Red Kayin village near Loikaw in Kayah State

Today we visit Daw The Mgu, which is a Red Kayin village of 100 families near Loikaw in Kayah State. The Red Karin are animist and believe they are descended from two large birds that fly over mountains. The male bird is Karin Na Ye and the female Karin Na Yar. 

On the way, we pass fields of the villagers' produce. They are fortunate to be near one of the seven lakes that lie along the bottom of the mountains. They grow onions, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts and sunflowers for making oil, soybeans to dry into crispy biscuits and their staple: rice. 200 species of bamboo grow here. Along with Sri Lanka, these are the tallest: many growing to more than 30 feet. We pass plantations of teak trees that are under the management of the Ministry of Forestry and Environment. Along the road are spikes of yellow blossom and in front of the villagers’ houses orchids are blooming purple, white, yellow and pink.

There are eight groups in Myanmar: Kachin, Shan, Mon, Rakine, Chin, Bama, Kayin, Kayah. Within these are 135 races. And within those are many sub groups. Kayah State has at least eight sub-groups: Kayah, Kayan, Kayaw, Gaytho, Gyaba, Yinbaw, Yinthale, Manumanaw. Each has their own dialect and often cannot understand another, even though they might live quite close. The Red Karin are within the Kayah group.

Many of the women no longer wear traditional dress, but one young woman dons hers to show us. This takes a long time and involves three helpers. As well as the red scarves wound around their head their capes are also red. They have twists of emerald and pink cotton around their neck Silver was once plentiful around here, but today we see necklaces of silver coins, some of which depict England’s Edward V11. They choose silver over the Padaung’s brass, which may, in the olden days, have been gold. Both have tattoos of the rising sun on their back or shoulder. Each wears long silver earrings, the favourite style seems to be a bunch of (scaled down!) sweetcorn cobs. They wear a beaded belt around their midriff, and a long white scarf reaches from around their neck to below their knee. Their black blouse is off one shoulder and is open from the waist down revealing a red skirt that ends just above the knee. Below the knee they wear coils of cotton threads dyed black with lacquer. This is wound round and around forming a huge black bundle.

Pampet village Kayah State

In each of the open sided houses we visit Padaung women welcome us. Many are back-strap weaving. They tether one end of the ‘loom’ to a horizontal bar that is part of the house. The other end is tethered to a back-strap that is fastened around their hips. Various coloured thread is wounds around long slivers of bamboo. When the pattern demands a change of colour they pick up another bamboo sliver.

One woman is weaving the white tunic that all Padaung women wear over short black skirts. In each of their houses were the fruits of their labour in terms of multi-coloured scarves and little shoulder bags. We bought Win Kyaing a tiny bag, which he hangs around his neck as a perfect size for carrying his mobile! Also for sale are rings, bracelets and bangles in the same material as the neck rings.

The chief tells us much about the neck rings. Girls of about five years start wearing a few at a time. Gradually they build up over the years. The woman with whom we are sitting wears 17 rings joined together. She also wears six more that are joined to each other but not to the others. In all, she wears 23 and they weigh enormously heavy at 12 kilogrammes. How they can work in the fields and carry produce on their backs to the market demonstrates how incredibly strong they are. While we are there a tuk-tuk tractor arrives and the woman lifts a huge sack of produce into the back despite the rings around her neck.

Happy voices herald the primary school. Inside, there are 65 children and two teachers. There is much bustle, action and noise as well as lessons. We give the two-dozen exercise books and pens to the teachers, but are pleased to see that the children are working with writing books, so ours will come in handy later.

Three little girls, one the daughter of the chief, come to show us their neck rings. Each one has about five. The teacher tells us an amusing something. One little girl has a set of rings that can be opened all down one side so, as the teacher says, she wears them if she wants to and not if she doesn’t!  Another child finds a decorative way of carrying his pen. It is on top of his head and clipped to stay put.

They invite us into a large wooden house. In the middle of the wood floor there is an enthusiastic fire burning tended by a man. The room is full of smoke as there is no chimney. The smoke that does get out does so through cracks in the wooden walls and gaps under the eaves. When my eyes accustom to the dark room I see more than a hundred corncobs (of the sweet corn variety) Presumably the smoke adds flavour. The man shows me the pumpkin pieces he is boiling in the pot and while tending the fire he snacks on pieces of cucumber marinating in a doubtless delicious sauce.

Eventually the obvious questions come up of when and why the women wear neck rings. There are three versions. The first is that long, long ago, if a tiger leaps at their throat it will not kill them. The second needs more research on my part, as I can only understand the word ‘dragon’.  The fthird is more prosaic. Long ago, when the different races moved down from the north through Burma, they had to wear all their valuables so they would not be stolen.

I must now find out more about the dragons.

Pampet a Padaung village in Kayah State

Pampet, a Padaung village, is about an hour from Loikaw in Kayah State. The Padaung women are famous for the many brass rings they wear which elongate their neck considerably. Brass is made from an alloy of copper and zinc. However there is much more to the village as we found out. The chief (who is elected by the people) met us at a junction and advised as to what we should take to give to the villagers. He does not want them spoiled by money, so suggests we take ten bottles of cooking oil and washing detergent. We also take exercise books and pens for the village primary school. Pencils are not so useful, we learn. They are only used until Standard 2. After that it’s pens.

We take two of the glasses kindly provided by Raksha. They are well received, as they are everywhere we go. However, I miss an opportunity! At the end of our walk around the village I am introduced to the oldest woman who is 79. I should have kept one pair of glasses to give to her as the oldest inhabitant – I will know better next time!

We drive along a valley where in places the vegetation reminds me of the New Forest in England. In other places Lantana reminds me of Australia. I remember how hard it is to get rid of in my Queensland garden! It is thriving here too, but at least has not taken over.

The villagers’ farms stretch down both sides of the dirt road with plenty of room for buffalo, pigs and cows in between. There is an age stipulation set as to how many years old cattle must be before they can be slaughtered. Apparently cows may change hands many times, making their owners a little money each time, before they eventually end up on the butcher’s block.

Well into the distance, spreading over terraces, padi is layering the contours of the land. It reminds me of the rice terraces in Bali and it glistening after last night’s rain.

In addition to mango trees and bamboo that crane over somewhat smaller banana palms, there are trees that remind me of caster oil plants. They are jessu that people were compelled to grow to produce bio-diesel, but we have never heard that it actually produces any.

Pumpkins, cucumber, chillies and beans are scrambling over each other.  

Here they are growing a crop that I’ve not encountered before. It resembles sweet corn and sugar cane though looks taller and slimmer than either. I learn it is corn, but not the cob variety. They plant in May and harvest it eight months later. The cattle and pigs receive the leaves and stems and the women winnow the small tassels to remove the husks. They cook and eat the grain in much the same way they do rice and there is another use to which they put it that pleases all who try it. They make alcoholic khaung yee. They put some of the grain into an earthenware pot then pour over boiling water. They leave it to cool for half an hour. After this they siphon off the liquid and drink it. The first brew is quite potent. The next and final four times they repeat the brew, it is still alcoholic, but less and less potent!

 The neck rings weigh 12 kg.

 Backstrap weaving

Full baskets are suspended from the forehead.

Pampet, a Padaung village in Kayah State

Pampet, a Padaung village, is about an hour from Loikaw in Kayah State. The Padaung women are famous for the many brass rings they wear which elongate their neck considerably. Brass is made from an alloy of copper and zinc. However there is much more to the village as we found out. The chief (who is elected by the people) met us at a junction and advised as to what we should take to give to the villagers. He does not want them spoiled by money, so suggests we take ten bottles of cooking oil and washing detergent. We also take exercise books and pens for the village primary school. Pencils are not so useful, we learn. They are only used until Standard 2. After that it’s pens.

We take two of the glasses kindly provided by Raksha. They are well received, as they are everywhere we go. However, I miss an opportunity! At the end of our walk around the village I am introduced to the oldest woman who is 79. I should have kept one pair of glasses to give to her as the oldest inhabitant – I will know better next time!

We drive along a valley where in places the vegetation reminds me of the New Forest in England. In other places Lantana reminds me of Australia. I remember how hard it is to get rid of in my Queensland garden! It is thriving here too, but at least has not taken over.

The villagers’ farms stretch down both sides of the dirt road with plenty of room for buffalo, pigs and cows in between. There is an age stipulation set as to how many years old cattle must be before they can be slaughtered. Apparently cows may change hands many times, making their owners a little money each time, before they eventually end up on the butcher’s block.

Well into the distance, spreading over terraces, padi is layering the contours of the land. It reminds me of the rice terraces in Bali and it glistening after last night’s rain.

In addition to mango trees and bamboo that crane over somewhat smaller banana palms, there are trees that remind me of caster oil plants. They are jessu that people were compelled to grow to produce bio-diesel, but we have never heard that it actually produces any.

Pumpkins, cucumber, chillies and beans are scrambling over each other.  

Here they are growing a crop that I’ve not encountered before. It resembles sweet corn and sugar cane though looks taller and slimmer than either. I learn it is corn, but not the cob variety. They plant in May and harvest it eight months later. The cattle and pigs receive the leaves and stems and the women winnow the small tassels to remove the husks. They cook and eat the grain in much the same way they do rice and there is another use to which they put it that pleases all who try it. They make alcoholic khaung yee. They put some of the grain into an earthenware pot then pour over boiling water. They leave it to cool for half an hour. After this they siphon off the liquid and drink it. The first brew is quite potent. The next and final four times they repeat the brew, it is still alcoholic, but less and less potent!