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.