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Shan Culture - Ethnic Groups in Burma

Akha

The Akha Hill Tribe

A Sino-Tibetan Language Group
Burmo-Tibetan
Loloish
Subject Object Verb language structure

A distinct language from Hani although there are similarities.
A distinct racial and cultural group from the Hani at this time.

Though all Akha in China are classified the same as Hani by the Chinese government, they are not the same people.

Located in China, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand
More than 200,000

Their language is considered endangered because in many cases it is not being passed onto the children. Most children can not read or write it and it is not taught in schools.

Locations in Thailand

The Akha of north Thailand have some 320 villages and live in the mountains through out Chiangmai and Chiangrai provinces. They farm mountain rice, corn, soybeans and raise livestock. Their population numbers around 70,000 people. Akha culture resembles an environmental theology. Village life and practices circling around the planting, care for and harvest of the rice as well as particular care given to the environment in which they live.

The Akha learn their extensive genealogies from a young age and give great emphasis to both honoring one's parents and not bringing shame upon the family or their own place in the genealogy. Unknowing outsiders call this 'ancestor worship' a poor explanation of the facts.

The Akha practice hillside farming which is often referred to as 'slash and burn' and this topic is highly debated, depending on oneís point of view, yet the facts show that villages which are stable and adhere to traditional ways, rotate their crops as do the Lahu and Karen, slashing regrowth, not standing trees. The Akha say it takes 50 years to build a village. Stable villages invest in the building of terraces which takes many years. Village relocations have increased the trees that have been cut but this can hardly be blamed on the Akha who have opposed these relocations. Areas that the hilltribe have lived in have all been heavily logged for timber, the blame conveniently being place on the hilltribe also..
Akha traditional dress is carefully made, the best clothes of hand woven cloth and beautifully embroidered.

The Akha Struggle

Mountain farming for the food you eat year to year has never been easy, but changes in economics and controversies over the land has made life even more difficult for the Akha people.

The Akha are hard workers and good farmers. They make good use of water and tillable soil. Few people have taken the time to study and understand their practices so the public is fed poor information that works against the Akha in the already difficult life they live in the mountains. Traditional practices are pushed aside by outsiders in favour of western medicine and treatment, whether the Akha favour it or not. Missionaries, who view themselves as better parents than the Akha, try to lure as many of the Akha children as they can to distant cities and foreign cultures, supposedly better than what and who the Akha are and have always been. In the end, they are left little for and of themselves. Missionaries, working in tandem with tragedy, are the most dangerous single factor to the Akha being allowed to be who they are, Akha. Chinese Fundamentalist missionaries are the most fanatical in their effort to take over strategic economic border areas.

(From: www.ahha.org)

akha