[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Here is an interesting piece by Michael Sullivan for NPR. The entire article is not about the Akha, but a number of accurate observations of the modern Akha lifestyle are made, so I’ve pulled out the relevant section here :
…
In this part of Myanmar’s Shan state, they’re still old-school when it comes to who lives where. The ethnic Shan majority lives in the lowlands, where the soil is better. The ethnic Akha live high in the mountains, while the ethnic Lahu and Wa live somewhere in between.
In an Akha village halfway between the Mekong and the market town of Kengtung, the dogs are suspicious, but the people are friendly. The dozen or so houses are the same simple wooden structures the Akha have built for generations.
But many other things have changed, says local farmer Mawai, 39. For example, it wasn’t too long ago when the birth of twins in his community was not something to celebrate, he says.
“Twenty or 30 years ago, many Akha were still animists, and in our community, if a mother gave birth to twins, it was considered bad luck,” he says.
It signaled such bad luck that newborn twins would often be killed, he and others in the village say, by putting ashes in their mouths. If the families refused, they would be forced out of the village.
Change Comes To Hill Tribes
All of that has changed now, Mawai says. Many people have become Christians, and the government has forbidden people from killing children.
Other positive changes have come, as well. Mawai now has a tiny, Chinese-made hydro turbine in the stream just outside his two-room, dirt-floor home. The turbine produces enough electricity to power a TV and a single light bulb. He likes Chinese action movies and historical costume dramas.
Developments such as a new school, TV and better access to markets all have made life easier now than when he was young, Mawai says.
It’s also easier to communicate with the outside world — though up in the mountains at least, my guide says, business with the outside world is still conducted with the century-old currency of the former colonial power: the Indian rupee, courtesy of the British government.
My guide, who goes by the name Freddy, explains that when the British arrived in the Kengtung area, they used rupee coins to buy opium from the local hill tribes.
“Nowadays, these people, they still believe this coin. They believe it because it’s silver and they can keep them easy. If you buy animals from them, like cow or buffalo or the land, we have to buy with this coin. They don’t want the Myanmar currency,” Freddy says.
ht: Clara
