Indigenous Peoples of the World — The Karen The Peoples of the World Foundation Education for and about Indigenous Peoples The Karen People Countries inhabited: Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) Language family: Tibeto-Burman Language branch: Karenic Please click on a photograph to receive your copy of a limited-edition, fine-art print. All donations fund indigenous peoples' education. The Karen are featured in our documentary, Peoples of the World: Southeast Asia . Most people know of the Karen people from television documentaries, magazines and encyclopedias as the "long-neck" or "giraffe" tribe. But the women who wear these brass rings on their neck belong to a sub-group of the Karen known as the Padaung. There are other sub-groups who do not and never have practiced this custom. A further myth is that these rings act to elongate the wearer's neck. Any chiropractor or orthopedic surgeon will tell you that this would lead to paralysis or death. In fact the appearance of a longer neck is a visual illusion. The weight of the rings pushes down the collar bone, as well as the upper ribs, to such an angle that the collar bone actually appears to be a part of the neck!

There are many different accounts of why the Padaung practice this bizzare custom. Their own mythology explains that it is done to prevent tigers from biting them! Others have reported that it is done to make the women unattractive so they are less likely to be captured by slave traders. The most common explanation, though, is the opposite of this — that an extra-long neck is considered a sign of great beauty and wealth and that it will attract a better husband. Adultery, though, is said to be punished by removal of the rings. In this case, since the neck muscles will have been severely weakened by years of not supporting the neck, a woman must spend the rest of her life lying down. According to Paul and Elaine Lewis in Peoples of The Golden Triangle, adultery and divorce among all Karen groups is extremely low. Whatever the origin of the custom, one of the more common reasons it continues today, particularly in Thailand, is tourism. Although the Padaung have migrated to Thailand in only the last ten years (other Karen groups first settled there about a hundred and fifty years ago), they have become the most popular "attraction" for hill-tribe trekking tourists.

Some have written of this as exploitation of the Padaung; many westerners I have spoken to liken the experience of visiting one of these villages to visiting a human zoo. Some tour operators in Thailand now refuse to take tourists into such villages, while some tourists boycott those operators that do. Perhaps because the neck ring custom is so striking, less attention gets paid to other aspects of Karen culture. Among others, though, large earrings play a dominant role in ornamentation. Although not as visually striking as the apparent neck-stretching, the so-called "big-eared" Karen actually alter their body to a greater extent. As with the wearing of neck rings, the lady on the left will have first had a much smaller earring placed in her earlobe as a young child. As these are replaced over the years by successively larger rings, the earlobes are stretched by a relatively huge amount. Making music also plays an important part in Karen life and women like the one above right can be seen playing the guitar in just about every village. The Karen are also masters when it comes to training elephants. One Karen tradition that survives very prominently today is the making of their own and their fiance's wedding clothes by young women.

Most unmarried Karen women and girls wear a white robe to indicate that they are as yet unmarried. However, as soon as a union is approved (and sometimes even before that in preparation), the girl will begin weaving a different colored dress for her wedding day. In contrast to the Akha , Karen society is matrilineal. The incest taboo is therefore enforced more along the maternal lines of the prospective couple's ancestry. Successive marriages within a matrilineage in particular are discouraged. Marriage itself is considered a very important part of a woman's life; so much so, in fact, that if a woman dies before marriage, she is nonetheless buried (or cremated) in married women's clothing. This, they believe, reduces the chances of malevolent spirits preventing her from entering the afterlife. Karen life, both in their own mythology and historical reality, is pervaded with persecution. Their folk history speaks of them as orphans who lost their writing system after God handed it down to them, but will have it returned one day by visitors from a far away land. Apparently, when they first came into contact with Christian missionaries, many Karen thought this promise of their history had finally been fulfilled.

Marshall (see References and Further Reading), who was among the first missionaries to study the Karen in great depth, says that over two hundred folk stories had been preserved through oral history. Despite that preservation of their history, though, it is still debated as to where and when they originated. Although most writers now claim Burma to be their ancestral home, many have pointed to some of their oral history suggesting that their true origin is China. The different Karen sub-groups historically have not recognized each other as belonging to the same group until very recently. Their languages/dialects are not spoken or understood by each other and none has a collective term for all the Karen sub-groups. Even their laguages had eluded linguistic classification until they were finally classified as a branch of their own, namely "Karenic." In fact the term "Karen" itself was considered a derogatory term in Burma until Christian missionaries brought respect to it in the late eighteenth century. It has been mainly the S'gaw sub-group that has considered themselves the guardian of Karen culture. The Karen in Burma have suffered opression at the hands of successive regimes of that country for decades.

Forced re-settlement and labor, incarceration, denial of political representation and citizenship status rights among other human rights violations have led thousands of Karen to move into Thailand. While many argue that they have a better life there, their status is yet unsure. Many of them are in Thailand as refugees. The following quotes are taken from the Human Rights Watch World Report 2002: "Villagers continued to be forcibly relocated, and those suspected of aiding guerrillas were tortured and sometimes killed. In January, government soldiers extrajudicially executed three ethnic minority Palaung men in Ho Ha village in Shan State after a search for weapons turned up an old carbine rifle that villagers used for hunting." "In January, the [Burmese] army reportedly displaced some 30,000 villagers in Karen State when it burned villages in its dry season offensive against the insurgent Karen National Union." Please contact us for commercial licensing or non commercial use of the material on this page. References and Further Reading Marshall, H. I., (1922) The Karen of Burma. Bangkok: White Lotus (Reprinted, 1997).

Photography copyright © 1999 - 2016, Ray Waddington. All rights reserved. Text copyright © 1999 - 2016, The Peoples of the World Foundation. All rights reserved. To cite this article using the American Psychological Association citation style, copy and paste the following: Waddington, R. (2002), The Karen People. The Peoples of the World Foundation. Retrieved December 29, 2016, from The Peoples of the World Foundation. < The Peoples of the World Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in the United States under Internal Revenue Service code 501(c)(3). © The Peoples of the World Foundation, 1999 - 2016 New Thai Tourist Sight: Burmese 'Giraffe Women' - The New York Times The New York Times World |New Thai Tourist Sight: Burmese 'Giraffe Women' Search Machak's initiation into womanhood came a month ago, when she turned 6 and her mother wound a coil of 10 brass rings around her neck, pushing up her chin and pressing down on her chest with their weight.

''It's heavy,'' Machak said, in tears. But her mother, Mateu, who wears a 10-pound coil of 24 rings around her own neck, told her to endure; girls like her represent the economic future of the Padaung tribe of long-necked women, known to 19th-century explorers as ''giraffe women.'' Refugees from across the border in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where they say they fear the military Government, the Padaung women have become an increasingly lucrative business for tour operators here in the mountains of northern Thailand. In recent weeks, a small war has erupted among Thai tour companies who have created competing settlements of long-necked women to attract foreign visitors. One tour operator lured 12 women from a Thai refugee camp in August to a new home where he reportedly charges visitors $12 to view them. ''In Burma, if a girl doesn't want a long neck, never mind,'' said Mateu, who is 24 and has never removed the footlong coil from her neck since her mother initiated her as a girl. Advertisement Continue reading the main story ''But here it's different,'' said Mateu, who like the other villagers uses just one name.

''If there are no long-necked women, nobody will come to see us and we will have no money.'' It is more money, with less work, than they could ever have imagined. Condemned by some human rights advocates in Thailand as a ''human zoo,'' Nai Soi is the dream of any poor farmer toiling in the fields. ''I like it here; I don't have to work,'' said Marnang, 42, who with her husband was a rice farmer in Myanmar and now, like the other women here, receives $60 a month to be on show for tourists. ''In Burma you work every day and still there is not enough to eat. Here, there is plenty of money.'' X-rays of the Padaung women have shown that the neck is not actually lengthened but that the weight of the rings pushes down on the rib cage, causing the shoulders to slope dramatically. If the rings are removed -- when a woman enters a hospital for medical treatment, for example -- Marnang said the neck had become too weak to support the head without a brace, and that it was difficult to eat.

There is a peculiar rhythm -- a stillness -- to this tiny mountain village, surrounded by the canopied forests of the Thai-Burmese border. The women, rouged and beribboned, their neck rings polished daily with lime and rice straw, sit quietly in the doorways waiting for tourists. They have an otherworldly air as they go about their business, cooking or washing, their tiny heads bent slightly forward, almost floating, high above their shoulders. Advertisement Their small daughters, with their lengthened necks, have a choked and distracted look as they play jacks or bounce their smaller sisters on their hips. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy The men, too, differ from men in other poor villages: they do not work. With no economic role to play, they spend their days swinging in their hammocks, smoking cheroots and sipping rice wine. The 200 residents of this village -- including about 30 long-necked women and girls -- are members of the Padaung subgroup of the Karen ethnic minority whose homeland is in Kayah State in eastern Myanmar.

Poverty and abuses by the Burmese military have driven them into Thailand in the last decade. The glittering brass neck rings of the women are not in fact individual rings, but coils of metal that are wound around the necks of girls by experts like Marang. The initiation does not involve any ceremony or spiritual knowledge, said Marang, who is the village's most accomplished expert in applying the coils. ''What is important is to have strong hands,'' she said. The girls start as young as 4 or 5 or 6, she said, with one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of brass coil. A second kilogram is added at about the age of 8, a third at 12 and, if the the girl's neck is supple enough, a final two kilograms at 15. ''I like the rings because they are beautiful and because my mother wears them,'' said Madang, who is 12 and who wears three kilograms of brass. But they take some getting used to, Marnang conceded. Some girls cry and complain at first, and sometimes the rings must be removed for a time to relieve chafing on the shoulders.

But she said other girls whose parents are too poor to afford the coils also complain: ''They are crying too, because they want to wear it.'' When her neck chafes or itches in the heat, Marnang said, she sometimes slips a piece of newspaper inside the rings for insulation. She also keeps her money there. Advertisement Continue reading the main story None of the women here seemed to have a clear idea of the origins of their unusual custom, saying only that they wear the neck rings because their mothers and grandmothers did before them. They seem never to have heard the stories told by tourist guides of legends about protection from mystical tigers or rituals performed on girls born under a full moon. ''These are stories told by people who don't know,'' Marnang said. ''Some tribes have long ears; some have big knees; some have long necks. It depends on your parents. My mother had a long neck, so I have a long neck.'' She wears her ornaments with pride -- more than 20 pounds of metal in all, including rings around her calves and wrists. ''It is most beautiful when the neck is really long,'' she said. ''The longer it is, the more beautiful it is.

I will never take off my rings. I'll wear them until I die, and I'll be buried in them.'' 'Giraffe Woman' Has 11-Inch-Long Neck | The Huffington Post 'Giraffe Woman' Has 11-Inch-Long Neck 03/18/2014 10:13 am ET | Updated Mar 20, 2014 920 David Moye Pop culture journalist, HuffPost Weird News Courtesy of Sydney V. Smith Sydney V. Smith is sticking her neck out and admitting she wants to become a "giraffe woman." Since 2011, the 28-year-old Los Angeles resident has attempted to extend her neck by encasing it in 11 copper rings. It is the latest attempt in a lifelong fascination with body modification sparked by the women of the Kayan Lahwi tribes of Thailand and Burma, who encase their necks in rings from an early age. "I've always had a long neck," Smith told The Huffington Post.

"In middle school, they called me 'giraffe girl.' Then I saw the pictures of the long-necked tribes in Thailand and Burma in National Geographic and I became fascinated with them." In middle school, Smith's obsession led her to wrap cut-up coat hangers around her neck when she went to bed. "My parents thought it was ridiculous," she said. That was in 1998, and Smith believes her nighttime neck-stretching actually elongated her neck. "After a few years it became obvious that my neck was longer than the other girls, but not freakishly," she said. "So I stopped for awhile to consider if being a long-necked woman was what I really wanted." After years of contemplating the possibilities, Smith put her neck on the line and had a tight-fitting necklace made with copper about three years ago. "I had missed the comfort from the pressure on the top of my neck and shoulders and had been thinking about doing it again for awhile," she said. "The comfort and exhilaration of this process was really all I was after." "I took it slow and would add an extra ring when needed," she said. Despite her visible efforts, she was self-conscious.

While living in Maryland, she wore turtleneck sweaters to hide her neck rings. She also worked restaurant jobs behind the scenes so she wouldn't get unwanted attention. By 2011, Smith said the muscles in her neck had a hard time supporting her head. It was a turning point. "I asked myself, 'Should I stop or go for it?' knowing that I would be enslaved to a ringed necklace for the rest of my life," she said. Inspired By Lady Gaga She decided to dive in headfirst after seeing Lady Gaga in concert. "Her freak empowerment message made a special kind of sense for me," Smith said. "I figured if she can wear meat dresses, I can be a giraffe woman." A friend of Smith's customized the rings and soldered them around her neck. "He managed to do it safely, though I did get burned a little," Smith said. "I don't have the normal range of motion I once did. It makes driving a little hard, but my peripheral vision has improved." Smith estimates the rings have stretched her neck to 10 to 11 inches long. If there is a medical emergency, a screw that holds them together can be removed and free her.

As far as she's concerned, they are permanently attached. "It took a while to learn to sleep with them, but now if I take them off, my neck feels limp," she said. Another problem: neck sweat. "If it's summer and the air conditioner isn't working, my neck starts to sweat and I start to smell," she said. Smith is contemplating whether to add a 12th ring. She also would like to profit from her physique, but isn't sure how far she wants to stretch things. "I'd like to work as a specialty model, but my original intent was not to exploit myself," she said. "However, it seems to be my calling." Smith's extended neck carries health risks, according to Dr. Jonathan Nissanoff, a Southern California orthopedic surgeon. "If she's finished growing, then all she's doing is stretching her skin or putting the bones into traction by pulling them apart," he told HuffPost. "The rings aren't going to make her bones longer. Once she removes them, her neck will come back to size. "I don't recommend anyone doing this. It could injure nerves in the neck." If Smith's long neck seems straight out of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! you'd be right.

According to Edward Meyer, Ripley's vice president of exhibits and archives, the long-necked women of the Kayan tribe have been part of Ripley's lore since 1923. "We actually filmed one of the women taking her rings off," Meyer told HuffPost. "It was thought that removing the rings would kill the woman, but we proved they could be removed. "The woman's neck was severely scarred and smelly because of the mold growing on it, and it was weak for a couple of hours. But the rings don't stretch the neck, they just push down the collarbone." Smith fears she may be playing with medical science, but also believes she may be a fashion icon in the making. "You'd be surprised at how many women see me and ask where they can get it done," she said. NOTE: Photos of Sydney V. Smith were taken by Josh Fogel. Padaung Ring Neck Stretchers Padaung Ring Neck Stretchers Updated on January 23, 2016 A small group of women belonging to the Karen tribe are willing to stick their necks out and defend their tradition despite the fact that their bodily modification has caused heated debates and outcries of disapproval.

They are what the rest of the world refer to as the "giraffe ladies" or the "long necks". They practice the art of "neck stretching". I am not referring to part of a daily exercise routine where you stretch your neck muscles for a minute or to in order to relax. The Karen Padaung neck stretching involves permanent bodily modification which takes years to accomplish Young Karen woman of the Paduang trip living in a village near Chiang Mai, Thailand Image: Dave Bezaire & Susi Havens - Flckr Image : Marina & Enrique - Flickr How Padaung Neck Stretching is Accomplished Neck stretching begins when a Padaung girl reaches the age of six. Initially little girls will be made to wear a single coil of heavy brass around their neck. Over the following years extra coils are added at intervals that could be anything from weeks to months. This will continue over a couple of years until a limit of 20 rings have been added although there are reports of some women who wear as much as 25 coils but this is more the exception. The weight of the coils will eventually place sufficient pressure on the collarbone to cause it to deform and create an impression of a longer neck.

Young Padaung Girl Origin of the Tradition There are many diverse explanations as to the origin of this tradition the most rational being for its aesthetic value. The beauty and grace of a long neck is exemplified by the addition of heavy golden jewelry depicting both wealth and beauty. Other explanations include to protect the ladies from evil spirits and another rumor is to disfigure them so that other tribes will find them unattractive. I think I'll stick to the first and most obvious explanation. Despite the fact that the elongated neck is illusionary it certainly is convincing and to outsiders gives the women an abnormal appearance. It is for obvious reasons that they are referred to as the "giraffe ladies" Women of the Padaung tribe use brass rings - up to 25 for an adult - to progressively stretch their necks. Rings are worn also on the calves. Image and desciption cortesy Hoorab - Flckr Other Traditions of the Padaung Women Much less publicized is the tradition among the Padaung women to wear carved elephant tusks in their ears to indicate that they are married. When a Padaung women gets married her ears are pierced and a piece of elephant tusk is inserted into her earlobes.

The first pieces are reasonably small, ranging between one and four centimeters in length. The earlobes are eventually weighed down by the pieces of elephant tusk and as they stretch larger pieces of tusk are inserted into the lobes until the women's earlobes become elongated and floppy. This tradition is restricted to married woman and unmarried woman may not wear any ear pieces. The Padaung women also wear metal coils on the calves of their legs and this practice is followed by both young and older women. Why Padaung Women get Negative Reactions There are several factors that have given rise to the negative reactions and outrage that the art of neck stretching among the Padaung women have received in recent years. The fact that the protesters are not equipped to decipher truth from myth was probably partly to blame. Their concern was triggered by the fact that a rumor was spread that should a Padaung woman be disloyal or offend her tribe her neck rings would be removed and that this could cause her to choke to death as a result of her crippled respiratory muscular structure. These women however do not choke and die when they remove their neck rings. (Just as well as they remove them for their first wedding night).

In reality they very rarely appear in public without their neck rings but they do remove and replace the coils with new sets if and when necessary. On occasion some of the women remove the coils to make adjustments to the jewelry adorning the coils. It is not surprising that the Padaung women will never appear in public without their neck rings. The skin beneath the coils is bruised and the collarbone disfigured - definitely not something any woman would want to flaunt to the public. Women who have worn neck rings for up to forty years report that they only suffer discomfort for a maximum of three days when they decide to remove the coils permanently. Asking her in Burmese, when the watchdog was least attentive, whether or not the rings hurt, she replied, "yes" Image and Description courtesy Florathexplora - Flickr What Does the Future Hold For Padaung Neck Stretching Traditions? For obvious reasons these women have now become a major tourist attraction and people travel miles to come and gawk at these "giraffe ladies".

As a result of this disrespect for their privacy some members of the tribe removed their neck rings in 2006 in protest against their exploitation and the fact that the tourists were making a mockery of their culture and traditions. The increased contact with Westerners influenced a number of the women to leave the tribe and further their education. After these drastic changes took place many of the other women followed suit. Most of the remaining Padaung women no longer wear their neck rings nor do they initiate the process on their daughters. The few remaining Padaung women who do still practice this ancient tradition constantly bear the brunt of their loyalty to their culture. They are criticized for their willingness to be exploited, their exploitation of themselves and the tourists, and the destruction of their bodies. They do not seem too perturbed as they move slowly around the villages and stop to pose for tourist photos. There is almost a market atmosphere and the locals sell bracelets and other trinkets to the many tourists that flock to see these "Freaks". This woman from a Karen Village outside of Mae Hong Son, Thailand, has rings that weigh close to 10 pounds round her neck. The Karen tribe are refugees from Myanmar.

There's an entrance fee to see the village so you are an official "gawker", but the As an outsider the question I cannot help but ask is whether the Padaung women's neck stretching is any different to body piercing, tattooing and other body modifications that the Westerners accept with such ease. To my mind the only significant difference is that the one is a tradition and the other either a fad or a cult. I think I'll stick my neck out for the neck stretching ladies and say they deserve to be left to follow their tradition if they so wish without the intrusion of "gawkers" Excellent National Geographic Video What Do You Think? Should the Padaung Neck Stretchers be Left To Do Their Thing or Should the Authorities Intervene? They Should be Left Alone to Practice Their Tradition They Should be Prohibited and Educated on the Damage They are Doing to Their Collarbones?

They Should be Left to Earn a Living From the Tourists DESTINATION ASIA / Giraffe women turn to tourism / Tribes draw Thailand sightseers - SFGate DESTINATION ASIA / Giraffe women turn to tourism / Tribes draw Thailand sightseers Seth Mydans, New York Times Published 4:00 am, Sunday, March 10, 2002 2002-03-10 04:00:00 PDT Nai Soi, Thailand -- The tourists had gone for the day, pictures taken, souvenirs in hand, and the little settlement of Nai Soi near the border of Burma had reverted to the regular rhythms of village life. One woman rocked a baby in a hammock. One lay back in a chair and strummed a guitar. A group of small girls played jacks. Eight barefoot women played a noisy game of volleyball. This village is one of three that have been specially created by tour operators here in northwestern Thailand to house about 100 of the so-called giraffe women of Burma along with their families.

Almost all the women - even the small girls, even the volleyball players - wear long, glittering coils of brass around their necks. The women have worn their coils for generations as a mark of beauty and tribal identity. But even for them - and their husbands and brothers - life here is anything but normal. They are members of the Kayan tribe of the ethnic Karenni minority in Burma, and they are refugees from the long-running ethnic insurgencies and government repression of their homeland. Their little artificial villages form the boundaries of their world. Like other refugees in Thailand, they are not free to leave their confinement, to grow their own food or to seek normal employment. Some 20,000 other Karenni refugees are crammed into a series of nearby camps along the border, living the squalid lives of the dispossessed. The long- necked women and their families are the exception, housed separately and in greater comfort in their small thatched houses because, as tourist attractions, they can earn money for Thai tour operators, well-connected officials and their own tribal leaders.

Among the refugees, they are the privileged, earning a monthly stipend as well as the proceeds of the postcards and trinkets that they sell to the daily flow of tourists. Compared with the farming lives they fled, it is easy money: rouge, ribbons and banter with their foreign visitors. To an outsider, the women offer no complaints. The question is one of dignity. Some people describe the villages as a human zoo. Nothing here seems private. As they go about their lives - feeding their children, washing at the village pump - they are on display to all comers. "At first, I felt frightened," said Manang, 46, who was one of the first long-necked women to come to Thailand, more than a decade ago. "I had never seen a Westerner before." But for her daughter, Mada, 20, who grew up here, tourists are a way of life. "I'm glad when the tourists come because then we can make money," she said. According to their elders, the women of the Kayan tribe (commonly known to outsiders as Padaung) have been winding brass coils around their necks in a custom that goes back hundreds of years.

The coils, which are permanently attached and look like individual rings, weigh up to 12 pounds and appear to stretch the women's necks to as much as 10 or 12 inches in length. But in fact the necks are not lengthened. Instead, the weight of the coils, widening at the base, pushes down the collarbones and rib cage, causing the shoulders to slope. The result is eerily graceful, the head floating above the shoulders like the crown of a dandelion, the chin projected forward as if in perpetual curiosity. As the early morning mist is still rising, the women gather at the communal pump, washing and scouring the metal around their necks, using a traditional combination of lime, straw and tamarind bark. Pads of steel wool are a modern innovation. That done, they go about their daily lives. "We can do anything anybody else can do," said Mawe, 18, herself a pretty good volleyball player. They sing, ride motorbikes and hunt with long, glue- tipped poles for dragonflies to eat. They are remarkable linguists, conversing with tourists in increasingly proficient English, Thai, Japanese, Spanish, German - even Hebrew.

The women here say that short coils are applied first to girls of about 5 years old, or even as young as 3. Every five years or so, the coil is unwound and replaced by a longer and heavier one. The decision is made by parents, and almost all of the village girls wear them. "It can be a bit boring and hot, and it hurts when you first put it on," said Mawe, who wears 10 pounds of brass around her neck. When the coil is removed for lengthening or because of a stay in the hospital, she said, it is necessary to wind cloth around the neck for a few days to support it until it strengthens. "When you take off the brass, you're a little dizzy, and for one or two or three minutes you -shouldn't walk," she said. "You feel very light and you have a little headache." The long-neck custom is surrounded by myth and misinformation, much of it fostered by Thai tour guides who describe the ornaments as armor against tiger bites and talk of animist rituals in which only girls born on a Wednesday under a full moon wear the coils. The Kayan have no written history, and even their elders here are not sure how many of those tales are true.

The prevailing explanation is that the coils are both an adornment and a way of securing family wealth from theft. Now the women themselves have become a valuable commodity, both for their own communities and for the Thai officials and tour operators who exploit them. Tourists by the vanload pay armed police guards 250 baht (about $5.70) apiece to enter their villages. Among the Kayan themselves, the long-necked women are an unprecedented source of income, supporting their families and their villages. The long- necked women say they receive monthly stipends from the authorities who control the villages, ranging from about $20 to $40, and earn additional income from the souvenirs they sell. Most men prefer an income-generating long- necked woman as a bride, rather than one who does not wear the rings, said Mada. It appears that the economic benefits of their adornment are keeping the long-neck custom alive here even as it may be dying out in the villages of Burma where it originated. "It's nice to have a long neck if you are in Thailand," said Mada. "You can make money. But not if you are in Burma. Most people have stopped doing it there.

Buying the brass and the decorations is too expensive. There -isn't even rice to eat." Few of the thousands of tourists who visit here each year realize that the long-necked women are refugees. Tour operators describe them, as one brochure puts it, as "one of the many hill-tribes people found along the border of Thailand." "Long-necked Padaung are the star attraction to draw tourists to visit our province," said Poolsak Sunthornpanit, chairman of Mae Hong Son's provincial chamber of commerce, recently. Without them, he said, "all tourism-related businesses, such as hotels, restaurants and transportation services would be badly hit." For now, Poolsak has little to worry about. The war in Burma is nowhere near a resolution. Nevertheless, the long-necked women and their families say it is their dream to return one day to their homeland. "Ah, we are praying for that every day," said Solomon Nansein, 70, a Kayan village elder. "We are waiting for a change in the situation there. If there is a change in the morning, we will go home on the same afternoon." .

Companies that lead tours to Nai Soi operate from Mae Hong Son, which can be reached from Bangkok by way of Chiang Mai in 1 1/2 hours. Mae Hong Son to Nai Soi by car is 45 minutes. Two companies lead tours for about $19 a person: The Rose Garden Tour Co., 86/4 Koon-loomprapas Road, Tambon Chongkam, Ampur Muang, Mae Hong Son, Thailand; phone/fax 011-66-53-611-681, and T.N. Tours, 107/17 Koon-loomprapas Road, Tambon Chongkam, Ampur Muang, Mae Hong Son, Thailand; phone: 011-66-53-620-557; fax: 011-66-53-620-060. Latest from the SFGATE homepage: Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more.

Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page. '20/20' Visits Thailand's 'Long-Necked' Women - ABC News '20/20' Visits Thailand's 'Long-Necked' Women By ABC News Email Far from the glitz of Bangkok, in Thailand's remote northeastern region, tourists are lured by a spellbinding image — women and girls who've undergone a bizarre body enhancement. They have been called Giraffe Women, because as young girls they have heavy collars of brass wound around their necks. The effect is surreal. Their heads appear as tiny dots above a golden stalk. And once they're adults, the collar never comes off: — not when they bathe, not when they sleep, and for many, not even when they die. They call themselves the Kayan, and they lived in Karenni state in Burma, also called Myanmar. Then a 20-year civil war and the Burmese military dictatorship forced some 100,000 refugees to flee across the border to Thailand.

But while most have landed in primitive camps, the long-necked women — 200 or so — live in more comfortable villages. That's because they attract paying tourists — up to 200,000 a year — and support themselves from their share of the entrance fees — a monthly salary just for wearing the rings. They also earn money from the sale of dolls, weavings, postcards and from posing for photos with tourists. Tourists Pay Big Bucks to See Them Nante, 47, earns her income through the rings on her neck. "She is supporting our whole family, and also my youngest brothers study in high school because of her," said her daughter Mubi. Ma Da, 23, is the village star. She has been wearing the rings since she was 5. She says it gets hot wearing the rings, but she doesn't mind. It may be just a matter of getting used to them. Teen girls in the village seemed comfortable with their collars, even played volleyball. One of the women, Ma Na, said she has some back and shoulder pain, but nothing serious.

She boasted that she made a five-day trek when she fled Burma, and was not at all slowed down by the 10 pounds of metal wrapped around her neck, not to mention the brass ornaments she wears on her legs. A doctor from the hospital in nearby Mae Hong Son said that despite the way it looks, the rings don't elongate their necks. Rather, they force the collarbone down, just making the neck seem very long. Few Question Ancient Custom It's not clear how the custom originated. According to one legend, the rings made the women look like the dragon from which the tribe descended. Another says the rings protected women from the teeth of a tiger. Still another version says the rings were meant to show off a family's wealth and once were made of gold. But in this culture with no written history, no one knows. And few question a tradition dating back hundreds of years. Mubi is a rare rebel. At 7, her fling with the rings ended abruptly. "I told them, 'If you [do] not remove these, I will just cry all the time,' " she said. Today, at 26, Mubi has no regrets about her decision.

She has adopted the speedy pace of a student activist, living in town and promoting self-determination for her people. She doesn't want to be on display. "I don't like the tourists to come," she said. A Rite of Passage Not all little girls will wear the rings. It's up to the family. But most want to look just like their mothers. 20/20 watched as 7-year-old Mu Ho got a second set of rings to keep pace with her growing body. Ma Na, the village expert, unwound Mu Ho's brass coil for the first time in four years. Surprisingly, the little girl's neck was fine, although a bit discolored from the metal, and she could move her neck without pain. But astoundingly, the girl wanted the new rings to go on right away because without them, she felt ugly. Ma Na skillfully shaped the coil around Mu Ho's neck so it won't interfere with her ability to move or swallow. After nearly half an hour, it was done. Mu Ho eagerly counted her rings. A few more had been added this time, making it a cherished rite of passage. Tethered to the Past It's also insurance.

With her ringed neck, she'll continue to attract tourists and earn her salary. But that's the conundrum: The rings that enable survival today are inevitably tethering the Kayan women to the past. Tom Eady and Nick Sargeant, who teach at a village middle school, say a girl's future is limited if she puts on rings. "I believe it's restrictive and sad," Eady said. "A good example is Miori," Sargeant said. "She's by far the brightest, the most interested, student. I think she's actually going to go to high school in camp, but after that, what can she do?" Like women everywhere, the Kayan want to look their best. And maybe we shouldn't look at other cultures through our North American eyes, said tourist Phil Blustein. "What do you think the long-necked women would say if they came to the United States and saw that women have breast implants, liposuction, cosmetic surgery? And foot surgery so they can fit their feet into spiky shoes," he said. "I can't figure out which one's more culturally bizarre." 0 Shares Why Do These Women Stretch Their Necks?

| National Geographic - YouTube Why Do These Women Stretch Their Necks? | National Geographic Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on May 29, 2013 Starting at an early age, women of the Padaung tribe wear a coil of brass rings around their necks. This collar, and the elongated appearance it gives their necks over time, are Padaung symbols they wear proudly. In their native Myanmar, Padaung people often faced persecution over these visible tribal symbols. Now, having relocated to a Thailand refugee camp, these Padaung women continue this centuries-old custom, memorializing the struggles of the past and maintaining a link to their tribe's history. The Giraffe Women The Giraffe Women Contact The Giraffe Women In a world where procedures such as body piercing, tattooing, and plastic surgery have become the norm, it is somewhat surprising that more people are not aware and appreciative of body altering rituals performed in other cultures.

For centuries, the Karen Tribe1 of Thailand has been adorning their women with brass rings around their necks to give the appearance of elongated necks. Upon viewing pictures of these "giraffe women", people in Western culture tend to respond with accusations of cruelty aimed at the Karen people, in particular the dominant males of Karen society, without understanding any of the significance of this practice. This paper will provide the proper cultural context for comprehending this body practice as well as compare it to Western traditions and offer an alternative to criticizing cultural differences. Originally from Burma, the Karen people have migrated to Thailand over the past decade or so to seek refuge from the civil war between them and the Burmese. Under normal circumstances, the Thai government denies refugees admittance into the country, but they have made an exception for these long-necked money making tourist attractions. While it is certain that the Karen are from Burma, not much else is known about this tribe’s past. They have no written history, and there are "many conflicting theories concerning the nature of [the Karen’s] origin" (United States 793). Their language even, is somewhat uncertain in origin.

It has been classified as Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer, as well as any variation of those three, complicating the communication process even between separate tribes of Karen people. It is stipulated however, that the name "Karen", when translated into the Karen’s language means "slave-barbarian", was given to them by the British when Burma was under control of the British Empire. The modern Karen religion is a combination of Buddhism and the British-inherited Christianity. The Karen is a conflicting tribe, lacking any concrete identity. It appears that one of the few elements that is truly their own is the cultural practice of neck rings. Another truly unique and truly Karen cultural characteristic is that of fear. Fear is "reflected in their extremely superstitious religion, through which they picture themselves as constantly under siege by a horde of evil demons" (United States 810). The Karen appear to react with fear to many powers that are beyond their control or comprehension. It is possible that the fear within their religion originates from the British imposition of Christian values upon them. A Karen people, unable to resist the power of the British, give in to their fear of them and accept their Christianity.

Even the Buddhist spirits that comprise the Karen’s native religion are malevolent in nature and strike fear in the hearts of these people. However, the most fearsome spirits of all to the Karen people are those of the widow ghosts. The widow ghosts are spirits of women who have died a painful death, leaving behind a spouse in the physical world. They are characterized by an unquenchable and potentially fatal sexuality. These spirits roam the Thailand countryside in search of another husband and it is alleged that they come to males in dreams in the form of a beautiful woman, lie down on top of the male, and suffocate him. These sudden "dream deaths" of otherwise healthy males arouse great fear in the Karen males, for "the fearsome power of these spirits reflects, in part, Northeast Thai cultural understandings of gender difference and the dangers inherent in female sexuality" (Mills 245). To the Karen, female sexuality is a potent thing, the only thing that women have that can measure up to and even surpass that of their male counterparts.

To combat these widow ghosts, the males erected large wooden penises outside of their house, thinking that upon seeing the penises, the ghosts would take out their sexual angst on the penis and leave the men safe and alive. The fact that the women are combated with penises speaks loudly for the Karen’s link between control and sexuality and the role that gender plays in the two. By believing that the penis is strong enough to drive away these frenzied and potent widow ghosts, it is evident that the Karen view male sexuality as powerful and benevolent, but see female sexuality as out of control and malignant. The link between this fear of the widow ghosts and the practice of females wearing neck rings is a complicated one. These fears of the widow spirits play upon "the explosive idiom of female sexual powers and appetites rampaging out of control" (Mill, 245). It then follows that the ritual of placing neck rings on the women is not only a statement of Karen beauty and tradition, but it is a subconscious attempt to control the rampant female sexuality. The neck rings suppress the sexual appetite by displaying the women as physically modest.

Mary Beth Mills, in her essay "Attack of the Widow Ghosts: Gender, Death and Modernity in Northeast Thailand", comments: The unnatural and voracious appetites of widow ghosts present a frightening image of female powers of generation and sexuality run violently amok . . . Thai gender systems attribute potentially harmful powers to female sexuality when not contained within the marital relationship and circumscribed by appropriate displays of physical modesty and/or maternal solicitude. By contrast, male sexual powers pose little danger to the social fabric and phallic representations can be employed to preserve or restore spiritual strength, and physical and social health (251). The fear created by the widow ghosts is so great and has transferred this fear onto all Karen women. All women are viewed as having violent, uncontrolled sexual appetites that, when not properly controlled, have the potential to do much harm. The men, not posing any danger or threat with their well-intentioned sexuality, are in the perfect position to take control of feminine sexuality. "These polluting effects are inherent in the female body and not subject to women’s volition or control" (Mills 257); therefore the Karen men have stepped up to control this voracious sexual appetite for the women.

This practice, along with several other social patterns, is what ties the various Karen tribes together. Gender roles are strictly observed in all Karen societies. The women are considered to be of a lower social status than the men, who "consider themselves superior and feel that their masculine pride suffers an insult if they appear in any way subordinate to a female" (United States 819). This male dominance is illustrated in the Karen body practices of the women wearing as many as 25-30 uncomfortable, constrictive brass rings around their necks while "tattooing is the main ornament for men" (Belt), incidentally, a practice that is considered normal in Western culture. Tattooing does not fall under scrutiny like the seemingly outlandish practice of the brass neck rings. An outsider of the Karen tribe could easily assume that men are treated with higher regard than females just by comparing the physically and apparently symbolically binding neck rings with the more physically free, artistic tattooing. What this outsider will not readily see is the "absence of a coercive element in [Karen] society" (United States 811). Alas, it is the women who decide to adorn their necks with brass rings.

They freely choose to partake in this ritual for the sake of cultural tradition. Because there is no coercive element, and assuming that the rings are worn to control female sexuality, the women must also believe that their sexuality is out of control and in order to keep it in check, they must be displayed as modest and inhibited. The neck rings help them to achieve this modest inhibition. In addition to combat violent sexuality, there are many myths as to why the Karen women wear these rings around their necks. As previously stated, the British-named "Karen", when translated to the Karen’s own language, means "slave-barbarian". From this idea of the Karen as slaves, a story evolved suggesting that the rings were placed around the women’s necks to make them ill favored in the eyes of slave traders. Another tale expounds the rings being worn as protection from tiger bites. Nonetheless, these rumors, while interesting to speculate about, are just that and nothing more. The authentic reason for wearing the rings is that it is "more than just a rare and strange expression of feminine beauty, the number and value of the rings confers status and respect on the wearer’s family" (Mansfield).

Karen women have been led to believe that their rings are a form of sexual inhibition. Now, when the number of rings has come to mean more in terms of social respect, these women have grown to appreciate the good that wearing the neck rings can bring them- social status and respect. In a society where women are viewed as the infinitely inferior gender, redeeming one’s social status via the neck rings is an honorable and venerable tradition. This tradition begins when a girl is five or six years old and has her initial "coil" placed on her neck. About every five years, the coil is removed and replaced with a longer, heavier one. When the stretching process is complete, the coils can "weigh up to 12 pounds and appear to stretch the women’s necks to as much as 10 or 12 inches in length. But in fact the necks are not lengthened. Instead, the weight of the coils . . . pushes down the collarbones and rib cage, causing the shoulders to slope" (Mydans). These rings alter the body so much that once they are placed on a young girl, they are permanent, with formidable consequences if removed.

Because one of the purposes of the neck rings is to contain sexual prowess, Karen society views "monogamy [as] the only acceptable practice for women. Prostitutes and other ‘loose’ women may be described as ‘having many husbands’ but the derogatory connotation of this phrase does not carry over to the male equivalent. A man with ‘many wives’ is more an object of admiration" (Mills 256). Men are encouraged to have many partners, but women in Karen society who have committed adultery are punished by having their rings removed. Not only is this a symbolic relinquishing of her social status, this act also yields physical threats to her life. The weakened neck muscles make it impossible to support the weight of the woman’s head, which could result in the windpipe being crushed. Thus, a Karen woman who has had her rings removed is doomed to spend most of the rest of her life lying down. Given this, why would any woman choose to partake in such a grotesque ritual? It is simple for Westerners to view this practice as barbaric as well as physically, socially, and psychologically oppressive for women, especially when examining the conditions under which the Karen live in modern-day Thailand.

As stated earlier, the Thai government has been admitting Karen refugees purely for use as tourist attractions. Seth Mydans of the New York Times reports: "The question is one of dignity. Some people describe the villages as a human zoo, and the accusations have fueled debates in the local press. Nothing here seems private." Many of the refugees live in "tourist villages" where they are essentially a "human zoo". Westerners see this not only as a problem with the ritual of neck stretching, but as a humanitarian issue. Even they recognize the exploitation of the Karen by the Thai government. New Internationalist Magazine has reported, "Inside Burma the tradition has been dying . . . Now, due to the ‘tourist villages’, the practice has been given an extended lease of life" (Rose). Fleeing from their homeland to Thailand, the women of the Karen tribe are suddenly viewed by Thai culture as a valuable commodity; they are revered for their fantastically enchanting long necks, and given more recognition and status than ever before. Rather than the men being the superior gender, "now it is the women themselves who have become a valuable commodity, both for their own communities and for the Thai officials and tour operators who exploit them" (Mydans).

New Internationalist interviewed a respected elder woman, Ma Nang, who has been applying the rings onto Karen women for 34 years. Ma Nang’s now cynical attitude towards her culture’s ritual has an uncanny similarity to that of M’Lissa from Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. Ma Nang, who lives in the tourist village of Mae Hong Son, explains that what she does is just "a job to earn money" (Rose). This process holds no cultural value or significance for her any longer. Ma Nang construes the entire process of fitting a Karen woman with her full set of rings: "[It] takes too long to sustain the main attraction to the ‘tourist villages’. So the process has been speeded up" (Rose). In the tourist villages, the practice of neck rings is no longer a cultural practice to be held sacred and maintained in its original form. By the interference of modern Thai society, the Karen and their practices are exploited and they are treated like a factory that must churn out as many of these long-necked wonders as fast as they can in order to earn money to live. Once, again, the Karen’s identity is being created and defined for them.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when there is a tribe trying to preserve their ancient rituals and remain static in a dynamic and modernizing society. Imagine the Karen tribe as a pebble in a river. The modernizing world is the river. The river’s strong current is forever moving and forever changing; it is impossible for the tiny pebble to remain in one spot on the riverbed while the current is urging it forward. An important factor in examining Karen society with relation to a larger modernizing society is that of gender equality. The body practices exercised within the Karen tribe reinforce the notion that men are the far superior gender. However, modern society continually pushes the ideal of gender equality. Can a society that is trying to remain static in a dynamic world ever reach that gender equality? Does it even want to? It is quite possible that the Karen have already reached what they perceive as gender equality. The men are more respected than the females, but the females redeem themselves by reaching a higher social status with the more rings they have. Thus, they can conceivable attain a form of gender equality, especially in modern society, where the Karen women are revered for their necks and are the moneymakers.

The problem at hand is that one cannot "attempt to establish a cross-culturally valid standard of sexual equality" (Bossen 97). Sexual equality, like gender, is a culturally constructed idea. In this modernizing society, there are groups of Karen who find refuge in Thailand but do not succumb to the culturally oppressive lifestyles of the tourist villages. These groups, much like the Olinkans in Walker’s novel, are trying to maintain what semblance of identity they do have in an increasingly Westernized world that either criticizes their "barbaric" practices or exploits them for a profit. Some of these Western critics might argue that the neck rings are a cruel practice that binds women into confining and inferior gender roles. A solid refutation to that point would be Laurel Bossen’s theory in her essay, "Women in Modernizing Societies": Important differences in women’s condition in traditional and modern societies may be the result of differences in the over-all standard of living as well as changes in sexual equality. While women in modern societies may be more fortunate and have more opportunities than they have in traditional societies, it does not follow that the greater wealth and superior technology controlled by modern societies corresponds to greater equality among its members, female or otherwise.

The unilinear view is frequently vague as to whether modernization improves women’s position relative to men’s, or whether the improvements cited are unrelated to the issue of sexual equality (96). That is, gender differences and in equalities exist in all cultures and for all sorts of reasons. It is illogical to blame Karen gender inequalities on their practice of the neck rings, especially when, there being no coercive force in their society, the women voluntarily and proudly wear the rings to enhance their social status. In addition, there have been social movements to end cruel cultural practices in Asia, but there have never been efforts to cease the neck rings in the Karen society. In Southeast Asia, "calls against foot-binding . . . commenced in the 1890s. In 1911, for example, the Chinese Suffragette Society campaigned for an end to the by-then illegal but still practiced foot-binding, concubinage, child marriage, and prostitution and asked for women to have equal educational and political rights with men" (Darcy and Hipsher 112). Perhaps there was never any action to abolish the neck rings because the Karen are a fairly exclusive and isolated people.

However, as of late, the Karen have been brought out of the woodwork by the Thai tourism industry, and still no calls to end the "cruelty" of neck rings have been made. A possibility for this is because while still considered cruel by the same standards as used in determining foot-binding’s cruelty, the neck rings benefit modern society at large- financially. There have been no calls to end this practice; there has only been lurid fascination with it from the public, as evidenced by the popularity of the tourist villages. The only thoughts of ceasing this practice have been from the Karen women themselves, yet they continue to practice this ritual because the money-hungry Thai tourism industry selfishly perpetuates it. Suppose that there in fact was a social movement to end the "cruel" practices of the Karen tribe. What would become of the Karen traditions and the Karen women? There is much to speculate over. For example, the sexuality that needs to be repressed- will it enjoy a healthy manifestation similar to the Western woman’s sexual freedom? Taking a look at the typical Western woman’s sexuality, assuming she is heterosexual, she is subject to endless stereotypes of being a "slut" if she has more than one sexual partner.

Her typical Western male counterpart however, is exulted in the eyes of his peers for the same behavior. Is this not the same scenario as described by Mills that currently takes place in Karen society? From this point of view, I am not sure that much would be different at all should this ritual be abolished. However, in terms of cultural identity, the Karen may be worse off than they are now if this practice was no longer in use. As we have learned, the Karen have no written history, have had a religion thrust upon them by the British, have no uniform language, the very name of their tribe was conjured by the British, and their most culturally identifying tradition is being exploited by modern society. Essentially, the Karen lack much of an identity. Ironically, the one final thing holding their people together is the very element that is being tainted by society- the neck rings. What would happen if this element were taken away? Would the Karen fall apart? It is impossible to predict the outcome however, given the above evidence and the fact that the Karen tribe has deteriorated since other cultures began infusing themselves- the British, the Thai tourism industry- one might lean towards an affirmative answer to that question.

Regardless of whether the Karen people belong to the group from the tourist villages that continue the neck rings due to pressure from modern society, or whether they belong to the group that continues this ritual to preserve their cultural identity, the fact remains that this practice is still continuing today. Westerners who attack this practice must understand that it is a part of the Karen culture. What is a cultural norm for the Karen obviously is not normal for Westerners. In the same way, the practices that are normal in Western society- breast augmentation, liposuction, piercings- can be viewed as barbaric and cruel in many Eastern cultures. This illustrates that "normal" is a subjective term. When defined within a culture, it is almost impossible to convey that perspective of what is normal cross-culturally due to disparities between societies and gender roles in those societies. A lesson can be learned from examining the seemingly bizarre rituals of the Karen people: tolerance. We must exercise tolerance and understanding in dealing with other cultures. Because normality is subjective, there is no standard against which to measure the ethics of body practices and cultural rituals. Works Cited Belt, Chris. 2000. Home page. 11 April 2003. < Bossen, Laurel.

"Women in Modernizing Societies." Women and Society: An Anthropological Reader. Ed. Sharon W. Tiffany. Montreal: Eden Press Women’s Publications, 1979. 93-119. Darcy, R. and Patty Hipsher. "Women Policies in Asia". Democracy and the Status of Women in East Asia. Ed. Rose J. Lee and Cal Clark. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. 107-122. Mansfield, Stephen. 14 April 1998. Home page. 11 April 2003. < Mills, Mary Beth. "Attack of the Widow Ghosts: Gender, Death, and Modernity in Northeast Thailand." Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia. Ed. Aiwha Ong and Michael G. Peletz. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. 244-273. Mydans, Seth. "Nai Soi’s Long-Necked Women". New York Times on the Web. 20 May 2001.

11 April 2003. < Rose, Marcus. "Human Zoo: Neck-ringing refugees". New Internationalist Magazine on the Web. Feb. 1995. 11 April 2003. United States. Department of the Army. Minority Groups in Thailand. Washington: GPO, 1970. Carolyn Kent - ckent@insight.rr.com - 614.595.9051

Question: Which country do the giraffe necked women who wear up to 20 pounds of brass rings on their necks come from
Answer: Burma