The Long-Necked Karen

(First published in Small World Ezine on 18 February 2002)

 

(Genesis Stock Photo)

 

One of the hill-tribes recorded in Sir Ripley's "Believe-It-Or-Not" series is the Thailand's "Long-Necked" Karen.

"Karen" is  a mountain tribe, not one homogeneous group but rather a loose confederation of heterogeneous and closely related tribes with the same style of clothing and spiritaul believes. They reside scatterly in the mountain ranges which are now the borders between Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), Laos. Mostly in Thailand's side of the borders because of the political problems in the other side.

The "Padung" or "long-necked" Karen is one of the Karen groups residing in Thailand's Mae Hong Son province. The Term "long-neck" signifies the practice of adorning their women with
brass rings around the neck.

The women of the Karen Padaung villages start wearing multiple brass rings around the neck, the arms and the legs since they are 5-6 years old. The rings on the neck reach from the clavicle
up to beneath the chin. Please have a look at the picture to your left. 

The neck grows longer as additional rings are added with each passing year. One woman in Plam Piang Din Village wears 37 brass rings around her neck and this is considered ideal. It is said that if you removed the ring from the neck of a grown-up woman, she'd die because the neck bone and muscles had become too weak to carry the weight of the head she could not even breathe! Well... That's not true. the girls can remove the rings and still live.

Nowadays, the tradition continues. Educated mothers do not put rings on her daughters' necks anymore. Those who continue claimed to have followed the tradition. But I suspect pat of it is  for tourism purpose.

 

More:

In Thailand's Northern province of Phrae lives another Karen "Padung" group. The women of this group display their beauty, and their status as married women, by wearing carved elephant
tusk in their ears. When a woman is married, her ears are pierced and an elephant tusk of one to four centimetres in length is inserted.

The weight of the tusks gradually weighs down on the ear lobe and the ear gets larger and larger, and longer and longer. Then larger pieces of tusk are inserted and the process repeats itself until the woman's ears become extremely elongated and floppy. The married woman wears these ear pieces for life.

Unmarried girls in these tribes do not wear the ear pieces, but they do wear white dresses, in contrast to the red and black dresses worn by the married women, and on the backs of their
hands a few magical words are written in spiritual languages. These words carry meaning to bless these girls to have a happy life.

Of course, no doubt, this group of Padung Karen is called the "long-eared" Karen.