Chapter 2
Changing beliefs. Why synthesis is more effective that resistance: As the Akha
people have to survive before their ‘culture’ can, what is so in need of preservation
and how is ‘Customary Law’ being adapted to contemporary experience?
Traditional Akha embroidery with a fairly new addition: a Christian Cross
What is the Akha ‘culture’ that seems so under threat? Customary Law cannot be described as a religion or even ‘culture’ in the Western sense. It is an intricate system of laws and moral rules that guide all aspects of personal, village and wider relationships; in effect it is a pragmatic and adaptive blueprint for survival. The reciting of over 1500 years of genealogy is central to Customary Law and an Akha identity. Allowing an individual to place him or herself in complete context, from ‘Mma’, the Sky or Heaven, to finding out how they are exactly related to any Akha stranger they meet for the first time. As communication is so central to such relationships, the issues of language, of who teaches it and transfers an oral culture to written text is crucial to the continuation of the Akha identity. In Burma urbanisation has forced the adaptation of traditional practices, whilst the example of the Baptist missionary Paul Lewis highlights the fine line that divides cultural adaption from irradiation. The dilemma is that the knowledge of English is so useful to the Akha’s expression and survival. Being converted through choice isn’t a problem, but through manipulation is.
Manu emphasises the need to establish an archive as the only trace of the Akha’s remaining contemporary oral culture:
"Nowadays, the only records of the estimated 2000 years of Akha history are the collected and transcribed ritual and personal narrations of elderly Akha personalities. There are no written or visual sources. In times where the oral tradition is becoming weaker but no script is largely in use, it depends once more on the dominant surrounding cultures what will be remembered about the life as Akha at the beginning of the 21st (century)."
The extent of this knowledge, of which funeral texts alone would reach more than 7000 pages, can traditionally only be orally passed to the next generation. The passing on of 1500 years worth of lessons, mistakes, to ensure ecological sustainability, settle business disputes and even how to relate with other marginalized groups. So it seems that even marginalization itself forms an inextricable part of the Akha identity.
Burma has an appalling political and human rights record, with reports of villages being terrorised historically recently. Ahsam, from the same village as Ahhtu, claims that it is the only one out of 100 —200 villages in the Kengtung City area that still maintains a belief in the Akha system.
Ahsam and Ahhtu from Burma
Ahsam revealed how in urban areas the number of ceremonies practiced each year were being reduced, mostly due to living in an environment consisting of different cultural beliefs and the lack of teachers in the village:
"We prayed to our ancestors already that they please forgive us, forgive us to practice only three times a year, we throw (out) another ceremony not because we cannot do the ceremony but because we cannot practice it in the town…If we would like to build a village gate in our village in the town, we cannot do it, because someone would come to knock down the village gate…that’s why it is so difficult for us".
So, rather than having to redo a ceremony every time a gate is damaged, they practice ancestral services three, rather than nine times a year. They are dubious about how their culture can be maintained, although they say that the writing system, including the recording of ceremonies is very useful to them.
The need they express to conserve Akha culture doesn’t appear to be out of dogmatic traditionalism, simply that this is knowledge, or perhaps as this knowledge is not isolated from any other area of life, wisdom would be a more appropriate term, that having been created for over seventy generations should not now be lost to the world. The Akha have always adapted to new environments and the current crisis is no exception. As Asham says:
"We don’t want to throw away our culture, and we don’t want to loose our ancestral services. If we practiced it exactly as the Akha used to do it, we could not survive. Therefore, the Akha culture could not survive. That is the reason why we came to the conclusion that we should do the ancestral services less often."
Elements of Customary Law have to be criticised, which are as exclusive and restrictive as any other corpus of rules, with knowledge often restricted to a few male specialists and elders. Many archaic texts are not even understandable to the Akha majority, in an elitist, sometimes secretive system that bars women from leadership. Whilst many practices have been abandoned some have been uncovered with a renewed relevance, such as the role of the Eye Ahma, which designates a specific role of importance to any woman after the age of 45, when she becomes equal to the men. This is small compensation for a life spent by many women as the predominant working force within a family, not only hindering any chance of an education but often instigating exploitative employment in the lowlands, much of which amounts to prostitution, forced labour or slavery.
To stay alive, traditions must change. Yet there are limits, and the boundaries beyond which cultural changes do nothing towards sustaining the Akha identity are no better illustrated than by the example of the Baptist missionary Paul Lewis.
Paul Lewis listens at the Conference
Christian missionaries have played a huge role in the development of literacy amongst the Akha and are simultaneously, especially in Thailand, the greatest cause of people giving up their traditional beliefs and rituals. Paul Lewis’ overriding motives are revealed when he says how useful the text is for the reciting of hymns and the seemingly urgent importance of learning the New Testament:
"It gives them standing with other groups. Other groups tend to say they’re just dumb, ignorant people. But suddenly they come out with their hymn books. You have 50 Akha young people with their hymn books and the Thai are thrilled. They sing much better than the Thai people can. Don’t quote me on that, take it out when you edit. No the Thai have good singers too but you know, they begin to say: "Oh, these people are not dumb after all, they’re not dirty after all".
So the Akha are finally seen as ‘civilized’ and worthy of respect because they can sing hymns? Whilst changing mainland Thai’s perception of the Akha is hardly a likely scenario, "thrilling" the Thai authorities through urbane demonstrations of Westernisation
offers no solution to the problems the Akha face. Even without the price of soul trading inherent within Paul Lewis’ introduction of written text, literacy privatises religion.
When the development of written text is instigated by local Akha, such as Miyhe’s fairly empowered example’s at Jinghong radio station in China, explored in the final chapter reveals, the total interconnectedness between Akha belief, culture and communication is not forgotton. As so many Akha interviewee’s seem to testify, written text is, like a tool or technology, "useful", the question in this case is useful to whom: the Akha, the authorities or colonialist attempts by missionaries such as Paul Lewis to uphold their own moral order. Lewis’ intervention could also be described as post-colonial in that it represents a stage of Western manipulation perhaps even more insidious than classical imperialism in which the very nature of being taught to ‘speak’ English is a process of religious conversion.
What matters is what a language, like any mode of communication is used for. It is the Akha who have to experience the implications of literacy and surely therefore, the Akha who should form the most significant part of the production and distribution of their written text. It seems, however, that without Western or governmental intervention, the possibility of possessing the resources to instigate such a development is unlikely.
The insightful translation of Akha terms into written text and the learning of other languages are vital to recording and sustaining both Customary Law and Akha Genealogy. Customary Law at least needs to be understood before, if it is seen as oppressive and irrelevant, being abandoned. The distinction is between Customary Law being ‘lost’ and, just like the buffalo hide the Akha are said to have written on all those centuries ago, intelligently rejected. Ideally, as the ultimate test of any system of knowledge, ancient Akha wisdom should be able to play a part in its own modification.
Again, culture shouldn’t be separated from the health, economic and political empowerment and identity of almost two and a half million people. It is impossible to catagorise or disentangles the Akha culture from the individuals these issues affect: the relationship is reciprocal, for the survival of Customary Law is dependent on the Akha who keep it alive.