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Journal of the West China Borah Research Society, Vol The Miao are the most numerous of thr ha tribes of Northern Thailand. A remote an 1 colourful people, they have in recent times appeared unwillingly on the political stage: because of their migratory habits which do not respect political boundaries and their involvement with opium growing, they have been branded as 'insurgents' by the govern- ments of Thailand and Laos. On the basis of his field-work among the Miao and his official dealings with the Government of Thailand, Professor Geddes has written an authoritative and wide-ranging study which will be welcomed by anthropologists generally and by all students of South-East Asia in particular. MIGRANTS OF THE MOUNTAINS Migrants of the Mountains THE CULTURAL ECOLOGY OF THE BLUE MIA0 - (HMONG NJUA) OF THAILAND BY WILLIAM ROBERT GEDDES CLARENDON PRESS . OXFORD 1976 Oxford Uniocrsi& Press, Ely House, London W.z G-w NBWYORK mrtom ME~~OURNBWELLINGTON CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI DAR SALAAM LUSAXSA ADDIS AEABA DBW BOMBAY CAJXUlTA MADBAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE HONG KONG TOKYO All rights resemed. No part of this publication rng be reproduced, stored in a re&d system, or transmitted, in any fonn or& any means, electronic, mhanical, photocopying, .ruording or otherwise, without the prior pennissian of Oxfwd Universib Press PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED LONDON, BECCLES AND COLMESTER PREFACE MY interest in the Miao was aroused by meeting a number of them at the Chinese National Institute of Minorities in Peking which I visited in May 1956. It was enlivened by talking with Dr. Fei Hsiao Tung, the Vice-Director of the Institute, whom I had known previously in London, about the studies of Miao culture which he was supervising. At the time I was considering studying a mainland group practising shifting cultivation as a comparison with the study of the Dayaks I had made earlier in insular South-East Asia. The Miao promised to be a colourful, exciting, and ethnographically important group for this purpose. I hoped to obtain Chinese permission to visit them in their heartland either in Yunnan or Kweichow but when in later correspondence I sought Dr. Fei's help in this he replied that as he was studying them in China it would be more useful if I were to study them outside China, and then we could exchange notes-an intention unfortunately never fulfilled because of Dr. Fei's fall from official grace. Awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in 1957 I decided to devote part of it to a study of the Miao in Laos or Thailand and finally chose Thailand as the easier of the two countries in which to work. By November I was resident in Pasamliem, a village situated at a height of 5,000 feet on a ridge near Chiengdao mountain in Chiengmai Province. Apart from a courtesy call on the Provincial Governor, who gave me an introduction to a Thai tea planter who in turn gave me a guide to Pasamliem, I had no official connection during this period, and no official visited the village during my stay there: I lived in Pasamliem until May 1958, when I left for Europe, and again from October 1958 until January 1959. It took no time at all to discover that the Miao were a proud and independent people. After I had enjoyed brief notoriety as a not too attractive oddity, they treated me with indifference, assuming that I had come either to buy or to beg opium. I could purchase no food from them and had to transport it all on my own pack-horse. They would not help me to build a house even when offered quite a high price, so I had to employ opium addicts from a Thai village lower down the slopes. As the first months passed I gained a low status as a pro- vider of second-hand entertainment, through having a tape-recorder, as a photographer, and finally but most valuably as a medicine man. Gradually relationships warmed and when I returned for the second vi PREFACE period the Miao came down to the road with their horses to bring in all my supplies. In 1962 I returned to Pasamliem to find it abandoned but I spent a short time with a group of the old residents who had formed a new small village a few miles away, My field-work amongst the Miao might have ended there had not other unexpected events intervened. In 1961 the Department of Public Welfare of the Government of Thailand initiated a socio-economic survey of the Hill Tribes and sought the help of U.N.E.S.C.O., which provided the services of the Austrian anthropologist, Dr. Hans Manndorf, as an advisor. One of his recommendationswas the establish- ment of a Tribal Research Centre at Chiengmai to conduct research which would provide a sound basis for the extension to the tribal areas of educational and welfare services and measures for the improvement of their economies. He suggested that as a first step the Government seek through internat'onal aid programmes the services of a qualified anthropologist to ada se on the organization of the Centre and the planning of research. The Australian Government asked if I would be interested in the position for a year or so and offered to support it out of its allocation for civilian aid projects. The reason for the invitation was that in public addresses to the Siam Society in Bangkok in both 1958 and 1962 I had argued the need for a more sympathetic appreciation of the situations of the tribal peoples and for an adequate understanding of their socio-economies before the introduction of any measures for social and economic development. Several factors seemed to make such measures inevitable. Amongst the tribes themselves there was a growing desire for change which varied in intensity according to their circumstances. Some of the peoples, such as the Karen groups who were in closest contact with the lowlands, were said by those who knew them best to seek full integration into the Thai national system. The Miao retained a stronger addiction to self-determination but they were becoming increasingly aware of the superior status and services of the Thai in the lowlands in whose benefits they wished to share. Irrespective of the tribespeople's own views of the desirability of change there were two other factors making alteration of their modes of life apparently inevitable. One was the increasing pressure on land, the nature of which is hlly shown in this book. The other was the pressure upon the Thai Government to eliminate opium production, which to be effective would require basic changes in the Miao economy. It was the inevitability of the changes and not any wish to advocate PREFACE vii them that led me to accept the invitation. No anthropologist who has enjoyed the opportunities his profession offers him to experience cultural variety can welcome its diminution. No one who respected the Miao could wish to see change imposed upon them. No one who had come to know their stubborn independence could expect that outside direction, even if they had initially requested it, would not bring strain between them and the outside agents. But in a situation where measures affecting the people were going to be introduced in any case the difficulties and the loss could be reduced by knowledge of their social organization and sentiments. It was because I felt I knew the Miao and their opinions a little better than any other foreigner who was likely to be invited as advisor that I accepted the position. During my stay at the Centre, and I believe subsequently, members of the staff were encouraged to regard their role as one of representing the tribespeople to the Government rather than the Government to the people. They did not engage in the promotion of developmental measures, which was the province of other sections of the Hill Tribes Division of the Department of Public Welfare. The lack of a positive involvement in planning by the Centre later brought criticism from some Thai authorities but it did serve the purpose, in circles where its reports were read or its voice listened to, of attuning policy to the tribes' desires, and in the political troubles which came later to the tribal areas there were no instances of conflict between the people and members of the Centre. I took up the position in July 1964, and in 1965 the Tribal Research Centre was established on the campus of the new University of Chiengmai. My recommendation and hope, like those of Dr. Manndorf before me, were that after the initial organizational phase the Centre would become a part of the University. But whatever its location in the Thai administrative structure-to which universities in Thailand also belong-it was from the start a wholly Thailand institution. Foreigners might be employed on contract to fill temporary gaps in expertise but the permanent staff were entirely Thai nationals. That they did not include at the senior levels any hill tribesmen was a defect which could be explained by the lack of literacy in the hills, although the centralism of Government departments might also cause problems in their employment. In conjunction with Khun Wanat Bhruksasri, the Director of the Centre, a research scheme was developed whjch comprised basic socioeconomic studies, each to take two years, of the six main Bhanthumnavin Krachang, 'Overcoming the Problems of the Hill Tribes', SpectrumJ S.E.A.T.O., Bangkok, Vol. I, No. I, October 1972, pp. 24-5. wu... PREFACE tribe^.^ Because there were only two trained Thai anthropologists both of whom were required for teaching at Chulalongkorn University it would be necessary for foreign anthropologists to conduct the studies but each should be linked to a local national who should first act as field assistant and then be given opportunity for postgraduate study in anthropology.
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