The Influences of Christianity and Tourism on Akha Music
in Northern Thailand
VITAYATPRAPAIPHAN Nongyao
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Philosophy
in
Ethnomusicology
•The Chinese University of Hong Kong
June 2004
The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis.
Any person(s) intending to use a part or whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the
Dean of the Graduate School. 1 6 OCT Mji|
UNIVERSITY M NgoS^IBRARY SYSTEI^>^ Table of Contents
Abstract i
Acknowledgements 1
Preface 4
1. Introduction - Knowing the Akha
a. Background 10
b. Problems the Akha People are Facing 16
c. Government Policy Towards the Akha and Hill Tribes in
Northern Thailand 22
d. The Impact of Government Policy on the Akha People 27
e. Rituals and the Beliefs of the Akha 30
2. The Traditional Musical Life of the Akha 33
3. The Impact of Christianity on Akha Life and Musical Life 38
4. The Impact of Tourism on Akha Life and Musical Life 56
5. Prospects for the Traditional Musical Life of the Akha 65
6. Conclusion 73
Appendix I: Figures 82
Appendix II: Musical Examples 89
Bibliography 91 Abstract of thesis entitled:
The Akha in Northern Thailand are an ethnic group who migrated from Yunnan to Burma or Laos and finally to Thailand. They now live in the high mountains of Northern Thailand in the provinces of
Chiangmai and Chiangrai. Most of them live in poverty. The Thai
Government has some programmes to improve their living conditions.
The Christian missionaries also provide the Akha with education and medication. Christianity is making steady growth among the Akha.
Traditionally, the Akha practice animism. Christianity has brought about cultural changes for the Akha as it has changed the core of their ritual life.
The change is manifested in their culture and music.
This Thesis is going to discuss the influences of Christianity and tourism on the musical life of the Akha in Northern Thailand from five perspectives: (1) General background of the Akha in Northern Thailand including problems they are facing, the Thai government's policy towards the Akha and hill tribes in Northern Thailand, the impact of Government policy and the authentic rituals and beliefs of the Akha; (2) The traditional musical life of the Akha which is mainly associated with rites and rituals; (3)The impact of Christianity on Akha life and music (4) The
i impact of tourism on Akha life and music; (5) Prospects for the Akhas,
traditional musical life.
Submitted by VITAYATPRAPAIPHAN Nongyao for the degree of Master of Philosophy (in Ethnomusicology) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in June 2004.
ii 內容提要：
散佈於泰國北部亞卡族是由中國雲南省遷進緬甸及察國，然
後越過邊境，進入泰國，主要聚居於清邁及清萊的高山，並且過着窮
困的生活丨。泰國政府巳採取一系列的政策，以改善他們的生活質素。
傳教士也爲這些山區居民提供教育及醫療。基督教的工作於泰北山區
亞卡族發展迅速。傳統亞卡族信奉泛靈信仰，基督教改變亞卡族的信
仰核心，這改變展現於他們的文化及音樂上。
本論文將透過五個角度探討基督教及旅遊對泰國北部亞卡族
的音樂及文化的影響：（一）泰國北部的亞卡族的背景、他們所面對
的問題、泰國政府所採取的政策、這些政策對他們的影響及介紹亞卡
族的傳統信念；（二）亞卡族的傳統音樂；（三）基督教對亞卡族的生
活及傳統音樂的影響；（四）旅遊事業對亞卡族的生活及傳統音樂的
影響；；（五）亞卡族傳統音樂的去向。
iii Acknowledgements
I would like to offer my special thanks to people supporting me in this research topic. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor,
Professor J. Lawrence Witzleben, for his guidance, patience and support.
He has spent a great deal of effort in enlightening me, guiding me and coaching me. Under his supervision, I have overcome many obstacles in incorporating my findings made during fieldwork into my thesis.
I would also thank my informant Mr Prasert (Figure 1 )，the
Director of the Tribal Research Institute in Chiangmai. He gave me lots of inspiration on the identity and status of minorities in Thailand. He drove me to Wat Se Soda' in Chiangmai to have an interview with a monk and gave me an article which he had just completed on
"Government Policy for the Development of Highland People in
Thailand.,，2 I would like to express my thanks and acknowledgement for his generosity in giving me his paper which has not yet been published.
I would like to thank Mr Tavom (Figure 2), the Head of the
Library in the Tribal Research Institute. He introduced me to the
1 Wat means a temple in Thai. Without Mr Prasert accompaniment, I could not go into the temple as a visitor, especially because I am a woman. 2 Mr Prasert had presented this paper at a Highland Peoples Programme Regional Workshop in Phnom Penh, Cambodia during 8 to 10 April, 1997.
1 characteristics of different minorities in Northern Thailand. Through his inspiration, I have chosen the Akha as my target of research. He also warned me on the dangers of staying in the field and advised on what should be taken to the field. I am grateful for his advice on what should be bought for the hill tribe people.
I would also like to thank my friend, Sitipong (Figure 3)，whom I met only by coincidence. After reading a pamphlet I received about the
Hilltribe Museum and Education Center, I went there to see if someone could take me up to the hills or gave me some more information, and then
I met Sitipong, an officer in the PDA (Population and Community
Development Association) in Chiangrai. He was always helpful in driving me to the villages, and with his accompaniment I have gained a lot of respect and help from the villagers. He is a Lahu, and now a Christian.
I would also like to thank Mrs. Smolley (Figure 4)，my Akha teacher. She taught me the Akha language and demonstrated Akha myths so that I could have a better understanding of Akha culture.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting and encouraging me. This is not an easy task. Without their support, I do not think I would have had the courage to go to the field and
2 without their encouragement, I do not think I could have completed the task.
3 Preface
I was bom in Thailand. Thailand is a fantastic place. If you go to the Southern part of Thailand, it is easy for you to find a place to spend a relaxing beach holiday there. But if you go to Northern part of Thailand, trekking is a popular choice. While trekking, you will come across with lots of scattered hill tribe villages. Thailand is possibly the only country which allows travelers to visit hill tribe villages freely.
There are six main hill tribes which migrated from Yunnan, then to Burma or Laos and finally into Thailand. These hill tribes are the Akha,
Lahu, Lisu, Meo，Hmong and Karen. Each tribe has its own distinctive cultures and dialects. They are scattered throughout the mountains in the northern part of Thailand near Chiangrai and Chiangmai. These hill tribe villagers are all facing similar problems such as poverty, identity and the government policy on forestration, as well as the influence of western culture. The process can be obvious or not obvious, conscious or unconscious. Regardless of the process, the product - changes in their culture—is noticeable.
In this Thesis, I am going to discuss the influences of
Christianity and tourism on the musical life of the Akha in Northern
4 Thailand. I have no intention of criticizing the work of missionaries, and I
will just illustrate the title on an objective basis. The approaches I have
used are fieldwork, recordings and interviews. Since the summer of 2001,
I have visited four Akha villages in Chiangrai in Northern Thailand. I
have also visited the Tribal Research Institute in Chiangmai and have
conducted valuable interviews with experts in hill tribe research in
Northern Thailand. There are a few precious research findings about hill tribes in the library in this Research Institute. Unfortunately, all of them
are in Thai. I can still speak some Thai, as it is my mother tongue. But reading research materials in Thai is a big challenge for me. I have visited the boarding house run by the China Evangelical Mission and visited two
churches in two different Akha villages.
There are books written on Thai classical music by Deborah
Wong and and Terry E. Miller. But as far as I know, no research on the
Akhas' music has been done by ethnomusicologists. There are a few
books introducing the Akha, but research on the music of the hill tribes in
Thailand is scarce. This makes my research extremely difficult. In
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, where famous universities can be found,
not many courses are offered in ethnomusicology or on the of hill tribes'
5 music.
For some Thai people, hill tribes are considered to be people of
lower rank in their country, and they have little interest in investigating
their life or music. The Thai Government takes an active role in
promoting the life and music of hill tribes to tourists, but there is no such
plan for cultivating the hill tribes' authentic cultures and music. As there
are limited reading materials or courses offered on hill tribe music, my
research has to depend mainly on first hand information. That is, I have to
go to the field to collect information. Experts in the Tribal Research
Institute speak mainly Thai, and some can speak good English. However,
in the field, only the younger generation can speak some Thai, while most
speak mainly Akha. Therefore, I have spent two months in Chiangmai
learning Akha.
My teacher, Mrs Smolly, is an Akha who is married to a Lahu.
Two months of learning a language is insufficient. However, it helped a
lot when I visited an Akha village. As I can speak limited Akha, they thought that I was not a tourist, but rather someone who would like to live
with them. The distance between us is shortened. Chriost, in his book
Language, Identity and Conflict, has also pointed out that research has
6 shown that people with the same language are bound more closely together than people with the same culture (Chriost 2003).
The Akha were not interested in my intentions. They just welcomed me, and wanted to make friends with me. I told them that I came from Hong Kong. They had never heard of Hong Kong. They thought that I was a Japanese. During my stay, they treated me like an honorable guest. To them, it seemed that I knew everything, especially concerning medication. Of course that is not true. During my stay, they were willing to share everything with me, including their cottages, food, jokes and music. All of these helped me a lot in my research.
Why have I chosen this group of people? Among the hill tribes in Northern Thailand, the Akha are the poorest as they live on high mountains. Up until now, they still preserve their distinct cultural characteristics as they are less influenced by the outside world. However, as can be imagined, doing research on the music of hill tribes is not an easy task. The language barrier is one of the major hindrances, and the poor sanitation is not attractive to outsiders at all. Especially for Akha villages which are scattered mainly on high mountains with poor water supply, the sanitation problem is even worse, and dengue fever and
7 malaria have made this place less attractive for prolonged research.
Transportation is a serious problem as well. In August 2001, when I was ready to leave Chiangmai for an Akha village, it started to rain heavily. I had tried for three days to find some drivers who were willing to take me to the village. Unfortunately, no one would like to take the risk as it was too dangerous to drive up the mountainous slopes on rainy days. A week later, I read from a Thai newspaper that the road to the village where I had intended to go had a landslide. Unfortunately, some people were buried alive.
Another difficulty in conducting research on Akha music is that each Akha village has different dates for different rites and festivals. The actual dates for each rite and festival are determined by the dzoema, that is, the spiritual leader of the village. Of course, I hoped that I could have at least three months advance preparation for each period of field work, but in my experience, everytime, I only had three weeks for preparation. I had to travel from Hong Kong to Thailand, and sometimes it was not easy to get an air ticket and arrange for the transportation on short notice. Two villages may also have the same festivals on the same date. As a result, I can only choose one village. Obtaining their schedules was not easy. I had
8 to make many long distance calls to my informant in Chiangrai and sometimes the line could not be connected.
9 1. Introduction - Knowing the Akha
a. Background
Thai people call the Akha/AT^aw. They live in the high mountains,
and their language is classified as the southern division of the Lolo (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman family (Nidda Hongwiwat 2000).
The Akha entered Thailand from Burma after 1900，and the Akha population in Thailand is now about 25,000. Akha recorded history can be traced back to the twelfth century (Goodman 1996). By that time, they had already migrated to Yunnan. In 1855, Yunnan faced an eighteen-year maelstrom of Muslim uprising. During this period, the Akha population dropped sharply from 16 million to 6 million, and they began to search for an alternative homeland. Some fled to Burma, which at that time had a certain stability under British rule.
In 1949, the People's Liberation Army marched into Yunnan.
Many Nationalists (Guomindang 國民黨）retreated into Burma, which made the situation there more complicated. In addition, the Communist
Party of Burma also joined in the war and the situation for most tribal groups was intolerable. More and more Akha, Lahu, Lisu, and other groups continued to move southward into Thailand. In my fieldwork,
10 Akha people told me they just walked into Thailand in the hope of
searching for a new life and a peaceful land. Of course, some of them
could not survive this southward migration. According to the book of No
place in the Inn, (Anonymous 1979), for some minorities, land is their
mother, identity, life and something sacred. For the Akha, what is their
identity? Are they Chinese, Burmese or Thai? In fact, they are only a
minority, subordinate group in all three countries. They do not have a
piece of their own land, and keep on migrating. For the Akha in Northern
Thailand, they want to settle down.
Whenever the Akha have found a desirable site, they will
perform a test to see if the site is agreeable to the spirits. The dzoema^
will drop an egg into a hole. If it breaks, it means the selection is
approved by the spirits. Villagers will first construct the dzoema 's house,
and then the dzoema will perform a rite for purifying the principal water source. Gradually, a new Akha village will resume its traditional culture and way of life.
Before entering an Akha village, some symbols can be seen. The first is the Akha gate (Figure 5), which is built at the entrance of every
3 A village spiritual leader
11 Akha village. Men dig two holes for two poles, and the dzoema will drop
some grains of rice and water into the holes to symbolize fertility. Then, a
crossbeam is laid across the poles. Each village has different decorations
on the gate, with carvings such as birds, guns or helicopters (Figure 6).
Usually, in front of each post, there are carvings of male and female
human figures with oversized sex organs. Villagers told me that the sex
organs are part of the signal to the spiritual world that this is the place of
humans, and the spirits should not enter. According to the Akha, spirits do
not have sex organs. This gate thus has a symbolic meaning: it expels evil
from the village and helps divide people from the spirits. In case of
serious illness in the village, sacrifices will be made at the gate. After the
gate has been built, no one can touch or remove it until the next year.
During my visits to different Akha villages, I was reminded not to touch
the gate or even the trees near the entrance of the villages, as they are
“sacred.” I was once watching Akha girls swinging near the gate, and I leaned on a tree. Immediately, a Christian Akha reminded me not to touch any trees or the gate.
The second symbol is the "swing" (Figure 7). Each year, around late August or early September, a Swing Festival will be held in every
12 Akha village to celebrate the harvest. The men will be responsible for the
construction of a swing. During my fieldwork, the dzoema supervised all
of the construction work. Everyone who has left the village for work will
come back for this festival, and the whole village is filled with laughter. I
saw men constructing a swing, women cooking at home, and giggling
children watching the construction work, while the village headman sat
on his motorcycle watching all of these events. Two days later, a swing
stood in front of us. Traditionally, the dzoema must be the first one to ride
on the swing, and this symbolizes that it is safe. Then the men would ride
on it to show off their capability. Young ladies were very shy, but after
regular invitations, they would play as well. Then the villagers asked me
to try, but I was so scared that I was only brave enough to try a mini
swing for young kids.
In all Akha villages, the Swing Festival lasts for four days.
During my field work in Ban Lorcha, on the fourth day, villagers woke up at around three o'clock in the morning to pound sticky rice with a pestle.
After that, the headman of each house performed an offering rite to their ancestors on the altar inside the women's partitions. After the festival, the swing would be left there until the next festival, when a new swing would
13 be built. No one can touch the swing between Swing Festivals.
The third symbol is the house itself. A traditional Akha house is
raised on posts and made of hardwood for the main supporting beams.
Bamboo is used for the framework, walls and flooring, and grass for the
roofing. An Akha house can be divided into two parts, with a partition
between them. There are two entrances, one side for women, the other for
men and guests. I slept in the part for men and guests, which is attached
to an open balcony used as a dining room and for drying clothes and
chatting with guests. As Akha houses are built on high mountains, the
bamboo and grass for the walls and roof have to be densely knit together
to keep out the chilly wind in winter. Inside an Akha house, you can
hardly see any thing as it is dark even in the daytime. The owner of the
house taught me to close my eyes for a period of time before entering the
house. This worked, and I could see the setting of the house with a dining
table at the men's side. An altar for daily offerings is placed in the
women's side. The place for cooking is on the other side of the balcony,
and the toilet is a public one. Under the house are hens and pigs, and I could not sleep for the first few nights as I was not yet used to the strong smell of livestock, which did not sleep at night and made strange noises.
14 The toilet is next to a pig bam, and whenever you go to toilet, you can see hundreds of eyes staring at you. Outside the house is an ancestral altar where only the household head can make offerings.
15 b. Problems The Akha People are facing
The Akha and other hill tribes in Northern Thailand are facing two main problems: identity and poverty. These two main problems lead to other subsidiary economic, social and political problems. The first problem to be discussed here is the complex identity of the hill tribes.
The term “hill tribe” has been used in Thailand since 1959. At that time, the Central Hill Tribe Committee was set up by the
Government^ to deal with hill tribes' affairs. There are around twenty- three ethnic groups found in Thailand, but only nine of them were listed officially by this committee as hill tribes. These are the Lua, Htin, Khamu,
Meo, Yao, Akha, Lahu，Lisu and Karen.
During this period, there were still other terms used for the hill tribes. Anthropologists such as Peter Kunstadter prefer to call these groups upland people, highlanders or hill peasants rather than use the term hill tribe (Kunstadter 1978).
Nowadays, Thai people follow this official trend and address these groups of ethnic minorities as "hill tribes•” For example, this term has been used in books published in Thailand such as Hill Tribe
Vanat Bhruksasri, “Government Policy: Highland Ethnic Minorities" in McKinnon and Vienne (1989:6)
16 Development and Welfare Programmes in Northern Thailand by Aran
Suwanbubpa (1976)，Hill Tribes Today edited by John Mckinnon and
Bernard Vienne (1989), Hill Tribes of Thailand by Michael Freeman
(1992), Meet the Akhas by Jim Goodman (1996) and Chiangmai and the
Hill Tribes by Nidda Hongwiwat (2000). In contrast, Western scholars
still refer them as "upland and minority peoples” (Miller 1998).
What is the significance of the terms mentioned in the preceding paragraph? They reveal the intricate identity problems of the hill tribes.
This terminology implicates the Thai government in deliberately identifying them as non-Thai. They are only sub-groups in Thailand, and as a result, they enjoy fewer "citizen's privileges" than Thai people.
During my recent visits to Northern Thailand, I've found that even today, hill tribes cannot work in cities unless they have applied for a special permit, and they cannot even leave their villages and freely enter a lowland town without a permit.
Furthermore, the term "tribe" has some other implications.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner 's Dictionary (third edition), a tribe means a “racial group, especially one united by language and customs, living as a community under one or more chiefs." This
17 definition can precisely depict the characteristics of these groups of
people. However, this term also reinforces the distinction between Thai
people and hill people. Though the term itself does not suggest any
degrading implications, it deepens the gap between them. Through my
conversations with some Thai during my recent visits, I learned that they
view hill tribes as subordinates who are not considered to be Thai. Thai people even asked my why I chose hill tribes' music for my research rather than Thai classical music. In contrast, most hill tribes' people in
Northern Thailand want to settle down in Thailand and want Thailand to be their home. From this we can see the contrasting viewpoints towards identity between hill tribes and Thai.
The term "hill tribe" itself may also reveal the Thai government's intentions in preserving their specific culture, possibly for economic or political reasons. Regardless of the government's intention, the hill tribes are conscious of their own identity. Although some villages have more contact with the "outside world", they still maintain the distinctive attributes of their own tribe such as dialects, life cycles and rituals.
Most hill tribes in Northern Thailand live in poverty and rely mainly on the harvest from their paddy fields. Nowadays, through
18 government technological support, they are growing other crops and vegetables as well. Some tribes or villages in the lower mountains sell some of their products to the markets at a very low price to earn some money. People such as the Akha who live on the high steep mountains can hardly afford the cost of selling what they have grown in the market due to the inadequate transportation system.
As the Akha and other hill tribes rely mainly on agricultural cultivation, they are frequently blamed for being extremely destructive to
Thai forests. Thai people view the destruction of forests and water sheds in Northern Thailand as a result of the hill tribes' “shifting cultivation method" (Aran Suwanbubbpa, 1976).
Owing to poverty, many Akha and other hill tribes turn to opium growing, and this has been a vital source of income for many of them.
Opium growing has never been legal in Thailand and it was first introduced into Thailand by the Chinese. In 1957, the Thai Government imposed a law banning the production, transport, sale and consumption of opium. However, even today, opium growing is still common among the hill tribes, and corruption has resulted. During my last visit to the villages, the Akha were very careful about admitting that they are growing opium,
19 but it is "understood" that this practice exists.
Recently, another problem the Akha and other hill people are facing is the dreadful attack of HIV. Owing to poverty, some hill people are forced to become prostitute, and as a result, HIV has spread widely among them.
During my last visit (Dec. 2001), I went to several villages with
Sitipong, a PDA officer.^ The services the PDA provides for hill people are health check-ups for children and adults, informal education regarding
HIV and responsible parenthood, improvement of water facilities and the provision of scholarships and technical support for livelihood
“enterprises”. Within that single day, we visited more than five villages and assisted several families. The role of this PDA officer on that day was to visit some families who had received subsidization from the PDA in the past and to see if they had spent the money “appropriately”. The second task of that officer was to give money to some families on behalf of the PDA. I can hardly forget the experience of visiting a Lahu family in Chiangrai. We visited a widow who has three children. Her husband died of HIV, and she is infected as well. Her second and the youngest son
5 PDA is the short form of the Population and Community Development Association . It is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in Thailand.
20 have been infected since their birth, and she is only fifteen years old. The main goal of the PDA is not to give money to these needy people, but to give them some money so that they can earn more money.^
Though most hill people are suffering from poor health conditions and insecure socio-economic life, they are said to be contented and happy. People in an Akha village showed curiosity towards my dressing and the “high technology" I was using such as the camera, mini-discman and digital video recorder. However, they appeared to be pleased with their culture. They did not refuse to let me take any pictures of their life and activities during the New Year Celebration, and they even showed me every aspect of their lives such as their houses, the roof, the livestock, the “school” in the village, the playing ground and even the toilet^
6 For example, the PDA gave that lady 600 Baht. She was asked to purchase a baby pig at about 300 Baht and spend the rest of the money on purchasing rice and weeds for cultivation. After a year, the pig will be grown up and she can sell it to the market for three thousand Baht per pig. Then she can buy some more baby pigs and sell them later on. Finally, she can take care of herself and will have no need to rely on financial aid from others. 7 I was told that they were proud of the toilets as they now have doors, although people from the outside area can still see what is going on inside the toilet!
21 C. Government Policy towards the Akha and Hill Tribes in Northern
Thailand
Since the 1950s, the Thai government has noticed the increasing
number of hill tribes in Northern Thailand. The government also saw the
subsequent problems which correlate to these hill people. Hence, the Thai
government has imposed some policies regarding the hill tribes.
In the First National Economic Development Plan (1961-66)，hill
tribe welfare was specified as one of the objectives. In the Second
National Economic Development Plan (1967-71), hill tribe welfare and
development programmes were implemented. There were sixty mobile
teams set up to implement the plan. Moreover, in this plan, land for
agriculture has been allocated as well. In the Third Economic
Development Plan (1972-77)，a Northern Development plan was included.
Within this plan, there were five main development projects. They were agriculture, culture, industry, transportation and finally, minerals and highlands development projects. In the last area of concern, hill tribe welfare and development programmes were emphasized.
There are also three government agencies which were established to supervise the economic and social development of hill people. The first
22 of these is the Border Patrol Police which was established in 1953 and
started development programs for the hill people such as building schools
and giving medical assistance.
The second government agency is the Department of Public
Welfare of the Ministry of Interior which was established in 1959. This
agency's main duty concerns land settlement, and they launched a Land
Settlement Project which settles the hill people on the land suitable for
them. There was also a Farmland Settlement Project which was
implemented in 1960-63. This project limited the farmland of each
village and as a result, hill people find this project too confining.
The third government agency is the Tribal Research Centre which was established in 1964. This center collects and provides information for
understanding hill tribe people. The Centre was renamed in 1984 as the
Tribal Research Institute in the University of Chiangmai (Figure 8). It is one division within the Department of Public Welfare. This institute carries out research and has a library with valuable references regarding hill people.
The King's Project was initiated in 1969. There were four aims in this
Project: to help hill people, raise their standard of living, preserve
23 national wealth^ and promote the national economy. This project also
aimed at establishing hill people settlements. However, hill people find
this arrangement impractical and feel like prisoners. A further step was
taken to help introduce new farming and marketing methods to the hill
people.
In 1976，The Department of Public Welfare (DPW) introduced
the "Integration Policy" to help hill tribe people to become self-reliant.
The DPW adopted the "Zonal Development Approach" in which some
areas were chosen for development programs.
Owing to the world-wide destructive effect of opium growing, there was also international assistance for the hill tribes in Thailand against poverty so as to decrease the growing of opium in Northern
Thailand. A project called "Replacement of Opium by other Crops and the Development of Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand" was signed between the Thai and US governments. This project includes agricultural extension service training,9 promotion of agricultural experimentation and research, land use development, trade and finally credit and cooperative development. Although there seem to be many strategies to
8 For example, by preventing forest destruction 9 It means the replacement of opium cultivation with other crops and activities.
24 encourage hill people to abandon opium growing by helping them to adopt cultivation of other crops, many hill people are still attached to their old way of living. This phenomenon is understandable, since when hill people find that the profit made from opium cultivation is so attractive, they will adopt the old way of living for just one reason - to earn money.
Nowadays, the government welcomes programs for hill tribes launched by other organizations. One of the examples is the PDA which I have mentioned earlier. Another very significant phenomenon is the prominent contribution of missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant. In many villages of different tribes, it is not difficult to find churches.
Missionaries not only build churches, they also provide lots of services among hill people, such as teaching them English or Mandarin and building schools, boarding schools or even homes for the orphans. The
China Evangelical Mission has built boarding schools for hill children in
Fang, between Chiangmai and Chiangrai provinces. After more than ten years of providing this service, last year the Thai government gave them a piece of land (free of charge) to build a home for the orphans. From these actions, we can see government support for the welfare programmes
25 directed towards hill people.
The Thai government not only has measures for improving the living standard of the hill tribes, it also makes use of hill tribes as one of the major tourist attractions in Thailand. This issue will be discussed in details in the Chapter 4 -The Impact of Tourism on Akha Life and
Musical Life.
26 d. The Impact of Government Policy on the Akha people
What is the impact of these development programs?
According to Mr. Prasert, the director of the Tribal Research Institute, in his article on "Government Policy for the Development of Highland
People in Thailand," there are five types of impact of Government policy on the Akha people. Firstly, the policy provides a better standard of living for the Akha. With the establishment of water supply systems and health stations, a higher sanitary standard is acheived. There is also formal and informal education for hill tribe people, and growing cash crops increases their income as well.
Secondly, these development programs lead to economic changes.
The people rely less on subsistence agriculture than before. They have to go into a world of marketing to sell their products, but poor transportation still hinders the selling of their products.
Thirdly, there is a decline in traditional social control.
Traditionally, each tribal village has a leader. Now, as many cooperative agencies take part in development projects in villages, the role of the village leader become less dominant. During my fieldwork in Ban Lorcha,
I was invited to attend a meeting for the villagers. The person who «
27 chaired the meeting was a PDA officer, not the headman of the village.
Ban Lorcha is a village which has a joint project with the PDA.
The PDA will take tourists to this village regularly to let them have a general idea about hill tribe villages. In return, villagers can sell their handicrafts in the stall run by PDA at the main entrance of the village.
The aim of the PDA is to promote hill tribe culture and at the same time, to help improve the hill tribes' living standard.
I also visited another village, Ban Dua, which has no projects sponsored by external agencies. The annual grand meeting was chaired by the headman of the village. "Normally," only men could attend the meeting. From the situation in these two villages, we can see a change in the headman's control over villages matters. Constant contact with the
"outside" world also brings a challenge to their traditional beliefs. This issue will be discussed further in later chapters.
Fourthly, these development programs have a promising result in that there was a great drop in opium production from approximately 150 tons in 1966 to 24 tons in 1988. However, drugs are imported from outside and sold to the hill tribes, so more and more people from the hill tribes become drug addicts.
28 Lastly, according to Mr. Prasert, these development programs
create more social problems. As more and more hill tribe people leave their villages and work in the lowlands (Figure 9)，some become beggars
and others become prostitutes. As a result, the spread of AIDS in the
highlands now is one of the major problems of some hill tribes.
29 e. Rituals and the beliefs of the Akha
Like other hill tribe minorities in Thailand, the Akha practice animism. In Chapter 1，I have already mentioned that their beliefs in animism can be manifested in the decoration of their gates and in the process of choosing a suitable site for resettlement.
The structure of each Akha village is the same. Each village has a headman who is responsible for official communications. For most
Akha villages in Nothem Thailand, a headman is someone who is fluent in Thai, and as a result, he is usually a middle-aged man. Besides the headman, there is also a dzoema who is the spiritual leader of the village.
He is responsible for almost every event in the village, as the Akha believe that everything has spirits. He is responsible for all rites in the village as well. Another important figure is the nyipa, the shaman of the village who is a priest and may be either a man or a woman. Villagers come to the nyipa in case of illness, which they believe to be the result of condemnation by the spirits. The nyipa will conduct a ritual and find out the origin and cause of the disease. During this process, the nyipa will utter some language unfamiliar to the Akhas, which they say is the
language of the spirits.
30 Among the Akhas' spirits, the most important figure is
Apoemiyeh, who created the sky. The other three great Spirit Owners are
Bi-yeh, Je-leh and Ka-yeh who look after people, livestock and the rice-crop, respectively. In my first Akha language lesson, the first article my teacher taught me was the myth of Apoemiyeh. My teacher is an Akha
Christian, but in order to let me understand their culture more, she started with their myths. The article is written in the Akha language by Dr. Paul
Lewis, a Baptist missionary.
To the Akha, some spirits are friendly and helpful to them. These are Apoemiyeh, their own ancestral spirits and some other guardian spirits. Most of the sprits are fearsome ones, so the Akha have lots of measures for protecting themselves . These spirits can enter the human body and cause sickness or psychological disorders. Inside the house, cups, bowls and stools must be turned upside down when not in use so that wandering evil spirits will not get a wrong signal of being invited to sit down and dine in that house. Constant rites of sacrificing animals have to be done for divination. The rites include wedding rites, New Year rites and spirit-calling events for curing sickness.
In addition, every day, the Akhas will honor their ancestral spirits
31 at the altar in the women's partition. They believe that the best way to protect themselves against the evil spirits is not to provoke them. As a result, there are lots of rules in daily lives. They cannot discuss death; the gate is untouchable, and pregnant women cannot walk through it; no smoking is allowed at the gate; inside the house, women cannot step over men's legs. There are still many other behavioral prohibitions that villagers have to follow.
32 2. The Traditional Musical Life of the Akha
To begin this section, I would like to define the term "traditional".
A traditional practice implies that it has gone through a certain period of time and has become commonly accepted among that group of people.
For traditional musical life, it makes one group of people different from
other groups (Strokes 1994). However, tradition is not something
stagnant or motionless. For the Akha in Northern Thailand, the elderly
told me that they left Yunnan, then traveled to Burma and finally to
Northern Thailand. During this process, owing to the changing living
environment and political situations, they had gone through many
adaptations in life. This process, to a certain extent, has had an influence
on their traditional life style as well as on their musical life, but the
skeleton and soul of their tradition remain.
We may find that the traditional musical life of the Akha in
Northern Thailand is different from that of the Akha in Yunnan or Burma.
However, this thesis is not going to make any comparisons between them,
but is going to focus on the impact of Christianity and tourism on the
traditional musical life of the Akha in Northern Thailand.
According to my field experience, the focal point of the
33 traditional musical life of the Akha is the function of music, which is non-separable from the spiritual world. Music can be divided into two main types, one associated with rites and rituals, the other with daily life.
For rites and rituals, music is widely used during the New Years'^ as a sort of celebration.
In the crop cultivation cycle, starting from choosing a new area for planting dry rice (from January to February), clearing a block of land
(March), burning the cut trees and undergrowth, spreading the ashes as fertilizer (April), sowing rice (May and June), and weeding the paddy
(July and August), to harvesting the crops (November) and threshing
(December), rites have to be performed prior to each step to ensure a golden harvest and blessings from spirits.
The bamboo drumming dance is a distinctive dance found in each Akha village (Figure 10). It is a group dance, in which men play
percussion instruments such as a gong and ching ‘ and women are the
dancers. Each of them holds a cane, and they dance in a circle around a
rice paddle placed on the ground. This dance is not only part of the rites
for the New Years, it is also for the purpose of enjoyment. Everyone
1° The Akha, have nine New Year Festivals in a year. ‘‘Ching is the Thai name of cymbals.
34 would laugh and clap their hands to cheer up the drummers. Dancing is also a means of drawing villagers close to each other. When I took photographs of villagers dancing, the villagers in Ban Lorcha would perform the dance seriously. But when I joined in the dancing, they smiled at me warmly as if I had joined not only into a dance, but also into their community. Besides bamboo drumming, for other group dancing, simple instrumental accompaniment is used, mostly percussive instruments.
Among the Akha, there are no professional musicians as there are in some minority groups in other countries. Everyone can be a dancer, and everyone can hold and play a musical instrument. Learning musical instruments is by imitation, and as it is an oral tradition, learning a song is mainly by rote.
An Akha song consists mainly of a pentatonic scale.
They sing mainly in unison. In Music Example 1，the song is about love:
"You are the only man I love. I think of you everyday. I love you forever." Gliding of tones is a common singing practice (which is shown by a curved line ^ in Music Example 1)，especially at the end of a phrase. A pause or rest is usually found at the end of each phrase as well.
35 The girls who shared the house with me sang this song. The song was taught to them by their mother.
Their songs reflect their life: there are love songs and field work songs as well as courtship songs. In the Tribal Museum in Chiangmai, the text of a song in English can be found. The title of the song is “I Have
Reached Puberty":
When we were children, we put on a cloth hat made by our mother,
When we became teenagers, we put on a hat decorated with seeds.
This hat is decorated with gibbon hair and dyed chicken feathers.
When we become adolescents, we put on a belt, a skirt and a jacket.
When we are a little older we take off seed decorated hat.
And we put on a high crown hat.
Then we are ready to get married.
At the museum, there is no transcription of the song and only the text can be found. However, through this text, we can understand more about their life. An Akha woman's hat is colorful with lots of ornaments on it. The headdress is made of silver spheres with a silver plate at the back and it will tell you about the wealth and age of a woman. Foreigners often find the Akha's helmet-like headdress to be very attractive. I have
36 the experience of wearing that headdress in my fieldwork, and it is very heavy. It is worn only during festivals. The headdress itself symbolizes a stage from puberty to adolescence, which is celebrated by ceremonies with songs.
The Akha leam songs from their parents. They also leam songs from people who come to their village. Music Example 2 is a song taught to the Akha girls by a Taiwanese who came to their village and taught them Chinese several years ago. They cried after singing it for me as they missed the teacher so much. While singing the song, they add some gliding tones as well which is their common singing practice.
37 3. The impact of Christianity on Akha life and musical life
If you ever have the experience of driving along the mountains in
Northern Thailand, you will catch sight of scattered villages on the mountain slopes. At night, you cannot see most of these villages as they do not have an electricity supply and seem to disappear from sight.
However, you may unexpectedly find a lighted one-storey building with a cross on top. This is the symbol of the penetration of Christianity into that village.
In Northern Thailand, ethnic minorities have the freedom to come into contact with different religions. Since the 1970s, some villagers have sent their children to leam Thai in temples. With the help of Mr. Prasert, I conducted an interview with an Akha monk. His sister is a Muslim, his cousins are Christians, and his parents are ancestor
12 worshipers. He left his village to be an alarm boy in the temple at Wat
Se Soda in Chiangmai. When I asked him about his viewpoint on his village, he said that it had a lot of old culture. Younger generations in his village are looking for something more scientific, but they still will not abandon their traditions. During our conversation, more and more monks
'2 An alarm boy is a boy who serve the monks
38 joined in. All the young monks were eager to discuss issues about life, social science and natural science. We used Thai throughout the interview.
Most of the monks there are from different hill tribes in Northern
Thailand. During my field work, there were more than one hundred monks in the Wat - temple.
In addition to Buddhism, Christianity is making steady growth in
Thailand. A survey conducted in 1997 (Goodman 1996) showed that about one-third of the Akha have become Christians. Christianity, just as with other religions such as Islam and Buddhism, brings no disharmony among the Akha villagers.
According to Goodman in his book Meet the Akha (1996), some
Akha villagers told him that missionaries persuaded them to give up their out-dated religion, and that Christianity is up-to-date. During my visit to two Christian Akha villages, I did not hear such statements. However, in books for missionaries such as Anthropological Insights for Missionaries
(Hiebert 1988), The Christian Attitude to Other Religions (Dewick 1953) and Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World (Hansen
2002)，the writers remind missionaries of the common misconceptions made by other missionaries. These are the imperialism, ethnocentrism
39 and modernism of western countries versus the primitiveness, backwardness, absence of religion and illiteracy of the ethnic minorities in developing countries.
The core of Christianity is different from the beliefs of the Akha， and the culture of the missionaries is different from that of the hilltribes.
According to Hiebert (1988), there are three basic dimensions of culture.
The first is the Cognitive dimension, which refers to ideas and knowledge.
The second is the Affective dimension which involves feelings and aesthetics. The third dimension is the Evaluative dimension, which is comprised of values and allegiances. If the Akha give up their traditional beliefs and accept Christianity, they then give up the ideas, feelings and values of their own culture, and there will be cultural change.
Cultural change always takes place as a result of the regular contact of human beings with the outside world. The central question is whether it is a minor change or major change. In my fieldwork, I could see that Christianity has brought major cultural change to the Akha as it changes the core of their life. The impact of Christianity on Akha culture can be observed through their daily activities as well as through ritual life.
The first and most notable impact of Christianity on Akha life is the
40 “invention” of written Akha literature. Just as with most other highland
minorities and tribes in other countries, the Akha have a long oral
tradition. That is, until Dr. Paul Lewis, a Baptist Missionary now living in
Burma, devised a spelling system and dictionary for Akha. He translated
the New Testament of the Bible (Figure 11) and some traditional hymns
into Akha, and lived for more than twenty years with the Akha. Some
Akha who can read have hymn books at home, but for the New Testament,
only one or two copies are kept by the priest.
The second impact of Christianity on the Akha is the change of
the core of their ritual life. Ritual life is an outward performance of a
person's beliefs and a desire to get some benefits through the act. Let us
take Akha rites as an example. Traditionally, everyday, each household
would have a simple rite for their ancestors at the ancestral table in each
house in the women's partition. This is an act to show their respect
towards ancestors, but they also hope that their ancestors will protect
them against evil spirits and bring them good fortune. They believe that a
rite has a two-way purpose.
How does Christianity change the core of Akha ritual life?
Before answering this question, let us first have a thorough understanding
41 of basic Christianity. According to the Bible, God is spirit. He is self
existence. He is eternity, truth, holy and love. He is omnipotent as well
as omnipresence. The human race is a creation of God. They have the
likeliness of God, but unfortunately, they have sin. In the New Testament,
Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior. How to be saved? The human race
can be saved through faith and by God's Grace, not through rites or good
acts.
Regarding the life of worship, the first commandment in the Old
Testament is “You should not have any gods before me." A believer should “not commit idolatry." Only God should be worship. Besides God, no other person nor object should be greatly loved or respected.
The task of a missionary can be seen from the Bible, Matthew 28:
18-20)丨 3:
‘‘All authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth.
Therefore, as you go make disciples of all peoples by baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to observe everything which I have told you. And behold, I always will be with you to the end of your days and to the end of history."
13 A translated version by Hans Kasdorf.
42 From John 20:21:
"As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”
From these scriptures, two tasks can be identified. The first is
that missionaries have to go into other group of people and make them
become Christians. But missionaries' work should not stop here, as the
second task is that missionaries should teach them how to be a Christian.
This means that after becoming a Christian, one must have a "change."
This change is from the inner world to the outer world, and it should be
observable. This explains the work of missionaries among the Akha and
other hill tribes. The missionaries not only hope that the Akha will
become Christians, but that they should also lead a Christian way of life.
The concepts in the Akha's inner world should be changed. As
mentioned earlier, this change affects the core of their ritual life.
According to Christianity, the Akha should worship one God only. This
monotheism is in contrast to their traditional animism. Traditionally, they worship almost everything in their daily life, as they believe that all natural things have spirits which can influence their lives. They have to establish a new concept of God and spirit. Christianity also teaches that there are spirits in this world, but Christians should not worship them.
43 They should worship God only. If the Akha do not worship at their
ancestors' altar, it becomes only an object. But through the act of
worshipping, the ancestors become idols'^ which are forbidden in
Christianity.
In Korea, as mentioned by Lee (1988)，Koreans have the same
culture as the Chinese, bowing down to show respect for people as well
as ancestors, but this act is immediately considered as committing
idolatry in the eyes of Western missionaries in Korea. Koreans as well as
Chinese also have a tradition of making offerings to ancestors. They treat
the dead as living, and they hope that through offerings, they will be
protected from disasters and showered with blessings. If they neglect this
act, it may cause troubles to their living family.
Following a change in their cognitive domain, Akha Christians
begin to abandon their cultures and tradition. Rites associated with the
worshiping of spirits and ancestors are abandoned. These include daily
ancestral worshiping rites, calendrical rituals and life-cycle rituals.
Objects associated with these rites and rituals have to be removed as well.
These include the ancestral altar in each house, the swing for the Swing
14 Lee (1988) has also discussed this issue in his book Ancestor Worship and Christianity in Korea.
44 Festival, and the Akha gate. For the altars, every believer has to remove it from their house. If the whole village becomes a Christian Akha village, the swing and gate have to be permanently removed. The villagers may throw the objects into the forest or sell them. There are rituals for removing these objects, usually done with a group of missionaries and
Christians singing and praying around the object. The missionaries told me that these sorts of rituals have to be performed with great care so that the spirits will not disturb the villagers anymore. Missionaries have to pray hard for several days before performing these rituals.
The third impact of Christianity on the Akha is in the way they treat sick people. Traditionally, sick people will be sent to the nyipa, who will hold a rite for calling the spirit to come out of that person. An animal will be killed as an offering. This method of healing sick people has its long tradition and history. The Akha cannot tell me the success rate, but they said that "it works, which means that this method has proven successful in their past.
Up until now, as they live high up in the mountains, it is impossible for them to send a sick villager to a doctor, and in fact they do not even have the concept of a doctor. However, they think that someone
45 from another country must be good at medication, and that this person
must know something more than them. During my fieldwork, there was a mother who carried her two year-old boy to me. She told me that there
seemed to be something wrong with her son. I touched his forehead, and it seemed that his body temperature was higher than normal. I then asked her to let her son drink as much water as possible. Two days later, she came to me and said her son had recovered. I was not sure whether I had done the right thing, but at least she expected that someone from the lowlands or another country would be more knowledgeable than the villagers.
When I was in another Akha village, a Christian one, after lunch the missionary prayed for the sick people in an Akha house. She touched the villagers' place of sickness and we all formed into a circle and prayed for them one by one. As I am a Christian also, they even asked me to pray for them as well, and I then followed what the missionary did. One important issue I must mention is that in a Christian Akha village, the dzoema does not exist, but the nyipa--i\v2ii is, the one who treats sick people~does still exist. The method of healing differs, but the Akha still insist on having a nyipa.
46 The fourth impact of Christianity on Akha life is that it brings
about a new form of ritual life. Akha Christians are taught to pray every
day. If the village is not yet a Christian village, there will be a bible study
group for villagers nearby. The church near Ban Lorcha has a Bible study
class every Wednesday night and the youngsters were looking forward to
attending this class. For a Christian village, there will be a Sunday service
in the small church built in the village (Figure 12). The program of the
Sunday service is more or less the same as in a Sunday service in most
churches in Hong Kong as well as in other countries: they sing hymns, pray and have sermons. The languages used are bilingual, Akha and Thai.
Women wear their beautiful traditional costumes to attend the Sunday
service. In the past, they used to wear this costume only during annual
festivals. Children and chicken walk in and out of the church during the
Sunday service. The sermon is usually presented by missionaries.
The fifth impact that Christianity has had on Akha life is that it brings a new kind of social structure to the village. As mentioned before, traditionally each Akha village has a headman, a dzoema and a nyipa.
They are the leaders in Akha villages, each taking different roles. Each of them is highly respected by villagers. During my fieldwork, whenever I
47 entered a traditional village, my informant Mr. Sitipong, would introduce the headman and dzoema to me. But whenever I visited a Christian Akha village, the missionary would introduce me to the deacons instead of to the traditional leaders. Through my observation, the deacons are as highly respected as traditional leaders. Traditional leaders are chosen owing to their ability in speaking Thai and their special ability in dealing with spirits. Now, deacons are chosen by the missionaries according to their faith in Christ and leadership abilities. The whole organizational structure of the Akha village is shifting. When problems arise, sometimes it is difficult to define whether it is a problem for the village or only among
Christians. To whom should they go to? Should they go to the headman or to the deacons? These sort of practical problems always arise.
The sixth impact that Christianity has had on Akha life is that it provides opportunities for Akhas to have education. In the book The
Church in the Third World (Bimie 1971), missionaries have a task of conducting mission in the third world of "increasing political and educational involvement with the aim of increasing cooperation between men for the welfare of al.l” In Northern Thailand, the Thai government has quotas for missionaries who must apply for a license before working
48 there. But once they have the license to be a missionary, their work does not face many obstacles from the government. On the contrary, the government welcomes their work, as the existence of missionaries eases the government's financial burden for the education and welfare of the hill tribe minorities.
We can take the Northern Thailand China Evangelistic Mission
(NTCEM) as an example. Its work in Northern Thailand started in 1975 in Mae Sai. The target group was Guomingdong (國民黨)refugees who fled from China to Burma and then from Burma to Thailand. The focus then shifted to setting up a boarding home for children in Fang (Figure
13). Children living there will be sent to nearby Thai schools for learning
Thai as well. Most boarding students are from hill tribe minorities in
Northern Thailand. The boarding home is free of charge. The NTCEM recently has just set up an orphanage. Now the government has just given them a piece of land and invited them to run a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, since many hill tribe people are drug addicts. During the past twenty nine years in Northern Thailand, the Thai government has welcomed the services that the NTCEM has provided for the hill tribe minorities. The missionaries also teach the children of hill tribe minorities
49 Chinese. During my visit, it is obvious that youngsters who go to church have a better comprehension of Chinese and Thai than do other children.
The old villagers can speak some Putonghua as they were from Yunnan.
From this phenomenon, we can see that the existence of missionaries provides more educational chances for hill tribe people.
The seventh impact that Christianity has had on Akha life is that it brings about a better quality of life. Winter on the high mountains in
Northern Thailand is cold and even though the people build fires to keep themselves warm, it is still cold. Missionaries, together with some other volunteer agencies, distribute some winter clothes to children in the villages. Children do not have sandals to wear and they are usually bare-footed. Most Akha now still live in poverty and some children suffer from malnutrition. It is easy to recognize these children as they are skinny with big stomachs. Missionaries will also distribute some nutritious food to them.
Last but not least is the impact of Christianity on Akha musical life. This will be thoroughly discussed in the following chapters.
The impact of Christianity on the traditional musical life of the
Akha can be summed up as an “AA impact": Abandonment and Adoption.
50 As a result of accepting Christianity, they abandoned some of their
traditional music which was associated with traditional rites. They then
adopted a new kind of religious music - hymns. In addition, they also
abandoned some of their traditional musical life and transformed it into
something new.
The first transformation is in the context of ritual music. In the
past, their ritual music could only be sung and heard during rituals such
as a funeral, a rite for harvesting or a curing rite. In daily life, songs about
courtship and daily events were sung, but they rarely sang songs for the gods. But nowadays, hymns in an Akha village can be heard not only during Sunday worship but anytime and anywhere. During my field work, in the evening, after meal time, the Akha youngsters loved to gather together. Kids would play on their own, youngsters would tease each other and laughter was heard everywhere. Occasionally, they would sing songs. The songs were mainly hymns instead of “their own" songs. They sang hymns in their own Akha dialect. Missionaries have done a great job of translating Western hymns into the Akha dialect.
The second transformation is in the musical instruments used in the Akhas’ musical life. In a Sunday service, some Akha villages adopt a
51 new kind of musical instrument, the guitar, as an accompaniment (Figure
14). It is usually played by missionaries or by some youngsters who live in a boarding house run by missionaries. These youngsters will return to their own villages during the weekend and take part in the Sunday service as guitar accompanists. In the boarding house, they learn how to play the guitar, and if you walk into the boarding house, you can hear the sound of the guitar almost everywhere. Youngsters enjoy playing it very much, and they view it as an honor if they can play it in a Sunday service. They rarely use traditional percussion instruments such as the gong and ching in Sunday service (Figure 15).
The third transformation is the influence on the Akhas' oral tradition. Traditionally, as mentioned before, like the other hill tribes the
Akha have a long oral tradition. It was not until Paul Lewis, a missionary who now lives in Burma, translated the New Testament of the Bible into the Akha dialect that they began to have a written tradition as well. Now, there is a hymn book written in the Akha dialect (Figures 16 and 17). For the elderly, they sing hymns from memory, but for the youngsters, they now use hymn books while singing since some of them can read. A new life style has been brought by Christianity and adopted by the Akha
52 The fourth transformation is in the people who sing ritual music.
Traditionally, songs in Akha village rites are sung only by the nyipa who
is an Akha shaman. But nowadays, everyone sings hymns in the Sunday
service. Every villager can sing hymns, and an outsider such as myself
can take part in their hymn singing as well.
The fifth transformation is in the performance practice of singing
ritual songs. When the nyipa sings in a traditional rite, she may not and does not have to sing the song loudly. She does not sing it to the crowd, but just to god. However, in a Sunday service today, the song leaders, who are usually missionaries or trained leaders from the villages, always encourage the congregation to sing hymns loudly.
The sixth transformation is in the musical texture of Akha songs.
Most Akha songs are monophonic. Even when they are sung by groups of people, singing in unison is the common performance practice. During my fieldwork, when young girls sang Akha songs, they sang in unison with lots of gliding tones. However, in Sunday worship in Akha villages, missionaries inspire them with the sound of western harmony. They also acquire harmony through the sound of the guitar. Missionaries told me that in some Akha Christian villages with a long Christian history, hymns
53 are sung in parts. They view singing in parts as a higher level of singing.
The sixth transformation is in the text of Akha ritual songs. As
the Akha practiced animism before being converted into Christians, the
texts of their ritual songs can refer to neh which are invisible beings or
spirits according to Akha belief. The texts may also refer to Yani, Akha
ancestors, or to their gods such as Apoemiyeh, a god who created the sky,
Bi-yeh, a god who looks after people, Je-yeh，a god who looks after
livestock and Ka-yeh, a god who is responsible for the rice crop.
However, after being converted into Christians, they no longer sing traditional ritual songs, but sing hymns instead. The texts in hymns refer to one God only: this is Western monotheism.
The seventh transformation is in the musical elements themselves, specifically the melodies. Like the songs of other hilltribes,
Akha songs mainly use a pentatonic scale, but hymns are composed mainly based on the Western major-minor system. All hymns sung in
Akha churches nowadays are Western hymns translated into the Akha dialect. So, for Akha Christians, they are having more and more exposure to the Western major-minor system.
In Music Examples 3 and 4，are excerpts from the hymns sung in
54 Akha's Christian Sunday service during my field work. The tune of the first song (Music Example 3) is taken from a well-known English song
"Clementine" composed by P. Montrose. The second tune (Music
Example 4) is taken from the hymn "God is so good". Missionaries have changed the texts to Akha dialect. They sang with a guitar (figure 14).
There are no gliding tones while singing hymns. This is different from their usual singing practice with lots of gliding tones when singing Akha folk songs.
55 4. The impact of tourism on Akha life and Musical Life
The tourism industry has been one of the main focuses of the
Thai Government since the Second World War. There are various tourist
attractions in Thailand, including natural attractions, historical attractions,
ethnic attractions, cultural attractions and vacationing attractions. Ethnic
tourism is mainly located in Northern Thailand.
In any pamphlets for tourists visiting Northern Thailand, hill
tribes are introduced as one of the main attractions. For most local tours,
hill trekking and visiting the villages of hill people have become two major interests. Tourists also love to buy the handicrafts made by the hill people as souvenirs. Two distinct tourist systems can be distinguished: the
“tribal village tour” and “jungle tour". The tribal village tour is mainly a one-day tour visiting different easily accessible tourist-oriented tribal villages. The jungle tour is a three or four-day trekking tour. Western youngsters love this sort of traveling where they can reach some more remote tribal villages.
In introducing the Akha to tourists, the government has selected some villages as "educational centres” for tourists. For example, about a two-hour drive from Chiangmai, there is a Meo tribal research centre
56 which I visited in July, 2001. At the entrance of the village, there were
many stalls selling Meo handicrafts. After entering the village "gate,"^^
there was a man who took me to several houses. Inside each house, there
was a main theme such as the interior design of a Meo house, their
cooking methods, weaving methods, clothing, or the weapons they used
for hunting. On the walls inside these houses, there were scripts written in
Thai and English introducing what the guide was trying to explain to me.
At the end, we stopped in front of a table. A plastic box was placed there asking for donations for the development project for hill tribes in
Northern Thailand. Besides these 'educational houses', there were some other houses on the hill where Meo lived but we were not allowed to enter these villages.
In addition to these tribal education centres, in both Chiangmai and Chiangrai there are night bazaars with stalls selling handicrafts made by the hill people. There are also "modified cultural shows" for tourists in both places. In Chiangmai, you have to pay to see the show but in
Chiangrai, it is just in the middle of the night bazaar. I could hardly tell from the performers' clothing and dancing pattern which tribe they
15 This gate has English text written on it: Meo tribal research centre.
57 belonged to. For example, they would wear hill people clothes and dance to a Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun 鄧麗君）song. As some hill tribes villagers go to work in Taiwan, Teresa Teng's songs are familiar to them. Moreover, there are quite a number of Chinese living in Northern Thailand and songs sung by Teresa are very popular among them.
It seems that the government is pleased to show this multicultural coexistence as it can generate international recognition. Outside of
Thailand, this phenomenon is common in some other places as well.
During my short trip to Sabah, Malaysia in April 2002, on Friday night, there was a "traditional cultural show” in the hotel lobby as well. These cultural shows act as a "medium for tourists, a lively forum and a site for struggle" (Sarkissian 1998). Through the cultural show, tourists have a general idea about the music and musical instruments of that country, but it is also a "site for struggle" as traditional music struggles to retain its authenticity without too much modernization.
Tourism has brought alteration and adaptation to the hill people and their music. As mentioned before, there are hill tribes "cultural shows" in different places for tourists. These cultural shows are not an
"authentic" representation of “tradition” as adaptation has always existed
58 (Sarkissian 1998: 158-189). Traditionally, as I have mentioned above,
music is non-separable from ritual for hill people. But in a cultural show,
the context of music performance has been changed and repertoire favors
playing diversity. The intention of making music has changed as well. It
is no longer a natural expression of emotions. On the contrary, some
people take part in the cultural show for money, so they adapt the content
of "performances" to ‘please’ the taste of tourists.
Margaret Sarkisssian's field work on cultural shows in Malacca
in Malaysia (1998) shows that the repertoire of the show is changed
accordingly to the fit the target group of performances. Frederick Lau's
research on tourist performances in contemporary China (1998) found
that the performers even performed some recent compositions but
presented them as something traditional.
I visited two Akha villages in December, 2001. The first village
is remote from the outside world and not accessible to tourists. When I
was there, they were celebrating their New Year Festival. Everything
came naturally. Men gathered at the main house for an "annual grand meeting". Hours passed by, but they did not bother to take care of me or
59 arrange some performances deliberately�6 for me. Near the main entrance,
children were happily playing a special game which they are only
allowed to play during the New Year Festival. Women were watching
children playing while embroidering. I waited patiently. Finally, almost at
dark, the women gathered at the gate and started dancing. They danced
and danced and no one suggested when to stop. After about forty minutes,
they suddenly stopped dancing and turned to another game played only
by women in the New Year Festival. They enjoyed it. When I left the
circle, no one noticed.
1
I visited the other village - Ban Lorcha - two days later. This
village is under the Community-Based Tourism Development Project. It
is called a Living Museum. In this village, "visitors will be treated to a
full tour of the community with villagers demonstrating activities
normally done in their village."'^ An entrance fee of forty Baht is
charged per person. After entering the village, an Akha girl approached
me and became my tourist guide. I had to sit in the "briefing hall" for
some instructions such as not to touch the Akha's gate or the trees. After
16 Of course they knew the intention of my visit - to observe Akha musical life in their village. 17 From 2001 onwards, I regularly visited this village and witnessed the influence of Christianity as well as of tourism on this village. 18 This phrase is taken from a brochure printed by the PDA introducing this village.
60 that, I was led to an open area for a welcome dance. The dance was quite similar to that in the first village but the difference was that I was the object of the performance and their performance was affected by my response. They performed "wholeheartedly" when I was taking photographs but when I stopped taking photographs to enjoy their performance, they stopped performing as they apparently thought that I had seen enough. The performance was thus rather "interactive."
In the summer of 2003, during my fieldwork in this village, coaches brought tourists, mainly from Europe, Australia, the United
States and Japan. Most of them come in a group of more than 20 people, but some are in smaller groups. As I can speak English, every time when there were tourists the Akha would ask me to accompany them for a trek around their village and to act as a translator. Each "round" took more than forty-five minutes (Figure 18). Gradually, I became one of their tourist guides, which I had not intended to do. Now my role became an
"insider," instead of an observer. The feeling was complicated and it seemed that I was cheating the tourists, as they thought that I was really an Akha and took many photos of me. Moreover, being occupied by this post hindered me from doing interviews with other villagers.
61 The first thing villagers do as a welcoming act for tourists is the
"welcoming bamboo dance." I was invited to dance as well. The duration of the dancing depends on the tourists' response. If tourists are enthusiastic towards the performance, the Akha will perform longer or even invite some tourists to join in as well. While dancing with them, I could feel a very strong feeling that dancing was part of their job, not part of their life. They did not show any enjoyment and had become a routine.
When we were away from the main gate, high up the mountain, whenever we heard the sound of a gong, we would come running down the hill and hurry to the dancing ground to welcome the tourists. When there were no tourists at all, I asked the Akha to dance and make music together, but they were very reluctant since for days after days, they have associated dancing with tourists.
Hill people earn money from tourism (Figure 19). After each tour left, they would mark down the sold items and amount of money collected in a log-book. At the end of their working day, they would add up how much money should be given to the villagers whose handicrafts had been bought by visitors. The tips collected would be for the welfare of the village. No one could get the tips and keep them for themselves
62 and all the tips had to be put in a box.
Tourism has changed the lifestyle of women in Akha villages. All the guides are women. They are responsible not only for housework, but also spend their time in making handicrafts to earn some more money for the family. Teenage girls work as accountants and money keepers in the stall. After a whole day of work, they are tired in the evening. This explains why women are getting less and less eager to sing and dance as before in the evening. They reminded me to sleep early as we woke up early each morning at five o'clock.
Tourism stimulates Akha youngsters to leam English and
Putonghua. They want to provide tourists with a better quality of service, hence, simple phrases of English and Chinese are vital to them. During my stay, they asked me for a lot of vocabulary in English and Chinese and even asked me to stay behind to teach them English. They enjoyed singing the Chinese songs of Teresa Teng (部麗君）more than their own songs. They tried their best to tune the only radio in the village to a channel broadcasting English pop songs. They were not that interested in the fact that I was trying to understand their culture and traditional music, but were concerned more with how to earn money for a better
63 living. The youngsters always dream of leaving the village and seeking a job in the city. They view their unique culture as part of their life, but they are not aware that their culture keeps on changing.
Tourism brings Akhas a better living standard. However, it also changes their traditional life. Duangta Seewuthiwong, in her article
"Weddings, Wealth, Pigs and Coca Cola: Farang Tourists in an Akha
Village" (1989) also pointed out tourists inadvertent influence on two wedding rituals. The pace of the ritual and its essence have been adapted to let tourists have a good chance for taking photographs and in the end the Akha earned money paid by tourists. As most Akha live in poverty, dreaming of improving their living standard is unavoidable. Any medium which can help them to have a better living standard, they are willing to accept.
64 5. Prospects for the Traditional Musical Life of the Akha
The Akha in Northern Thailand have experienced many adaptations to their environment due to several major migrations starting from China, then to Burma and now to Thailand. Adaptations may be intended or unintended. I have not done any field work on the musical life of the Akha in China nor Burma, but owing to different environmental and political situations, I am sure that the Akha in these places have a different lifestyle and culture, although the differences may not be on a large scale.
According to the Akha women^^ in Ban Lorcha, one thing has not been changed: music still has its central role in their tribe. Throughout the Akhas' rite of passage, music is always present. But of course their music has experienced modifications as a result of interactions with the outside world.
I am going to discuss the prospects for Akha music from four aspects. The first aspect is the influence of tourism. As mentioned before, tourists from Western countries are highly interested in the culture of these hill tribe minorities. As a result, trekking and visiting to these
19 Most of them are over 50 and have experienced the migration.
65 villages will continue. In areas with many Western tourists such as the
Night Bazaars in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, nightly cultural
performances for tourists play a vital role in promoting Akha culture. But
at the same time, these performances are affecting the authenticity of their
music to a certain degree.
As I have mentioned earlier, these performances have made lots of
alterations for the stage including costumes and the music itself as well as
the dancing. Alteration in costumes is minor, as it is not difficult to get
Akha clothes for dancers^^. However, on the stage, the organizer rarely
introduces each tribe by name. There is only a set of performances and a
sequence of dances. So dancers wearing the costumes of different tribes
dance together. The music used for dancing is commercial
“background，，’music recorded on a cassette tape in advance and played
during the performance. We can rarely find a group of accompanists on
the stage, and if we do, they play electronic music instead of using
authentic hill tribes' musical instruments.
The most important changes of all are in the context of performance as well as in the Akhas' attitude towards music. In Akha
According to my informants in Chiang Rai, they told me that the dancers for each tribe may not really be people from that tribe.
66 villages, dancing is common in festivals and accompanied by a group of male musicians playing gongs and ckings. As dancing and musical performance are now having more and more associations with tourists, hill tribes know that dancing and music are good ways to introduce their unique characteristics and can also earn money. Moreover, dancing and music raise their status as more and more people know about them. As a result, tourism helps in promoting Akha music and culture but also leads to a commercialization of their cultural tradition. Cassettes of hill tribes' songs are sold, but they are commercialized and are recorded in a recording studio.
The second aspect is the prospects for Akha music under the influence of Christianity. In comparison with tourism, Christianity plays a more suppressive role on the Akha's music, especially on their traditional ritual music. As mentioned in previous chapters, Christianity has changed the central belief system of the Akha from animism to monotheism and the acceptance of Christianity has led to an abandonment of their traditional religious beliefs. Nowadays in Christian Akha villages, religious music is regarded as hymns only. The elderly are still familiar with their traditional rites and music, but this is not so for the younger
67 generation. After twenty or thirty years, traditional religious music in these villages may vanish.
As more and more youngsters enjoy singing with a guitar, which is commonly used in hymn singing, fewer and fewer villagers use traditional musical instruments as accompaniment. Not only have the musical instruments themselves changed, but the texture of the music has changed as well. Traditionally, percussion instruments are mainly used as accompaniment for singing and dancing. The texture of songs is mainly monophonic. With the sound of a guitar, it brings them a new sound - chords and harmony. Hence, in some Christian Akha villages, the texture of songs is no longer monophonic, it is homophonic, and they enjoy singing in parts more than singing in unison.
The third aspect I would like to point out is the influence of modernization. Electricity, radio and television have had a great impact on the hill tribes. Most Akha villages still have no electricity supply due to their remote location^'. For some Akha villages such as Ban Lorcha in
Chiangrai, a limited electricity supply and the addition of a radio and a television set in the village have changed the place of meeting for
21 The Akhas used to locate on hill slope, not accessible and far away from main roads.
68 villagers every evening from an open area to the house with the radio and television. That family is one of the wealthiest in the village.
From broadcasting, youngsters love watching people singing with microphones and dressing differently from them. They do not have the concept of “modernization.，，But they find the outside world attractive and challenging. They dream of leaving the village and finding a job downtown. Those who get a job downtown will try their best to return to the village on festivals such as the New Year Festival and Swing Festival and they enjoy the reunion. When they return, they dress differently from other villagers, wearing T-shirts and jeans. The most notable difference is that they wear shoes. Most Akha children do not wear sandals or shoes: adults would wear sandals, but only those who have returned from downtown will wear shoes. Wearing shoes is one of the symbols of modernization, and a village with more contact with the outside world will have more villagers wearing shoes than in other villages.
A modernized world not only brings changes to the Akhas' material world, it also challenges their values. To the youngsters, whether or not they retain their identity as an Akha is not essential. Their main concern is how to get a pass to work downtown. They adopt the culture of
69 outside world, but when they return to the village, they enjoy talking in
Akha and having Akha food. When I asked them what they would like to change in the village, immediately they said the living conditions. As a result, though they suffer severe homesickness, they still leave the village and follow their dream downtown again, even as early as the age of twelve or thirteen. If they cannot find a job, they then become prostitutes or beggars. To them, Akha music is something left behind which reminds them of their identity. In the village, youngsters are less eager to leam traditional songs and music. But at the same time, they enjoy the strong beats of the electronic music of the outside world.
The last aspect is the prospects for Akha music under the government policy. As mentioned above, the Thai government has a lot of policies for improving the hill tribes' sanitation and living standard. The government has also put effort into introducing the hill tribes to tourists, but not many programmes have been set up to preserve their traditional culture. The two main places that do have thorough information on the hill tribes are the Tribal Research Institute and the Hill Tribe Museum in
Chiangmai (Figure 20).
In the music departments of most universities in Thailand, not
70 many courses have been offered on hill tribes' music, and research on this topic is also scarce. The most common courses offered are Western music and Thai classical music. Hill tribes are people who have lower political status, and simultaneously, their culture and tradition are considered to be less significant. I have come across a retired professor of Chiangmai
University who was very surprised to know that I came from Hong Kong to study the hill tribes' music instead of Thai classical music. She said she could not understand why westerners are so interested in the hill tribes' culture. This is a common phenomenon: most Thai are not interested in hill tribes' music and culture, and music researchers show little interest in their music and culture. As a result, the task of preserving and promoting the hill tribes' traditional culture lies in the hands of the Tribal Research
Institute.
The Tribal Research Institute is under the Department of Public
Welfare, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare in Chiangmai University.
The objectives of the Institute are “to be a central meeting place for consultation, exchange of opinions and transfer of technical knowledge among Thai personnel working for agencies concerned with the hill tribes; to conduct research to benefit government welfare and development work;
71 to collect publications and documents on hill tribes; and to coordinate work through cooperation with other institutions."^^ The Institute has not done any research on hill tribes' music nor has it any joint research programmes with any universities in other countries. Currently, they have conferences and training courses on the impacts of tourism on the hill tribe villages, the role of Buddhist monks in the present world and training the villagers for welfare services in the villages. Current projects by the Institute are research projects concerning hill tribe problems, the
Date Centre, the Information Centre and the Hill Tribe Museum. From all of this we can see that no government agencies are active in preserving and promoting traditional hill tribes' music. The task is left to the villagers themselves, but can they stand against the strong current of the outside world?
22 The objectives of the Institute is told by the Director of the Institute, Mr. Prasert. 23 With a focus on monks who work with the hill tribes.
72 6. Conclusion
At the end of this Thesis, I am going to ask and answer three questions, to sum up my viewpoint towards the influences of Christianity and tourism on the musical life of the Akha in Northern Thailand.
The first question is why do the Akha abandon their traditional rites and beliefs and adopt Christianity? It is not easy for the Akha to abandon their traditional beliefs and cultures and adopt something which is from the "Outside" world. As they believe deeply in animism, monotheism is a totally different frame of mind. Through my fieldwork and interviews with the Christians there, they admitted that this was not an easy decision for them to make. They were scared of provoking spirits which might cause disasters to themselves and villagers such as illness or a poor harvest.
Christianity has gradually changed their mindset, and has made good use of their needs. As I have mentioned before, most hill tribes are facing the problems of poverty, lack of education and poor sanitation.
Missionaries teach them English and Chinese, and provide their children with boarding houses, medication and basic daily needs. Missionaries pray for the sick and most of the time, they are cured. Through these acts,
73 the Akha have developed a positive impression towards Christianity. To them, Christianity leads them to a modem world which they have been longing for. As a result, some are willing to give up their traditional beliefs and culture for something from the west.
The second question is: to what extent do Christianity and tourism influence the Akhas’ culture and traditional music? According to the Bible, the aim and purpose of Christian missions is to establish God's kingdom (Dewick 1953). Missionaries do not really intend to destroy the unique culture of minority groups: "we also want to stop the intertribal warfare....we are against witchcraft....we may destroy certain things "in" cultures....but surely as we grow in experience and God-given wisdom, we must not and will not destroy cultures themselves." (Bodley 1988:
116-121).
Though missionaries do not intend to destroy the cultures of other groups, their influence is unavoidable. For example, BaAka musical life (Kisliuk 1998)，after the spread of Christianity, people there stop dancing Edjengi which the missionaries believed to be satanic. Edjengi is a preeminent forest spirit.
In Akha Christian villages, Christianity has destroyed much of
74 the Akhas' culture. From the two main symbols of an Akha village-the
Akha gate and the swing—we can tell the degree of destruction. I am afraid that after thirty or forty years, these symbols will vanish. The reasons are two-sided. On the Christian side, villagers are not allowed to take part in any rites associated with the spirits. The origin of and the belief in the main gate and swing are non-separable from their traditional beliefs in spirits. On the other side, villagers who have converted to
Christianity are not allowed to take part in the building of the main gate and the swing as they do not want to provoke the spirits. As a result, fewer and fewer people get involved in the rites, and I am afraid that this tradition may disappear one day.
As mentioned in previous chapters, Christianity has also transformed the Akhas，traditional musical life, and has brought about a musical change among them. Musical change means social change
(Blacking 1995). According to Blacking's research on Venda children's songs, he found that when the Venda adopted Christianity, drums and sounds which were associated with the Vendas' traditional religion became taboo and were forbidden. So, the Venda had to adopt a new kind of musical system associated with Christianity. This is similar to what I
75 have mentioned earlier - the AA impact of Christianity. Through interaction with Christianity, Abandonment of traditional cultures and
Adoption of something which originally did not belong to them has become a common practice for the Akha.
Tourism has accelerated the changes in the traditional musical life of the Akha, but the degree of change between Christianity and tourism is not the same. Christianity has changed the core of Akha culture and traditional musical life: It is an ‘internal change,. Tourism has led to
"external changes" including clothing and hairstyles. For music, tourism leads to a change in the context of music and even in the performance practice, which has been discussed in the previous chapter.
The third question is: who cares about the destiny of the Akhas' traditional ritual music and culture? It is true that missionaries do not intend to destroy the cultures of tribal people. However, they have to admit that they do not intend to preserve the cultures of tribal people either, and they let the cultures fade away.
In the past thirty years, the Thai government has launched many programmes to improve the hill tribes' living standard. It is noticeable that hill tribe such as the Akha in Northern Thailand have a better living
76 standard than before when they were still in China or Burma. The government's care for the hill tribes' living standard does not mean that the government has the intention of preserving the hill tribes' traditional cultures. There are two main purposes in the Thai government's programmes for hill tribes. The first is to improve their living standard so as to create fewer social problems in Thailand. If their living standard cannot be improved, the hill tribes will continue opium cultivation and women will flow into the cities to become prostitutes. Hill tribes are frequently blamed for the destructive impact of deforestration and the wide spread of AIDS in Northern Thailand. The second purpose is to make use of these groups of people as tourist attractions so as to earn more money for the country. Ironically, the more the government makes good use of the hill tribes, the faster their "authentic" culture disappears.
Someday tourists will be disappointed by the modernization of these hill tribes.
How about the Akha themselves? Do they want to preserve their traditional culture and music? Are they aware of their situation? During my fieldwork in these few years, the Akha are admittedly aware of the uniqueness of their culture. However, they are more concerned with their
77 living condition as well as with their social status. Although traditional
Akha music and culture also brings them together, sadly, the impact of modernization is too strong.
What will be the future of the Akhas' traditional music? It depends on the Akha themselves as well as on government policy. The
Akha have the responsibility for transmitting their traditional music from one generation to another. As in most tribal villages, traditional music has its long oral tradition. It passes from one generation to another in various ways, and the transmission process can be a formal or informal one. In some tribes, they have a very strict way of "teaching" the traditional music to youngsters, but in Akha villages, youngsters pick up traditional music in an informal way. Parents sing songs to their kids while nurturing them, and as a result, a child is familiar with many folk tunes since childhood. Kids also love imitation. During my fieldwork, children sometimes picked up the percussion instruments and imitated the rhythm they heard and even swayed as the adults did. I did not see any formal or structured schedule for teaching the younger generation Akha traditional music. Among the teenagers, the sense of preserving their traditional music is not strong, and at the same time they are attracted to pop songs
78 they have heard while working downtown.
The Thai government has spent some money on promoting traditional hill tribes' cultures to tourists, such as by running the Tribal
Museum through the Tribal Research Institute. Unfortunately, not many tour guides will bring tourists to this place because the Museum is not near downtown Chiangmai. Whenever I went there, I had to book a songtaew (taxi) and ask the driver to pick me up several hours later. If the driver did not come back, then I might have to walk for almost a day to return to the downtown area. Luckily I had no such unpleasant experience, because I never paid the driver on the first ride, but waited until he came back and picked me up for the return ride. This experience shows that the location of the Museum is not accessible. I asked a staff member in the
Museum about the number of visitors in a month and she said that most of the time, there were fewer than one hundred visitors per month.
The Thai government can play an important role in preserving
Akha traditional music. More funding should be given to universities for research on hill tribes' traditional music and culture. Nowadays, most such research is not done by music departments. During my fieldwork, the only commercial cassettes tapes of hill tribes' music were not
79 recorded by the music department of Chiangmai University, but by the
Tribal Research Institute which is under the Department of Public
Welfare. Moreover, in the Tribal Museum in Chiangmai, some performances of hill tribes' traditional music can be launched for visitors.
As a result, inside the museum, visitors can grasp not only a general idea of the hill tribes in Thailand, but can also have a deeper understanding of the hill tribes' culture through watching a live musical performance.
However, the performance should use traditional hill tribes' musical instruments and play traditional hill tribes music instead of the "stage performances" heard in the night bazaars in both Chiangmai and
Chiangrai.
The impact of modernization on Akha villages is strong, but the influences of Christianity and tourism on the Akha traditional music in
Northern Thailand is prodigious. It is sweeping away the Akhas' traditional music and culture from deep inside their minds and souls. This is because Christianity has changed the core of their religious beliefs and consequently, this change is manifested in their music and culture.
My conclusion is drawn from my observations, interviews and fieldwork since 2001 in several Akha villages as well as in the boarding
80 house built by missionaries. It may not represent the situation for all Akha villages. I hope that this thesis can draw our attention to the destiny of the traditional music and culture of the Akha as well as to those of some other ethnic groups, and I hope that we can respect the culture of others.
Christianity can allow some of the Akhas' longstanding traditional music and culture to remain. For example, the main gate and swing can be retained and viewed it as symbols of an Akha village. Missionaries can set lyrics to the Akhas' traditional folk tunes so that not only hymns with
‘imported，tunes are sung, but hymns using their own tunes can be sung as well. When singing hymns, traditional Akha musical instruments can be used as well. In the New Testament in the Bible, equality and respecting others are often stressed. Traditional aboriginal music should have its role in this world. It represents the differentiation of cultures in this world and it should be respected.
Since 2001,1 have experienced the changing of culture in Akha villages. The rate of change is faster than what I had expected before starting this research. Change is an ongoing reality as the Akha keeps on having interactions with the outside world. I hope that in the future, the the Akha will still have their own uniqueness in music and culture.
81 Appendix I - Figures
矜族’ Figure 1 - Mr. Prasert, the third man from the left, is the Director of the Tribal Research Institute. I was having an interview with two monks from hill tribes at Wat Se Soda in ChiangmaL
Figure 2 - Mr. Tavom iJM^(the man next to me), is the librarian officer of the library inside the Tribal Research Institute. Behind me is the entrance of the library.
82 圓 MWBP? ^'JjSiHE Figure 3 — Mr. Sitipong (the second man from the left) and Bert (the first man from the left) are PDA officers.
Figure 4 - Mrs. Smolley, my Akha teacher. 翻
Figure 5 - An Akha gate
83 Figure 6 — Carvings on an Akha gate I \/m .KllV Figure 7 - Akha men constructing a swing on the first day of the Swing Festival.
BPifeilj
Figure 8 -The Tribal Research Institute in Chiangmai University.
84 Hfa^m Figure 9 - Hill tribes' ladies selling their handicrafts to tourists in the
Night Bazaar in Chiangmai.
_
Figuree 10 - Picture taken before a bamboo Dance for tourists in Ban Lorcha
Figure 11 - An Akha Bible — The New Testament
85 隨
H^Blfe^ HTTHml Figure 12 一 Akha women waiting to enter the church before a Sunday service
.十 MM
^—SI^B '••IK- -'MVK'. • tiai — Figure 13 - A boarding home in Fang in Northern Thailand for children from hill tribes
Figure 14 - Aij^m guitar is always used in the Akha Sunday service
86 Figure 15 - Percussion Instruments used during Akha bamboo dancing fm^ ^^^^•n； 9 —- Figure 16 - Akha singing in a Sunday service
•hm®
Figure 17-Akha singing in a Sunday service. Some people sang from an Akha hymn book.
87 B^pHB
Figure 18 一 Akha women will wear their traditional costumes when taking tourists for a walk around their village
Figure 19 - In the day time, when no tourists are in Ban Lorcha, villagers will make good use of every minute to make handicrafts for selling.
Figure 20 一 Hill Tribe Museum in Chiangmai.
88 Appendix II 一 Examples of Akha Music
m _ g
4 }) J.丄 J7 -J £
I- "u .人卜丨.丨a ；、 � n & n � p �4 I i j IB - +〜本• + 十
I? /J j j] ” ：： (I n ,1, / .J I ^^ I ； I I . - ly ^ ；(丄— 、~~} ； ^ 巨 n ^ ^
【4 J、J ,1、1 ,「’ /'a ,丨’J
Music Example 1
89 kf):丨.j 丨Lll"…j
《丨厂"VU) lu-i^i'x I;.《丨
丨r. ” f �II'' (J:’"'I�f' 'iJ if …
4 f Cf I y r I "LI p rI .n [ I II
J 、.書 务' Music Example 2
wl'i n I ； J n u l(f，( f fy N “ If / r^M
rl tf “ j 丨 ni I I 丨 — W J J "" 丨丨 兰
Music Example 3
Music Example 4 90 Bibliography
Anonymous. 1979. No Place in the Inn: Voices of Minority Peoples in Asia. Urban Rural Mission -Christian Conference of Asia.
Anonymous. 1980. Christian Response to Race and Minority Issues in Asia. New Delhi: Urban Rural Mission - Christian Conference of Asia.
Aragon, Lorraine V. 2000. Fields of the Lord. Animism, Christian Minorities, and State Development in Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Barz, Gregory F. and Timothy J. Cooley. ed. 1997. Shadows in the Field. New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baumann, Gerd and Thijl Sunier ed. 1995. Post-migration Ethnicity: De-essentializing Cohesion, Commitments and Comparison. Amsterdam: HET SPINHUIS Publishers.
Bimie, Ian H. 1971. The Church in the Third World.. London: Edward Arnold.
Blacking, John. 1973. How Musical Is Man? Seattle: University of Washington Press.
.1995. Venda Children 's Songs: A Study in Ethnomusicological Analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
.1995. Music, Culture and Experience. Selected Papers of John Blacking. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Blacking, John and Joanne W. Kealiinohomoku, eds. 1979. The Performing Arts: Music and Dance. New York: Mouton Publishers.
Bodley, H. John ed. 1988. Tribal Peoples and Development Issues: A Global Overview. California: Mayfleld Publishing Company.
Boniface, Priscilla and Peter J. Fowler. 1993. Heritage and Tourism in 'the Global Village. ’ New York: Routledge.
91 Chriost, Mac Giolla Diarmait. 2003. Language, Identity and Conflict. London: Routledge.
Chun, M Kevin, Pamela Balls Organista and Gerardo Marin, eds. 2003. Acculturation Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Cohen，Erik. 2000. The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand. Hill Tribes and Lowland Villages. Richmond: Curzon Press.
.2001. Thai Tourism - Hill Tribes, Islands and Open-ended Prostitution. Bangkok: White Lotus Press.
.2001. The Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket- Religion, Ethnicity and Tourism on a Southern Thai Island. Bangkok: White Lotus Press.
Cunningham, E. Clark. 1998. “The Interaction of Cultural Performances, Tourism, and Ethnicity: An Introduction^ The Journal of Musicological Research. Vol 17. Gordon and Breach Publishers, pp 81-85.
Dewick, E.G.. 1953. The Christian Attitude to Other Religions. London: The Cambridge University Press.
Dow, R. James ed. 1991. Language and Ethnicity. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Ellis, J. Catherine. 1985. Aboriginal Music: Education for Living. Queensland: University of Queensland Press.
Fawcett, Liz. 2000. Religion, Ethnicity and Social Change. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.
Ghimire, Krishna B. 2001. The Native Tourist- Mass Tourism within Developing Countries. London: Earthsca Publications Limited.
Godde, P.M.，M.F. Price, and F.M. Zimmermann. 2000. Tourism and Development in Mountain Regions. New York: CABI Publishing.
92 Goodman, Jim. 1996. Meet the Akhas. Bangkok: White Lotus.
Greeley, M. Andrew and Gregory Baum. 1977. Ethnicity. New York: The Seabury Press.
Gudykunst, B. William, ed. 1988. Language and Ethnic Identity. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Hansen, Holger Bemt, and Michael Twaddle. 2002. Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World. Ohio: Ohio University Press.
Hongwiwat, Nidda. 2000. Chiangmai & The Hill Tribes. Bangkok: Sangdad Books.
Hiebert, Paul G. 1988. Anthropological Insights for Missionaries. Michigan: Baker Book House.
Hitchcock, Michael, Victor T. King and Michael J.G. Pamwell, eds. 1993. Tourism in South-East Asia. London; Routledge.
Hopkins, N. Dwight and Lois Ann Lorentzen ed. 2001. Religions/ Globalizations. London: Duke University Press.
Kidd, Warren. 2002. Culture and Identity. New York: Palgrave.
Kisliuk, Michelle. 1998. Seize the Dance. BaAka Musical Life and the Ethnography of Performance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kunstadter, Peter ed. 1978. Farmers in the Forest - Economic Development and Marginal Agriculture in Northern Thailand. Honolulu: The University Press of Honolulu.
Lundquist, Barbara, and C. K. Szego. eds. 1998. Musics of the World's Cultures: A Sourcebook for Music Educators. Reading: ISME.
Lau, Frederick. 1998. "Packaging Identity Through Sound: Tourist Performances in Contemporary China." The Journal of Musicological Research. 17: 113-134.
93 Lee, Jung Young, ed. 1988. Ancestor Worship and Christianity in Korea. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Maceda, Jose. 1981. J Manual for a Field Music Research with Special Reference to Southeast Asia. Quezon City: Unesco.
Marty, E. Martin and R. Scott Appleby, eds. 1997. Religion, Ethnicity, and Self-Identity: Nations in Turmoil Hanover: University Press of New England.
McKinnon, John ed. The Hill Tribes of Thailand. Chiangmai: The Tribal Research Institute.
McKinnon, John, and Bernard Vienne, eds. 1989. Hill Tribes Today. Bangkok: White Lotus Co., Ltd.
Miller, Terry E. and Sean Williams ed. 1998. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Vol.4. New York: Garland Publishing. Vol. 4: Southeast Asia.
Nettl, Bruno. 1964. Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology. London: The Free Press of Glencoe.
Pegg, Carole. 2001. Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. London: University of Washington Press.
Picard, Michel and Robert E. Wood, eds. 1997. Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Prasithrathsint, Suchart. 1985. Ethnicity and Fertility in Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Sarkissian, Margaret Lynne. 1996. Music, Identity, and the Impact of Tourism in the Portuguese Settlement, Melaka, Malaysia. Ann Arbor: U.M.I.
.1998. '^Tradition, Tourism, and the Cultural Show: Malaysia's Diversity on Display”. The Journal of Musicological Research. 17: 87-112
Song, Miri. 2003. Choosing Ethnic Identity. Maiden: Blackwell Publishing.
94 Shorter, Aylward. 1973. African Culture and the Christian Church. London: Geoffrey Chapman Publisher.
Standaert, Nicolas. 1990. Inculturation: The Gospel and Cultures. Philippines: Saint Paul Publications.
Strokes, Martin, ed. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity and Music. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Suwanbubpa, Aran. 1976. Hill Tribe Development and Welfare Programmes in Northern Thailand. Singapore: Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development Singapore.
Thomas, Owen C. 1983. Introduction to Theology. Wilton: Morehouse- Barlow Co. Ltd.
Vermeulen, Hans and Cora Covers, ed. 1994. The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and BoundariesAmsterdam: HET SPINHUIS Publishers.
Wachsmann, Klaus. 1961. "Criteria for Acculturation." In Jan Larue, ed., Report of the Eighth Congress, New York 1961 (New York, International Musicological Society, Vol 1:139-149.
Walvoord, John F. 1990. What we Believe: Discovering the Truths of Scripture. Michigan: Discovery House Publishers.
Ward, A. Marcus. 1966. The Outlines of Christian Doctrine Volumes land II. Madras: The Christian Literature Society.
Wong, Deborah Anne. The Empowered Teacher: Ritual, Performance, and Epistemology in Contemporary Bangkok. Michigan: U.M.I.,1991.
Wu, Xueyuen. 2000. Dianyin Huitan- Yunnan Minzu Yinyue. Kunming: Yunnan University Press.
Znamenski, Andrei A. 1999. Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Russian Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820-1917. London: Greenwood Press.
95 彳£
Zhou, Kaimo. 2000. A Study on Yunnan Nationalities Music. Kunming: Yunnan University Press.
I I- L
• . : •
r
.... . ‘- * . •»_ • �.
f
-'..s .. • • •‘ r...
...... • ‘ - ,•. i . 96 •r •： • ._ .» . • •
. I . •
• ’ • • ‘ • • I , . . . .
• • . ‘‘： . , • . . , ... . J .... ‘ .... CUHK Libraries _____
004270450