Hill-Tribe Civilization

          Nearly all of the hill-tribes found in Thailand originally came from Burma. Contrary to "Lonely Planet" guide books they didn't from China, Tibet or Laos. In fact all the hill-tribes in Thailand came directly from Burma. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest this. Among the various hill tribes, almost all of the older hill-tribe villagers speak Burmese and even some of the new generations born in Thailand speak a little bit of Burmese. In many hill-tribe houses we can see Burmese calenders, Burmese movie stars pictures and malaria prevention poster in Burmese hanging on the walls. Besides this we can also see the hill-tribe children playing games which are very popular in Burma. In addition, many different hill-tribes listen to Burmese music. With all these Burmese characteristics, traditions and manners these hill tribes certainly cannot be from China, Laos or Tibet.

          When it comes to spoken languages, Lahu and Akha are similar and they both use vocabularies derived from Burmese. So, we can very safely say that Lahu and Akha hill-tribes could never originated from Tibet, China or Laos. When it comes to written languages, they both use English alphabets omitting 4 letters. When Burma was under British rule, a lot of Christian missionaries came to Burma and went straight to the hilly places of Burma and converted many tribal people into Christians. In those days there were no written languages for these tribal people, so the missionaries helped them set up a written language using the English alphabets. This is how the Lahu and Akha written languages came into existence. This is how the Missionaries could sing from hill-tribe song books and read their Bible written in Lahu and Akha. This allows us to safely say that Lahu and Akha hill-tribes were from Burma. If they were from China as the Lonely planet Guide book says, they would have their written languages in alphabets similar to Chinese and their spoken languages would also contain Chinese words or Chinese origin.

           Karen hill-tribes speak a totally different language from the above two hill-tribes. Karen uses its own written language nearly identical to the Burmese alphabet. Their sponken language contains quite a few Burmese origins. There are actually four different type of Karen. But in Thailand you will only find two types of Karen: Karen long neck and simple Karen who have normal necks like everyone else.

            Yao hill-tribes use a very different language and it is sad to say that they don't have their own written language. But many Yao people claim to have learnt Chinese in order to read and write and some of them even claim Chinese as their written language. But this claim is quite baseless as the older Yao people are still learning how to read and write in Chinese like chidren learning A, B, C, D in primary shool. Unles they master in Chinese, they can never adopt Chinese as their written language.

            Lisu is definately from Burma where they live in the Kachin State. In fact Lisu is one of the Kachin tribes that is in northern part of Burma close to China. Their written language uses the English alphabet.

           Shan hill-tribes have a very big state in Burma and their spoken language is a bit similar to Thai. So the Shan people in Thailand are not considered hill-tribe by the Thai. Their written language is quite similar to Burmese.

           Wa hill-tribe is a another sub-tribe of Shan and they live in the Shan state of Burma. But this hill-tribe is quite unknown to the world and there is very little news about this hill-tribe, even though they have a population in Thailand as big as the Akha hill tribes.

Religion:

         When it comes to religion almost every single tribe practises Animism, believing in the spirits of Ancestors. In their own villages they have their own witch doctor who uses the good spirits of Ancestors to cure sick people. When a child or a person gets sick, the family brings a chicken to the Witch doctor and the witch doctor kills and offers it to the good spirits on behalf of the sick person. A rich family brings a bigger animal like a pig or a cow while poor families bring a chicken or rice.