The Nation
Feb, 1994
When the hawks cry and the clouds blow in from the east, that's when we know the rains are coming," explains N'der, a wise but unwizened Karen elder.
Living deep within the heart of Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, N'der and his fellow villagers appear to have little need or desire for meteorologists or the other trappings of modem civilization.
They are, in fact, a living testament to the saying, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
It's currently an ill wind that is blowing their way. The Karen of Thung Yai are living in fear - fear of being expelled from their home, and fear of being forced to give up their traditions in order to become Thai citizens.
Ever since it was created 20 years ago, Thung Yai Naresuan's status as a wildlife sanctuary - now listed with neighbouring Huay Kha Khaeng as a World Heritage Site - has protected the 2 million-rai area's human inhabitants along with its forests and wildlife from outside interference. It contains 12 Karen villages, totaling around 4,000 people, half located in Kanchanaburi province and the other half in Tak.
The latter group - typically referred to as the Karen of Mae Chanta - are clustered in the secluded Mae Khlong Valley, accessible only by trekking over arduous mountain passes. But their isolation is not complete. They are overseen by officials from the Royal Forestry Department's Wildlife Conservation Division (WCD) and more directly by a Border Police camp serviced by helicopter.
Even this limited intercultural contact has been enough to create a simmering conflict, one that exploded into violence in late 1992 when five Border Police troops and seven villagers were killed in one bloody evening (for a detailed look at the incident, see Tuesday's Focus).
Perhaps because of the Burmese Karen's notoriety in fighting a civil war, initial police reports of the event tended to portray the Karen as separatists or savage cultists or even Communists. In addition Thais consider Karen to be chao khao - hill-tribe people, often held responsible for much of Thailand's environmental degradation - with all the prejudice that implies.
In fact, Karen tend to live in river valleys, albeit mountainous ones. The people of Mae Chanta come across as gentle, part of a matriarchal society living in harmony with nature and each other. To many of villagers, the violence was actually the result of a clumsy attempt to force modern Thai culture upon them.
The Karen of Thung Yai have been living in the area for hundreds of years, since before Bangkok was founded, in fact. Some have been given Thai identity cards, others not. Fearing expulsion, they are eager to gain Thai citizenship, but reluctant to lose their own traditions.
They are different from their fellow Karen to the north, belonging to the Plowng clan rather than the Skor, and practising Buddhism rather than Christianity, having converted about 150 years ago. But many also adhere to the Ariya sect, which proclaims that 2,500 years after the Buddha lived, a new Buddha will arise. This is considered heretical among mainstream Thai Buddhists.
And, like their northern neighbours, and indeed many Thais, the Karen of Thung Yai still adhere strongly to the animist and spirit beliefs handed down by their ancestors.
Many of their farming customs match those recommended as environmentally sustainable by agricultural experts. Others imply a respect for nature that is all too lacking in modern society. And some are quite simply charming.
Virawat Teeraprasat, the WCD official who has served as chief of Thong Yai for more than 10 years, has studied the Karen beliefs and become an ardent defender of their right to stay in their ancestral home.
"I believe the Karen can conserve the forest, although many powerful people don't," he says. Four years ago, responsibility over Thung Yai was split, with Virawat given control over the Kanchanaburi section.
The Karen farming practices have all arisen from tradition, not guided research. They are applied not as a science, but as part of the Karen's spiritual beliefs.
According to a legend cited by N'der, a 62-year-old leader from the village of Kung Baw, the Karen had formally relied on wild yams as a staple. Rice only came to this forest realm on the wings of a bird-like spirit named Pi (Grandmother) Yeubo.
There was once a family with a son named Jo Beu," he recounts. "When it came time to pay respects to the spirits, they sent him off to find a deer head with -antlers to be used as an offering. But on the way he met a girl named Nau Yo who was farming rice.
"He fell madly in love and stayed for a long time, courting her. Eventually, his father came to bring him back. But he kept returning. Both sets of parents disapproved, until finally one day the girl's father killed Jo Beu. Nau Yo went to hug him before he died, and she was killed by the boy's father. Afterwards, in repentance, they called on the bird-like spirit Pi Yeubo - named after the two lovers - to forever look over the harvesting of rice.
There are in fact several versions of this legend. Another has it that a man came across a wounded bird and fed it some klauy to bring it back to health. For this, he was scolded by his wife. But the bird came back to him, gave him some rice and helped him to plant it.
The Karen of Mae Chanta still mark the gathering of rice each year with the New Rice ceremony, held around the end of January. It's a festive occasion, with white-robed Karen singing and dancing around a shrine under a full moon offering rice to the birds as a measure of thanks. It is said that when they sing, Pi Yeubo increases the rice harvest by flapping her wings.
Virawat notes that the ceremony also serves a practical function. Villagers talk about what kind of rice they have planted, and trade tips about what to plant in the coming year.
Nobody owns land in Mae Chanta. New plots for fanning are cleared from the forest every year, then allowed to rest for 10 years or so. According to N'der, a family of six will use only about eight rai per year.
New Plots are generally selected from the plentiful bamboo forests around the villages. "We believe it's the best land. Bamboo doesn't take long to grow back. Bigger trees do.
"Once we have found a plot, we often sleep there. If we have good dreams, then we know it's good land. Before clearing it, we knock on the ground to warn the insects and ask Mother Earth for permission."
They use fire to clear the land, collecting the wood as fuel. Generally, trees are not cut until they are considered tall enough to support Pi Yeubo. In practice, this allows them to grow back.
Karen farming practices use many techniques now regarded as appropriate by experts in integrated pest management, an alternative to the use of pesticides.
They plant many different crops including chilli, tobacco and several different types of rice - on a single plot. Pi Yeubo is invited to guard the crops by planting the beuchibok - nine bunches of rice - in the middle of the field, where the spirit is said to reside.
If the rice has problems, they sprinkle it with sacred water, made with plant cuttings, a kind of natural pesticide.
There are many recipes used, says N'der, often including the bark of the praduu tree.
If this doesn't work, they plant another field with rice and invite the insects to go there. People are then forbidden to enter the original plot, and Virawat says this encourages birds to enter the area and eat the insects.
The Karen's sense of harmony and community is reflected in their lack of ownership customs. With the exception of coconuts (considered especially precious) anybody can pick fruit from any tree. Money is barely used. Women make their own clothes. Men plant a few cash crops in order to buy their clothes in nearby Umphang.
If Mae Chanta seems like the proverbial Garden of Eden, then it is the Border Police who are accused of proffering the apple of modern practices.
They eat meat and drink whiskey both considered taboo, in traditional Karen society, although reportedly more and more villagers are following suit. They run the local school, which teaches only in Thai and not in Karen.
More seriously, they are accused of harassing the local women, and encouraging poaching of wildlife in exchange for the salt and medicine they are supposed to provide for free.
"The police don't kill animals themselves because that would conflict with the WCD. They would rather have the village young villager who named. "Gaur and wild cats are shot, and sometimes take to be sold. Just last month, a barking deer was killed,"
Pol Lt Col Paisal Surawasri, a head of Unit 347 which oversees the area, denies all the charges. "It's not true. An M-16 will not kill a gaur. And anyway, there are no gaur left in the area. There may be a few barking deer."
The Border Police have also attempted to impose a modern Thai system of village administration on the area. The villagers are now officially led by Lao Kao, a Karen man who came to the area 28 years ago from Suphang and has been elected phuyai baan. But he himself admits that he was elected because "nobody else wanted to be". Many villagers prefer to stick with traditional system of community leaders.
Dressed in jeans, an athletic and a button shirt, Lao Kao represents the changes being wrought on Karen society. He speaks fluent Thai, one reason he is popular with the Border Police. And he, too, drinks whiskey and eats meat. "Eating vegetarian is good because you don't have to kill animals. But for myself I have to eat meat," he says. Inevitably, he has come into conflict with traditionalists.
"We thought the police were supposed to help the villagers, but instead they have worked with the phuyai baan to increase his power," says the Karen youth. "We would like to develop ourselves."
The school is a principle point of contention. "We like to learn Thai. But as kids we don't know ourselves yet," he explains. "It would be good if it were taught in Karen, but we can't find a teacher." He claims the police refuse to give medicine to parents who don't send their children to school.
" We are there to help the villagers," Paisal maintains. "They should learn to speak Thai. It's good for their future progress."
In essence, the Karen of Mae Chanta are caught between a rock and a hard place: Sticking to their traditions m mean more conflict with the Border Police, which they fear will lead to expulsion; but if they take up Thai customs, they will find it much harder to live in harmony with nature and so may be forced out anyway.
Pressure is also being applied on the Karen by conservationists. Concerned that the villagers are destroying the forest, many Thai officials want to see the Karen resettled outside the area. Four Karen villages were removed from Huay Kha Khaeng in 1976. The World Bank has put forward a project to research the tremendous biodiversity of Thung Yai Naresuan, among other places, with funding also coming from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The pre-investment study states that although the project "does not foresee the use of donor funds" to resettle villagers, "the removal and resettlement of occupants of protected areas may be necessary at protected sites and should remain an option for the Royal Thai Government."
Ironically, it is the Karen who could supply the knowledge to unlock the secrets of the forest. Some of this local wisdom may already be fading away. "There's a lot of medicine in the woods, but it's easier to ask the Border Police for drugs," N'der admits.
Questioned about resettlement, the Karen elder remained diplomatic. He praised the efforts of a group of Thai NGOs that recently made the long trip to Mae Chanta in order to teach the Karen about their rights under the law: "The meeting is a good idea. It allows people to understand each other better. We villagers can realize what we can and can't do, so the authorities will have more sympathy for us."
Virawat disagrees sharply with the World Bank's two-billion-baht project. He contends it would benefit pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies (and perhaps tourism, although that is not currently allowed in the sanctuary) at the expense of the Karen. Health, he adds controversially, would be better served by improving preventive techniques than exploiting someone else's resources.
Population growth could present another problem for the Karen. Children - cute, boisterous and playful - are everywhere in Mae Chanta. But N'der says the Karen place no value on having large families.
"Population will increase, but not exponentially," Virawat maintains. "The Karen don't believe in ownership, so they are not interested in earning more income through having many children. As they learn how to use modem medicine, increasing their lifespan, they can also learn to use contraceptives."
A bigger problem, says the conservation official, is the influence exerted by outside authorities.
"Normally, in Karen society, there is resistance to outside forces. They generally don't mix with outsiders. Change depends on two factors: state intervention - like trying to establish a phuyai baan - and the strength of local community leaders. If the latter are weak, as is the case in some villages, then change comes quickly. If we want to slow down change, then traditional beliefs should be restored and community leaders like N'der strengthened."
Nobody knows better than N'der that this is easier said than done. If current trends continue, he worries, "then there won't be any Karen anymore."