Thread: Thailand hilltribe people.

Hey, forum bosses, what about a spell check facility for us 2 finger typists?!!

Originally Posted by forreachingme

Originally Posted by stroller

Slightly off-topic, but related to hilltribes:
In the Philippines, one needs to belong to an organised religion in order to obtain a passport - something about birth registrations are only recognised on the grounds of church records confirming or so.
Hilltribe people need to convert if they want to travel or work abroad, since their believes are not recognised as a religion.

Some of this native pinoys are called naked people,( guess reason!!) they leave allready as near from Manila as Mindoro Island wich is just a few Km south of Manila, first island south... do not recall local tribe name they have but will find it and post later...

Many but in decreasing number around Asia, Borneo,Indonesia...

A few years ago, maybe 20 years, a group of "naked people" were discovered in the Philipines. Are these the same ones that you refer to above?

Nat. Geo. reported it in one of their issues at the time...they were to be left in isolation protected by UNESCO.

I remember the photos of their faces,...pure innocence!!

The Mangyan in Mindoro.

Thanks stroll, will look after a a sleep!

Seems we don't have any 'experts' on the subject here.
Here some background:

The Hill Tribes and the National Government

For centuries tribal people have inhabited the mountains in what is now the national territory of Thailand. Today more than 500,000 hilltribe people reside in the northern provinces. Culturally and linguistically distinct from the Thai majority, these people have diverse cultures and languages. The six main tribes, in descending order of population size, are Karen, Hmong, Lahu, Mien (Yao), Akha and Lisu.

No centralized nation-state existed in Thailand until early in this century; the northern principality of Chiang Mai was semi-autonomous from the Bangkok court until 1910. Initially, integration of the north into the nation focused on the lowlands and lowlanders. The Northern Thai, although Thai speakers and Buddhists like the Central Thai, had their own dialects and religious traditions.

Not until the 1950s did the Royal Thai Government attempt to extend administrative control over the highlands and highlanders. Attention turned to the mountains when the government became concerned about the security of its border areas because of the Indochina conflict and the presence of the Kuomintang in neighboring Burma following their ouster from China by Mao's forces.

A 1958 ban on opium production also increased government interest in the mountains. The opium-producing poppy, which only grows well at higher altitudes, has long been cultivated by some, but by no means all, hilltribe farmers. Opium's immense value as a cash crop derives from its high market demand, its transportability and the fact that, unlike many crops, it does not spoil.

In the 1960s, the Seabees (a US Navy construction battalion) helped to build the first road through the northern hills where previously there were only paths traversed by people and pack animals. Today these hills are crisscrossed by dirt and paved roads, navigated by pickup trucks carrying highlanders and their produce. Some roads now resemble highways: air-conditioned minibuses take foreign and Thai tourists to view the hill tribes, which trekking companies and the government's Tourist Organization of Thailand promote as "colorful" and "primitive."

Cultural Survival

Up until 1972, anyone born in Thai territory was entitled to receive Thai nationality regardless of his/her parents' status. At the height of the communist insurgency, amid fears of infiltration by communist agitators from Vietnam, this policy was abrogated. Since then, children born to ethnic-minority people in the Kingdom have been considered illegal aliens rather than Thai citizens.

Successive censuses have failed to take account of the large number of hill people who live in remote, inaccessible areas of the country. As a result, these undocumented people are automatically considered illegal aliens.

Show Stateless

July 30, 2003

The Thai government has set August 28 as the final date by which those hill-tribe communities classified as "stateless" people must prove they have a legitimate claim to gain the rights of being Thai. But local authorities have shown little enthusiasm to aid the hill-tribe people in preparing documents needed to meet this deadline, say lawyers working to secure the rights of the stateless people in Thailand.

Thailand: Fear of Expulsion Haunts Hill Tribes - Global Policy Forum - Nations and States

This is from a meeting in 2005:

When I (Dr. Katharine McKinnon) returned to Chiang Mai in 1998, after an absence of 12 years, to volunteer for an Akha NGO, I had the chance to see for myself that after three decades of development intervention - interventions that were supposed to be making life better for highland communities - there were still a lot of highlanders in a fairly precarious position: no citizenship rights, no land title even where they had been settled for hundreds of years (such as Karen communities in Doi Inthanon), subject to constant racism, many struggling to make a living, and many turning to opium and heroin, and even in the late 90s to ya ba (metamphetamine), as a quick and cheap way to forget their worries. There seemed to be a serious deficit of happiness in the highland communities I got to know and I started to get really curious: after so many decades of so many development programs and researchers, so many NGOs and missionaries all doing their best in their different ways to 'improve' life in mountain villages - how could so many people be in a situation of such utter despair and hopelessness that they rely on narcotics for some sense of happiness? What was happening here? Who were all these people trying to do good? And why was it not working? ...

Informal Northern Thai Group : Our history

Lack of land title and racism seems to me to be the biggest problems. Every time the government runs a nice paved road into a hill region, thais and chinese turn up with land papers.

The Karen and others definately see themselves as second class citizens. Visting a karen village a while back for a government handout out ceremony brought to mind Red Indians on a reservation. Everybody was given a blanket and a bag of rice. The Thais then sung the national anthem. Very eerie.

All attempts to relocate hill tribes and jungle dwellers have resulted in the rapid decline of these peoples. The survivors are then assimilated into the encroaching culture and another valuable genetically diverse pool is removed from the human mix, giving humanity less genetic choice.

Slowly the process leads to a monogenetic lineage, a clone species of humanity that will be unable to adapt to and survive future microbial encroachment.

"Civilization sickness" has eliminated scores of ancient discreet lineages in the last 200 years.

Thailand, because of its location, is a hub for many hill tribes and could host and foster them and their cultures without adopting a reservation system of managing these peoples.

It sickens me to watch the antics of the ambitious self interested minority who do anything to achieve wealth, fame and power to fill their soul-less empty lives.

Rot starts at the top.

M T D

This is actually the best post you have made in the past two months. I enjoyed reading the information you have provided. Thank You

don
Rangsit

^^Agreed