Karen Long Neck

The Long Neck women are a subbranch of the Karen. The Karen originally live in Myanmar in their own state of Kareni. As the political situation is not very comfortable a lot of Karen have fled to the neighbor country of Thailand where they can live in peace. There are about 600.000 Karen in Thailand nowadays.

Although the Karen population is spread over Thailand the Long Necks can only be found in the province of Mae Hong Son, in the upper North-West part of Thailand. A few Karen Long Neck have been moved to some tourist villages around Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, but these are rare cases and not natural at all.

The Long Neck women have different names. Padong is the name the Burmese have given them, while Kayan is the name they use by themselves, giraffe women is another term used to describe them.

Most of these Kayan people fled from Myanmar, because their status of outlaws. The state of Kareni isn't recognized by the Burmese authorities and the army is allowed to shoot any Karen they encounter. So a sort of guerrilla war is fought over there. A lot of locals have decided to leave the war and try to settle down in Thailand. In the beginning most of the Karen including the Kayan were kept in huge refugee camps. Bit by bit the Thai government let those Karen people have villages to integrate in Thailand. For the Kayan women it is a bit of a similar story, except that it is been told that some tourists asked the permission to enter those refugee camps as to see the Long Neck women. The government sensing some profit here have made a win-win situation. Giving the Kayan tribe villages around their natural environment and allow tourist to visit them, hence promoting tourism in the remote area of Mae Hong Son.

These Long Neck women should not be seen as a tourist attraction and they really wear the rings! They not take off the rings when tourist are gone and put them on again when they arrive, as some guidebooks say. They are perfectly happy and very grateful that they don't have to return to the war zone.

So why do they wear those rings. Different reasons can be given and a combination of these have to be seen as the reason why.

- In Myanmar (Myanmar is the current name of Burma, the name Burma was used during the English domination, as when this country was free they used the original name Myanmar again) the women stayed behind in the village, while the men went hunting. To protect the women rings were used to cover the vital parts (neck, arms and legs), especially protect against wild tigers who tend to attack the throat.

- Originally only women born on full moon AND on Wednesday were allowed to wear those rings. So before they showed the social status of a girl.

- In the Karen culture a long neck stands for beauty, so women wearing the rings could more easily find a male partner.

- The Karen have their own mythology. According to them the world was created by a mystical being , which looked like dragon-swan. This creature had a long neck and so the rings refer to this creature.

Nowadays every girl (no man) can choose if she wants to have the rings or not. Around the age of 5 the girl can start wearing the rings. Most of the time if her mother is wearing rings, the girl will choose to do the same. As in most Kayan villages now the rate is about 50-50. So half of the women population will wear the rings. As I can see more and more young girls start to stop wearing those rings when they grow older, so these phenomena might slowly disappear.

The rings as they are cold is actually one piece of brass (zinc+copper) bended around the neck. Every 4 years the girl can decide to add more rings. So the old ring is ceremonially being taken off and a new piece is melted and attached or a totally new ring is made and the old ring can be used by the next girl. When the girls are fully grown the total ring can weight to 5 kilos! With the maximum weight ever found of an amazing 7 kilos!

So does is hurt. Some say it hurts other girls say they are used to it and they feel nothing any more. Underneath their rings the have scars from rubbing the rings against the body. For sleeping they use a special pillow that supports the neck and the rings. Most girls also have little pieces of cloth between the space of the rings and the body as to stop the rubbing. The spcae between the rings and the neck is big enough to be able to wash behind the rings as otherwise the aspect of beauty would be neglected by the smell.

Belgian Dr Johan van Roekeghem studied this phenomena. He took some X-Rays of some Long Neck women in Mae Hong Son hospital. The results are totally natural and reveal that these Kayan women have no longer neck than any other human. The have the same amount of ribs and the length of there spine is identical with ours. But what can be seen is that these women have there shoulder pushed down by the weight of the rings. So the shoulders lose about 45°. And that is why we get the impression that the neck is longer! Dr van Roekeghem was found death in the jungle. Suicide or not? Rumours say that he had a relationship with one of the local Karen girls and that most villagers didn't appreciate it.

The Karen Long Neck that stay in Thailand get education thanks to Thai schools. They learn all normal class curriculum and get a lot of languages. They learn Thai, English, Kareni (there own language) and Burmese. They learn Burmese because there is a chance that they might go back to their relatives in Burma one day.