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The Lisu of the Golden Triangle
| Article
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13241 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
3,894 Words |
| Author
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Claudia Simms and Thomas Tarleton
Claudia Simms and Thomas Tarleton are free-lance
photojournalists who have lived and worked in Southeast Asia
for two years. They coproduced "Akhazan: A Vanishing Culture"
and "The Akha Way," published in the January 1987 issue of THE
WORLD & I. They lived and worked among the Lisu for four
months and wish to thank Dr. Otome Klein Huthseesing, who
acted as their interpreter and gave access to her extensive
research, and Paul Lewis, author of Peoples of the Golden
Triangle. |
In the Golden Triangle, the mountainous region where northern Thailand borders Burma and Laos, opium warlords ply their notorious trade, government forces struggle to impose reforms, and little-understood ethnic minorities face an uncertain future in a tarnished homeland. It is a confusing place of conflict, intrigue, and mystery.
In these steaming jungles live the Lisu and five other hill tribes - the Akha, Hmong, Yao, Karen, and Lahu (commonly called Mien). The Lisu are a proud, lively people who love to excel. They have a deeply rooted culture, belief system, and sense of self-identity. Yet they, and all the hill people, confront the essential problem that their traditional way of life is at odds with the demands of the modern world. Restrictions on demographic movement and deforestation problems render their traditional subsistence farming methods inappropriate. Thai government pressures to end their economic reliance on the illicit opium harvest are countered by the demands of aggressive drug warlords. Ethnic differences make social reforms, which the government or international agencies try to initiate, alien and fearsome. The hill people are obliged to experience inevitable and unwelcome change by the power of external forces they did not invite and cannot avoid.
The Lisu have a long history of migration, and like many minorities, they have followed a destiny of persecution. According to legends (passed orally from father to son), the Lisu originated at the headwaters of the Salween, a great river that begins in Tibet and meanders through China into Burma. A study of their migrational patterns tends to support this, as they have generally moved south, following the course of the Salween.
Historical accounts show that the Lisu were settled for a time in southwest and south central China. The earliest reference to them is made in a seventh-century Chinese text called the Man Shu (book of southern barbarians). The Man Shu illustrates the disdain with which the Chinese viewed these mountain people who occupied their southern border. Specifically, it suggests the name Lisu stems from the roots Li (custom or law) and i-su (one who runs from). The Lisu were regarded as rebels or outlaws, a bigotry that contributed to their persecution by the Chinese and eventually led many of them to flee China in the early 1900s. During this final stage of migration, the Lisu crossed the Burmese border into Thailand, probably along the Pai River, a tributary of the Salween.
Today the Lisu number about five hundred thousand throughout
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