From akha@loxinfo.co.th Thu Jun 3 02:49:57 1999 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id CAA51640 for ; Thu, 3 Jun 1999 02:49:57 -0700 Received: from chmai.loxinfo.co.th (root@chmai.loxinfo.co.th [203.146.0.65]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id CAA24282; Thu, 3 Jun 1999 02:49:53 -0700 Received: from loxinfo.co.th (loxppp11-chrai1.North.loxinfo.net [203.146.34.11]) by chmai.loxinfo.co.th (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA15854; Thu, 3 Jun 1999 16:01:28 +0700 (ICT) Message-ID: <375698C4.D178414@loxinfo.co.th> Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 15:01:25 +0000 From: Matthew McDaniel Reply-To: akha@loxinfo.co.th X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: akha@loxinfo.co.th Subject: Akha Weekly Journal Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Friends: Well, after you plant all that rice and corn there are these funny plants that come up that don't look like corn or rice and you have to pull them all out. Weeding sounds less romantic, but also rather of an understatement for doing several mountain acres of this days on end. For peanuts one uses a small hoe called a "Lah Ngurh" to remove the weeds from between the plants. Despite the fact that it is blazing hot, the Akha relish going to the fields on this kind of day because as soon as the weeds are cut out they die in the heat. If it is cool and wet the weeds might survive and come back in a few days. All related to getting a good harvest. I didn't understand why they enjoyed the hot days so much, nough to kill one off, but then when I had five pounds of mud stuck on the bigger hoe for weeding between corn, I was hoping for a scalding day. The bigger hoes are angled just so, such that when on a mountain side the blade will skim an inch under the surface and cutt the roots as you strike down, and not dig into the dirt too deep. Typically one slope has good soil while the other bad, related to the sun I would guess. On damp days it is nice to go without shoes, the soft moist and cool earth, but on hot days the smallest twig gets strong as a nail. Then on rainy days the soil turns into mud and the acid in the soil eats the skin out between your toes quite nicely. The corn is up from 8" to a couple of feet in some places. Knee high by the fourth of July I think. For the rice the Akha come back and spray a light salt water between the rows. Those who know weed the rice by hand rather than with the hand hoe. Weeding by hand doesn't disturb the soil, the rice stalks remain short and strong. Weeded with a hoe, the soil opens up and the rice stalks grow tall and when the winds come it blows them over, damaging much rice. Part way down the hillsides water run off trenches are dug and in some places another two or three tiers to the terraces have been added as the terraces slowly grow up the mountain side. They would all put in terraces but there is a shortage of labor so it happens over years and generations as it has happened in China with the Hani, called the "terrace builders". Then we got back to the hillside hut to eat and lo and behold someone forgot the lighter, so cold food only. Day before someone forgot the food altogether and day before that someone forgot the cooking pot, so I hiked over to another hill and borrowed one off another band of rice planters from our village. Then the next day I went out and they had forgot the food. The one thought the other had brought it. I got there at two in the afternoon which no one does and would have brought food had I known. Just never occured to me that working that hard in the sun anyone would forget food. But that was sort of commentary on the whole view of life here, not taking the hard too seriously. Anyway, the one woman said the other woman was mad. I asked why, that is when I found out they forgot the food. She said that when you don't eat you get mad. I guess that sounds funny as I sit here and type, it sure didn't look funny the other day up on the hill. Then you can get an amazing back ache. I made the mystake of doing two hours on the hoe before waking up and from my poor stance I pulled my back quite nicely. Never drift through this kind of work, you want to hit it really hard. The Akha say do it really slow, you won't get tired. I know, but I just can't. I gotta steam my way to the top of the hill with one swath and then take a break and hit it again. We were sitting under this tree drinking spring water telling jokes and I asked about this one ant. Long ugly thing that looked like a space ship skeleton, dark red, the Akha woman said it bites you really nasty, swells you up like a baseball and then you get a real cool fever. But the big fat black one with the fur on its back doesn't bite you mean, then there is this shiny black one that walks around with a hunch back bent on stinging something and that one is real bad. Seems the uglier the ant is the more prone it is to bite and sting and hurt. Now coming up the trail I see the ants use it for a super highway, long lines of different clans and species trooping along, distinctly keeping clear of each other. There is this one group that cuts a deep trench where they go. They move so much dirt out to make this long trench I can only figure they flick it. Then there is this group of cute little fat burgandy ants that move in real dense columns, don't look prone on biting or angry, and they appear to drink nectar or something. The long black ant gathers bugs and bites nasty. Then there is this one with a wide set of jaws that look like water buffalo horns till they close on your skin. And one long red ant has a chisel like head, really weird. Then we gathered dried bamboo for cooking wood and some of the bamboo had a hole in it and out poured all these ants and they were hauling eggs and really mad and red and they bite real nice too, so you pitch that whole piece back in the brush. A break in the day we all eat green mango we dip in salt and chilli pepper. The one old woman makes a little tea cup out of a piece of bananna leaf and fills it with water and puts some rice and other stuff in it, starts saying a whole bunch of stuff, then hops out of the hut and pitches the whole thing up the hill towards the field. I noticed, and the other woman told me that the old woman thought I stepped on the grave in the field. What grave? The Mooser grave. Oh, there is a Lahu buried in your field? I didn't step on that I said, I didn't know what it was but the odd lack of attention kept me away. The old woman was then greatly relieved, she thought I had stepped on it and she had gotten this quick stomach ache so she fed some rice and water to the Mooser and told them to rest peacefully anyway. She said she farmed the field for three years before the Moosers told her that someone was buried there, then she put in a stick, but it was still real bad luck not to know. I picked up the water cup, there was this funky red bug on it, stung my hand real bad with hairs like the black furry catepillars do with the orange eyebrows. I couldn't tell what it was because as I picked up the cup it mushed and in its last act stung me. When you weed the corn there are these tiny crickets everywhere, then these holes as big as your thumb and that is where the Jerusalem Crickets live. The Thais like them fried, big and juicy. Cute too. I don't think the Akha eat them as much. There are all kinds of grass hoppers too. Some are rusty and brown, wings and long trailing legs, some are green with wings, and then some are really beautiful and no wings, hop really cool like sports cars with pin stripes. The wild bees they are rude. You know, they land on your skin for a drink, they know that you know they are bees and will give them a second break over a horse fly because of honey and things like that, but then when they are done drinking they hunker down and sting you real good. some thanks. Do it all the time. Really rude. Walking back to the village the guys on the horses they ride past us as they come down from the higher ridges. One of the workers is happy because her boyfriend came over from the other village to visit. They are getting married soon, she will be his second wife. No problem. I keep stopping on the trail. Funny bugs. There is this one bug that is really tiny but looks like a big velvet bean bag with antenna and eyes, but it is really small, crossing the trail. Who said God had to be really big. I stepped around it, no bigger than a pin head but really red. Then there was this really long black and yellow pin striped spider over the trail. Almost two inches long. The Akha said that you pop its head off and pound it into chopped meat, tastes really good. You scrape the bark off one tree and throw it in too. We got back. I went for a wash. Did it in a hurry because 5 and 6 oclock must be the changing of the guard and these special mosquitos come out for about thirty minutes and they are really big, bite you really good and then they all disappear. Good thing is they are so big you can feel them land on your skin like a harrier jump jet. After dinner around the fire, the one Akha woman hunts in a basket that hangs over the fire, covered in smoke laquer, and fishes out something and offers it to me. They like to eat it after a good meal. Looked a whole lot like a clod of dirt, because it was. And then I remembered how I had so often seen these holes cut in the hillside all over Akha land. That is where they are finding the best dirt. You eat it like candy after a meal. Dig in there and get it out fresh, the good smelling red clods, not those other ones. And then you dig a new hole and start again. Since it has been there a few thousand years it is aged really well and no one has disturbed it. They eat a little bit of the best clods, then rinse their mouth. Say it is really good for something like heartburn from what I could figure. Well, hey, people do all kinds of things with Dead Sea Mud so what the hec. And eating bird's nests????? Matthew McDaniel PS. This work is supported by the private donations of friends like yourself who remember this work. -- Matthew McDaniel The Akha Heritage Foundation 386/3 Sailom Joi Rd Maesai, Chiangrai, 57130 Thailand Mobile Phone Number: Sometimes hard to reach while in Mountains. 66-01-881-9288 US Address: Donations by check or money order may be sent to: The Akha Heritage Foundation 1586 Ewald Ave SE Salem OR 97302 USA Donations by direct banking can be transfered to: Wells Fargo Bank Akha Heritage Foundation Acc. # 0081-889693 Keizer Branch # 1842 04 4990 N. River Road. Keizer, Oregon, 97303 USA ABA # 121000248 Web Site: http://www.akha.com mailto:akha@loxinfo.co.th .