From akha@loxinfo.co.th Sun Apr 4 04:24:57 1999 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id EAA44442 for ; Sun, 4 Apr 1999 04:24:56 -0700 Received: from chmai.loxinfo.co.th (root@chmai.loxinfo.co.th [203.146.0.65]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id EAA26763; Sun, 4 Apr 1999 04:24:48 -0700 Received: from loxinfo.co.th (loxppp14-chrai1.North.loxinfo.net [203.146.34.14]) by chmai.loxinfo.co.th (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA15436; Sun, 4 Apr 1999 17:35:40 +0700 (ICT) Message-ID: <37074213.2F5922D0@loxinfo.co.th> Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 17:42:29 +0700 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 Elders Reply to Issues of Language and Sterilizations Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------35F9DBB253FFC920D6490133" --------------35F9DBB253FFC920D6490133 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Akha Elders Reply to Sterilization and Language Issues. Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand You may delete if of no interest to you. It is rather lengthly and difficult to read in some places but is the original handwritten response. ***** This is the Akha response to the issues of how their language has been manipulated and how they were increasingly marginalized by the “pioneering” of sterilizations among the Akha which has continued on through to this day. ***** This response is written by a number of Akha who fear for their safety should they make their names public. **** April 4, 1999 Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand A reply to comments of Paul W. Lewis that the Akha have not been exploited by the protestant missions, that blood was not taken, and that sterilizations did not happen in large numbers, were not done carelessly, and did not cause a lot of women to die: Elder states: "Paul Lewis says that our statement that blood was taken from women being sterilized is "obscene". Obscene as compared to all the women who died? Just what is he talking about? Of seven ladies that had sterilization in our village, two passed away shortly after the sterilization. Although the Akha do not currently have the funds to research the exact number who died away it is indeed quite high. Why? They went to receive sterilization because they were poor. After being sterilized since they could not become rich automatically they had to go and work as usual. So they had to suffer pain from their operation. Since their povery demanding them not to stop their job, they had to face with new disease of feeling pain all the time. Later, they had to pass away with new disease. That’s why, the help given by others turned out to be a trap for most of the Akha ladies who were being sterilized. Those who survived, still many are suffering from various kind of diseases and social abnormalities. Some became opium adicts, still some became very thin and suffering from bleeding. Who did all these things? To me it seems to be like a systematic way of killing our hill tribe, to anihilate us. Why I dare say like that? As they are experts in these fields, they know ahead for sure that those who underwent operation some or somehow would not be able to do hard labor in the rest of her life. Knowing it properly, they pursuaded hill tribes women to undertake such operation by offering bonus to individual person to lower down the population of hill tribes people for sure. They killed the best of our people. Since our people knew about it very little, they accepted it like a fish which sees the bait but not the hook. Now I feel very bad for my suffering people. To whom shall I blame? To my poor people or to those so called experts who jumped in with lots of money as if they were our generous benefactors? Whatever it be, froom my personal experiences and eye witnessing, this project did not do any good for our people. Why such a great and well known man like Dr. Paul Lewis, intentionally and willingly tried to carry out such expensive project particularly just for our hill tribes people? Since they are well educated and being able to forsee what will be the result of their project, why they did such to our tribe? It is still remaining as a mystery for our people especially for those young people who love their people very much. Regarding the Baptist missionaries, they seemed that they did not show any interest for our culture. Why? They did not encourage to name the new born children in the traditional name. They just eager to build big churches in every village. Even if there is just one christian family in a village where there are over 100 households, they try very hard to build a big church for that family. Such thing happen in Akha villages. There may be only one christian family, but the villagers did not allow him to build a church but he did not listen so he built a small church, later the villagers pulled it down. Why? Becasue they are afraid that there will be division among the villagers, later the villagers will become two groups that they will start to speak bad to one another. So at last there will be division in the village. As examples we may find up to two or three churches in just one small village, how one will belong to Baptist mission, another to church of Christ and another one still to pentacostals, etc. and you will not find anyone from among these various churches for our culture. Why?” Another Akha: “I was not Baptist but lived among many Baptist villages. I could get the best news that there were going on with the Baptist Church when Paul Lewis was staying in Burma as well as in Thailand. He was so friendly with many Baptist Pastors that what he is goint to tell us indeed coming out from the mouths of the pastors. Regarding the sterilizations, he said that women not only from Tachilek district at the border, but also from Mong Phyak, Mong Yog, Mong Hkat, Mong Yan, Mong Pin as well as Keng Tung were sterilized. Almost all of them came from Baptist villages. Why? Because those who came to bring these women down also mostly came from pastor’s society. Time they trusted to their Chief Pastor very much that it seemed they did not think very much that it would be right or wrong. Only later when they came to realize that sterilization was not good at all for hill tribe women for many suffered and died of this. Since women came from many many villages for more than ten years at least, the number would be very great and those who passed away most probably would be more than three thousand already. Still other remain who are still suffering. Basing on what many came across from all these we dare say that much perhaps even more than that. I do not understand why Dr. Paul Lewis spent lots of money to carry out this project? Apart from giving money to each patient he also gave all the traveling expenses to them and 3,000 baht to the agent, which at that time was a lot of money, for bringing the women in. That is why in those days his project became a good income for those agents who managed to bring down the patients to the surgery. Most of these agents came from pastor’s societies. To be able to get that 3,000 baht as a a bonus, many tried to fulfill this project enthusiastically, so that became a sort of economy for them. Because of such situation it seemed that many women recieved only good stories of what would follow suit after sterilization. No body told them the bad side effects that would come out from that project. But fact is fact. Most of those ladies who underwent sterilization met with various types of disasters. To whome shall we blame for al these things? It is plain truth in our villages. Whoever denies it will be just cheating the world. I am stil wondering why such a great man initiated such a bad thing to our hill tribe? I am very eager to know the answer. Some claimed that certain amount of blood was drawn away from their bodies varying to one another. The patients themselves also never knew why the drawing of blood was done upon them. This was more than what would be made to come out for a blood test. How true it is would be left over with the persons who were paid to do the sterilizations and have access to all the records. For the time being, so many patients could not work anymore, many became very thin and suffering from various form of disease. Many others still becoming socially abnormal that they felt shy for being like that. But how to solve it? There is no answer. At the beginning when christianity was arrising among the Akha people, they burnt down our gates, and ancestor offering boxes. Slowly we were named with christian names that traditional names and naming system were disappearing away slowly. By now when a new child is born, he or she will be named in christian way either by the mistress of the pastor or by the pastor himself, eliminating our ancient naming system by which we count our generations back. Now the children can not do that, because the naming system was interfered with and destroyed by these christian mission people. By looking at this to be Akha means needs to know our geneolocial line. If they are pushing away such good custom of Akha, no doubt they don’t care if they push away the culture of Akha people also. Thus at first they threw away our culture, later divisions came among the people although they are same christians. In that way, there sprouting up one church after another in the same village. Now not only division among the villages but also division among the families are arising. How to solve it? What a miserable situation is goin on among our people in Burma from western missions coming in from Thailand. Regarding the education given by missionaries, that was very good indeed. Many young people came to know how to uplifty the living standards of our people. At the beginning it seemed to be very good. As the years gone by, boarding departments also show interest only for girls. Why? Especially in Thailand. Due to having prostitution so highly, under the name of safeguarding young women, boarding schools for girls sprouting up. But then the girls no longer feel to marry Akha men. So where will the Akha children come from and what will happen to our people and villages? They do not come back to the villages. In this way the Akha women are being taken away from the Akha world. That is why the present education being given by the missionaries should be closed down quickly and changing into new educational system. Education should be given in village level thus giving chances to both boys and girls in the village life. Then we will be able to preserve ourselves, instead of having the young women “bought out” from us, then we can also save our language. We do not know why the so called missionaries are trying to throw away our culture so eagerly? Isn’t there any good thing in our culture? If there is not even a single good point, why then are they making business by selling Akha head dresses and other things also? Making lots and lots of money by writing about our people, culture, custom and history? After all, to be able to write such things from where do they get all these informations? Indeed, all these informations are given by my people and they are still poor as usual. What about those authors? They become rich and well known to the world for writing and knowing about us. For example, Dr. Paul Lewis when he came to Burma in 1947 he hardy aquired any degree. Through his zeal and eagerness to learn he gained his MA and Ph.D. while he was in Burma and Thailand. In fact he gained great knowledge from us. So many Akha elders who were well informed regarding Akha Zauh had to sacrifice lots of their time so that a person like Paul Lewis, who did not understand even a single Akha could become an Akha expert up to writing books in Akha. Wo are his teachers? We the Akha. He became very famous by writing about Akha Zauh in english under four volumes and they are in Cornell University. What are the contents of these four volumes? The real culture of Akha was never suitable for Akha readers. Paul Lewis’s mission had Bibles, not books on our culture. The so called four volumes written about Akha Zauh was never written in Akha. Now we even doubt that Paul Lewis might have written about Akha in an oppressive way. If he is forbidding our Zauh, why then he is writing all of this? The book called “People of the Golden Triangle” which has sold thousands of books in many languages must have made him some name and some money. Does he deny he made great name off us, but lives safely while we still die? So our poor people did not make any trouble for him, instead helping him to be more learned man and more wealthy man. People like to call him a “great man of God”. But why did he dropped down such a bad seed called sterilization which has been carrying on by other people? My people were so good to him that he gave us back the worst thing!? Can we tell or name him that he is still a christian? Now he is retiring with lots of wealth while we are remaining still very poor? Regarding the religion, at the beginning it seemed to be very good. Converting one village after another. Later it turned out to be division among the people. Why? Some became Catholics, some protestants, some still holding their ancestor offering while others became buddhists. All these even though they are Akhas and sons of the same Sooh Meeh Oh, they could not face to one another. Why? First they took away our culture which has been handed down upon over 1500 years already by naming it that it was bad to carry. Now we want to raise a question, how good the christianity is then. If that is good enough, why there are so many groups, teaching about Jesus and yet fighting to one another? First they divided our people, now they are dividing our villges and lately they are dividing our families by building many churches just in one village. On Burma side and Thailand, it looks like a testing ground for their different groups of religion. Our people are indeeed confusing a lot. Better not to have one of them than having all of them. They are just trying to take the best from us and leaving us in despair. We seems to be llike a prey for them. Regarding the Akha scripts, before Paul Lewis was born, Catholic Akha script was already there, printed by Msgr. Bonetta from Toungoo Press. And the present Catholic script is the third improvement and already taken into shape before 1950 and done by Fr. Protuluppi. The earliest Akha prayer book was printed somewhere around 1917 already. By starting a new one, Baptist mission started with their own script to make a difference between Catholic and Baptist. They would not agree to work together. Due to this which one we shall choose? Just to take an escape from all of this we worked with the people at the Akha Heritage Foundation to make a script which solved the problems inherent in both the others, and that took no religious side. With this we can record all our Akha Zauh accurately and it can be typed, read and learned quickly. For sure we would be most criticized by the missionaries first, but we don’t care, we just care that all our Zauh should be recorded for the children before we pass away. The missionaries quickly seized upon the killing of twins at birth in Akha culture as a means to villify the whole culture and turn many Akha against anything and everything Akha. Divide us. Conquer us? On every culture, which we can ever find in the world, since they are formed long time ago, some of them will not be up to the mark of modern society, some may seem to be with error. In Old Testament time they are human sacrificing even. Cannibalism is still going on in some part of Africa. In that way, our culture also some seems to be very cruel. For such case, instead of understanding upon our culture, missionaries would like to mock at us, with that they blamed that our culture was indeed very bad in that we killed new born twins. In those days, they presumed that only animals would give birth to more than one. If two or three babies are born from the same womb at the same moment, the presumed that they would bring bad luck to the society. So they killed them. In those days people were waging war in our land all the time and migrating from one place to another all the time also. If the mother had to care two or three at the same time, it would be very hard for the family. They might have their own reasons for all of this. Today I would like to ask to those concerned about it properly since killing is wrong indeed, why then abortion is going on and on all the time especially in US where all the missionaries come from? Is that not against the violation of human right? Even in your churches? Why such thing is going on and on all the time? To us we castrate only animals, to make them become fat quickly especually for rearing pigs. In abroad they are sterilizing ladies, this also what a strange thing for us here. Due to those authors who tried to exagerate our culture so much in a mockery way that readers presumed we Akha people might really be primitive people. Because of that, when they converted an Akha village into Christianity they burnt down our gates, ancestor shrines, swing etc. Apart from that , they also stopped us from doing traditional burial, naming to enw born children in traditional way of names, no more recitations, no dancing allowed. In fact all these things made the Akha people to presereve their culture and language over one thousand five hundred years already. If these can keep the Akha people for such a long tie as a group of people, we don’t think that all these would be very bad. That’s why we want to ask you, whether it is not it is worth to keep them instead of condemning them and throwing them all away? For example, gate of the village means fence of the village like the fence of our compound. Is that wrong to have a fence of the village? To the Akhas, swing ceremony represents to God’s creation of human, they say that the Akha has descended from God through the swing. Is it wrong to commemorate that? Is it wrong to name an Akha new born child after the name of their respective lineage? That’s why missionaries should reconsider it over again and should change their way of teachings. If all these cultures are bad as they named, can we say that sterilization is justified? Now sterilization is still going on from the seeds that Paul Lewis dropped down. All these can be seen in the stream of life here. >From our close observation we came to know that when the missionaries arrived these missionaries selected some ones so that later these people would be able to take their place. In this way they formed a lot of Akha elite thus taking them away, from the ordinary people. They made them into a group to be extra ordinary Akhas, thus giving them best education, best facilities of the world. That is why there smal group could buy the latest cars one after the other. They became very powerful that they could pin point anybody whom they want and start ordering what they like. Why they did like that? Only those concerned would know the purpose of doing that? Now these young leaders replacing old missionaries. They think that they belong to upper class and they don’t want to admit that they also came from the same people. >From where all these divisive ideas came from? From the foreign missionaries? If that is true, why did they do that? We have no proper leader, no country, no land to be able to claim as ours, no wealth, no education, number also very limited. To such a poor people, why did they do that? It seems that they are having to faces. Under the title of help they suppress us. To the world they gained their reputation as benefactors of disappearing tribes. They built their reputations on us for many years. While many Akhas served to assist this reputation for many years, assistance came back only to a few. The way they behaved upon us seemed as if we did not know about God before they arrived here. Why do missionaries think they are the only ones who can perceive God? If there is no good teachings among the Akhas, we are sure that we can not have survived until this day. " End of Akha statement **** -- 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. 01-881-9288 when in Thailand 66-1-881-9288 when out Thailand Web Site: http://www.akha.com mailto:akha@loxinfo.co.th 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: In the US can be transfered to: Wells Fargo Bank Akha Heritage Foundation Acc. # 0081-889693 Keizer Branch Keizer, Oregon, USA Outside the US: Matthew Duncan McDaniel Bangkok Bank Ltd Acc.# 3980240778 Maesai Branch Thailand --------------35F9DBB253FFC920D6490133 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Akha Elders Reply to Sterilization and Language Issues.
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
 

You may delete if of no interest to you.
 

It is rather lengthly and difficult to read in some places but is the original handwritten response.
 
 

*****

This is the Akha response to the issues of how their language has been manipulated and how they were increasingly marginalized by the “pioneering” of sterilizations among the Akha which has continued on through to this day.

*****

This response is written by a number of Akha who fear for their safety should they make their names public.

****

April 4, 1999
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand

A reply to comments of Paul W. Lewis that the Akha have not been exploited by the protestant missions, that blood was not taken, and that sterilizations did not happen in large numbers, were not done carelessly, and did not cause a lot of women to die:

Elder states:

"Paul Lewis says that our statement that blood was taken from women being sterilized is "obscene".
Obscene as compared to all the women who died?
Just what is he talking about?

Of seven ladies that had sterilization in our village, two passed away shortly after the sterilization. Although the Akha do not currently have the funds to research the exact number who died away it is indeed quite high.  Why? They went to receive sterilization because they were poor. After being sterilized since they could not become rich automatically they had to go and work as usual.  So they had to suffer pain from their operation. Since their povery demanding them not to stop their job, they had to face with new disease of feeling pain all the time.  Later, they had to pass away with new disease.  That’s why, the help given by others turned out to be a trap for most of the Akha ladies who were being sterilized. Those who survived, still many are suffering from various kind of diseases and social abnormalities.  Some became opium adicts, still some became very thin and suffering from bleeding.

Who did all these things?  To me it seems to be like a systematic way of killing our hill tribe, to anihilate us.  Why I dare say like that?  As they are experts in these fields, they know ahead for sure that those who underwent operation some or somehow would not be able to do hard labor in the rest of her life.  Knowing it properly, they pursuaded hill tribes women to undertake such operation by offering bonus to individual person to lower down the population of hill tribes people for sure.

They killed the best of our people.  Since our people knew about it very little, they accepted it like a fish which sees the bait but not the hook.

Now I feel very bad for my suffering people. To whom shall I blame?   To my poor people or to those so called experts who jumped in with lots of money as if they were our generous benefactors?

Whatever it be, froom my personal experiences and eye witnessing, this project did not do any good for our people.  Why such a great and well known man like Dr. Paul Lewis, intentionally and willingly tried to carry out such expensive project particularly just for our hill tribes people?  Since they are well educated and being able to forsee what will be the result of their project, why they did such to our tribe?  It is still remaining as a mystery for our people especially for those young people who love their people very much.

Regarding the Baptist missionaries, they seemed that they did not show any interest for our culture. Why?  They did not encourage to name the new born children in the traditional name.  They just eager to build big churches in every village.  Even if there is just one christian family in a village where there are over 100 households, they try very hard to build a big church for that family.  Such thing happen in Akha villages.  There may be only one christian family, but the villagers did not allow him to build a church but he did not listen so he built a small church, later the villagers pulled it down. Why? Becasue they are afraid that there will be division among the villagers, later the villagers will become two groups that they will start to speak bad to one another.  So at last there will be division in the village.  As examples we may find up to two or three churches in just one small village, how one will belong to Baptist mission, another to church of Christ and another one still to pentacostals, etc.   and you will not find anyone from among these various churches for our culture.  Why?”

Another Akha:

“I was not Baptist but lived among many Baptist villages. I could get the best news that there were going on with the Baptist Church when Paul Lewis was staying in Burma as well as in Thailand.  He was so friendly with many Baptist Pastors that what he is goint to tell us indeed coming out from the mouths of the pastors.

Regarding the sterilizations, he said that women not only from Tachilek district at the border, but also from Mong Phyak, Mong Yog, Mong Hkat, Mong Yan, Mong Pin as well as Keng Tung were sterilized.  Almost all of them came from Baptist villages. Why?  Because those who came to bring these women down also mostly came from pastor’s society.  Time they trusted to their Chief Pastor very much that it seemed they did not think very much that it would be right or wrong.  Only later when they came to realize that  sterilization was not good at all for hill tribe women for many suffered and died of this.  Since women came from many many villages for more than ten years at least, the number would be very great and those who passed away most probably would be more than three thousand already.  Still other remain who are still suffering.  Basing on what many came across from all these we dare say that much perhaps even more than that.

I do not understand why Dr. Paul Lewis spent lots of money to carry out this project?  Apart from giving money to each patient he also gave all the traveling expenses to them and 3,000 baht to the agent, which at that time was a lot of money, for bringing the women in.  That is why in those days his project became a good income for those agents who managed to bring down the patients to the surgery.  Most of these agents came from pastor’s societies. To be able to get that 3,000 baht as a a bonus, many tried to fulfill this project enthusiastically, so that became a sort of economy for them.  Because of such situation it seemed that many women recieved only good stories of what would follow suit after sterilization.  No body told them the bad side  effects that would come out from that project.  But fact is fact. Most of those ladies who underwent sterilization met with various types of disasters.  To whome shall we blame for al these things?  It is plain truth in our villages.  Whoever denies it will be just cheating the world.  I am stil wondering why such a great man initiated such a bad thing to our hill tribe?  I am very eager to know the answer.

Some claimed that certain amount of blood was drawn away from their bodies varying to one another.  The patients themselves also never knew why the drawing of blood was done upon them.  This was more than what would be made to come out for a blood test.  How true it is would be left over with the persons who were paid to do the sterilizations and have access to all the records.

For the time being, so many patients could not work anymore, many became very thin and suffering from various form of disease. Many others still becoming socially abnormal that they felt shy for being like that.  But how to solve it? There is no answer.

At the beginning when christianity was arrising among the Akha people, they burnt down our gates, and ancestor offering boxes.   Slowly we were named with christian names that traditional names and naming system were disappearing away slowly.  By now when a new child is born, he or she will be named in christian way either by the mistress of the pastor or by the pastor himself, eliminating our ancient naming system by which we count our generations back.  Now the children can not do that, because the naming system was interfered with and destroyed by these christian mission people.

By looking at this to be Akha means needs to know our geneolocial line.  If they are pushing away such good custom of Akha, no doubt they don’t care if they push away the culture of Akha people also.  Thus at first they threw away our culture, later divisions came among the people although they are same christians. In that way, there sprouting up one church after another in the same village.   Now not only division among the villages but also division among the families are arising. How to solve it?  What a miserable situation is goin on among our people in Burma from western missions coming in from Thailand.

Regarding the education given by missionaries, that was very good indeed.  Many young people came to know how to uplifty the living standards of our people.  At the beginning it seemed to be very good.  As the years gone by, boarding departments also show interest only for girls.  Why?  Especially in Thailand.  Due to having prostitution so highly, under the name of safeguarding young women, boarding schools for girls sprouting up.  But then the girls no longer feel to marry Akha men.  So where will the Akha children come from and what will happen to our people and villages? They do not come back to the villages. In this way the Akha women are being taken away from the Akha world.  That is why the present education being given by the missionaries should be closed down quickly and changing into new educational system.  Education should be given in village level thus giving chances to both boys and girls in the village life.  Then we will be able to preserve ourselves, instead of having the young women “bought out” from us, then we can also save our language.

We do not know why the so called missionaries are trying to throw away our culture so eagerly?  Isn’t there any good thing in our culture?  If there is not even a single good point, why then are they making business by selling Akha head dresses and other things also?  Making lots and lots of money by writing about our people, culture, custom and history?  After all, to be able to write such things from where do they get all these informations?  Indeed, all these informations are given by my people and they are still poor as usual.  What about those authors?  They become rich and well known to the world for writing and knowing about us.

For example, Dr. Paul Lewis when he came to Burma in 1947 he hardy aquired any degree.  Through his zeal and eagerness to learn he gained his MA and Ph.D. while he was in Burma and Thailand.  In fact he gained great knowledge from us.  So many Akha elders who were well informed regarding Akha Zauh had to sacrifice lots of their time so that a person like Paul Lewis, who did not understand even a single Akha could become an Akha expert up to writing books in Akha.  Wo are his teachers?  We the Akha.  He became very famous by writing about Akha Zauh in english under four volumes and they are in Cornell University.  What are the contents of these four volumes?  The real culture of Akha was never suitable for Akha readers.  Paul Lewis’s mission had Bibles, not books on our culture.  The so called four volumes written about Akha Zauh was never written in Akha.  Now we even doubt that Paul Lewis might have written about Akha in an oppressive way.  If he is forbidding our Zauh, why then he is writing all of this?  The book called “People of the Golden Triangle” which has sold thousands of books in many languages must have made him some name and some money.  Does he deny he made great name off us, but lives safely while we still die?

So our poor people did not make any trouble for him, instead helping him to be more learned man and more wealthy man.  People like to call him a “great man of God”.  But why did he dropped down such a bad seed called sterilization which has been carrying on by other people?  My people were so good to him that he gave us back the worst thing!? Can we tell or name him that he is still a christian?  Now he is retiring with lots of wealth while we are remaining still very poor?

Regarding the religion, at the beginning it seemed to be very good. Converting one village after another. Later it turned out to be division among the people.  Why?  Some became Catholics, some protestants, some still holding their ancestor offering while others became buddhists.  All these even though they are Akhas and sons of the same Sooh Meeh Oh, they could not face to one another. Why?  First they took away our culture which has been handed down upon over 1500 years already by naming it that it was bad to carry.  Now we want to raise a question, how good the christianity is then.  If that is good enough, why there are so many groups, teaching about Jesus and yet fighting to one another?  First they divided our people, now they are dividing our villges and lately they are dividing our families by building many churches just in one village.  On Burma side and Thailand, it looks like a testing ground for their different groups of religion.  Our people are indeeed confusing a lot.  Better not to have one of them than having all of them.  They are just trying to take the best from us and leaving us in despair.  We seems to be llike a prey for them.

Regarding the Akha scripts, before Paul Lewis was born, Catholic Akha script was already there, printed by Msgr. Bonetta from Toungoo Press.  And the present Catholic script is the third improvement and already taken into shape before 1950 and done by Fr. Protuluppi.  The earliest Akha prayer book was printed somewhere around 1917 already.  By starting a new one, Baptist mission started with their own script to make a difference between Catholic and Baptist. They would not agree to work together.  Due to this which one we shall choose?  Just to take an escape from all of this we worked with the people at the Akha Heritage Foundation to make a script which solved the problems inherent in both the others, and that took no religious side.  With this we can record all our Akha Zauh accurately and it can be typed, read and learned quickly.  For sure we would be most criticized by the missionaries first, but we don’t care, we just care that all our Zauh should be recorded for the children before we pass away.

The missionaries quickly seized upon the killing of twins at birth in Akha culture as a means to villify the whole culture and turn many Akha against anything and everything Akha.  Divide us. Conquer us?
On every culture, which we can ever find in the world, since they are formed long time ago, some of them will not be up to the mark of modern society, some may seem to be with error.  In Old Testament time they are human sacrificing even.  Cannibalism is still going on in some part of Africa.

In that way, our culture also some seems to be very cruel.  For such case, instead of understanding upon our culture, missionaries would like to mock at us, with that they blamed that our culture was indeed very bad in that we killed new born twins.  In those days, they presumed that only animals would give birth to more than one.  If two or three babies are born from the same womb at the same moment, the presumed that they would bring bad luck to the society.  So they killed them. In those days people were waging war in our land all the time and migrating from one place to another all the time also.  If the mother had to care two or three at the same time, it would be very hard for the family.  They might have their own reasons for all of this.

Today I would like to ask to those concerned about it properly since killing is wrong indeed, why then abortion is going on and on all the time especially in US where all the missionaries come from?  Is that not against the violation of human right?  Even in your churches?  Why such thing is going on and on all the time?  To us we castrate only animals, to make them become fat quickly especually for rearing pigs.  In abroad they are sterilizing ladies, this also what a strange thing for us here.  Due to those authors who tried to exagerate our culture so much in a mockery way that readers presumed we Akha people might really be primitive people.  Because of that, when they converted an Akha village into Christianity they burnt down our gates, ancestor shrines, swing etc.  Apart from that , they also stopped us from doing traditional burial, naming to enw born children in traditional way of names, no more recitations, no dancing allowed.  In fact all these things made the Akha people to presereve their culture and language over one thousand five hundred years already.  If these can keep the Akha people for such a long tie as a group of people, we don’t think that all these would be very bad.    That’s why we want to ask you, whether it is not it is worth to keep them instead of condemning them and throwing them all away?

For example, gate of the village means fence of the village like the fence of our compound.  Is that wrong to have a fence of the village?  To the Akhas, swing ceremony represents to God’s creation of human, they say that the Akha has descended from God through the swing. Is it wrong to commemorate that?  Is it wrong to name an Akha new born child after the name of their respective lineage?  That’s why missionaries should reconsider it over again and should change their way of teachings.

If all these cultures are bad as they named, can we say that sterilization is justified?
Now sterilization is still going on from the seeds that Paul Lewis dropped down.  All these can be seen in the stream of life here.

From our close observation we came to know that when the missionaries arrived these missionaries selected some ones so that later these people would be able to take their place. In this way they formed a lot of Akha elite thus taking them away, from the ordinary people.  They made them into a group to be extra ordinary Akhas, thus giving them best education, best facilities of the world.  That is why there smal group could buy the latest cars one after the other.  They became very powerful that they could pin point anybody whom they want and start ordering what they like.  Why they did like that?  Only those concerned would know the purpose of doing that?  Now these young leaders replacing old missionaries.  They think that they belong to upper class and they don’t want to admit that they also came from the same people.

From where all these divisive ideas came from?  From the foreign missionaries?  If that is true, why did they do that?  We have no proper leader, no country, no land to be able to claim as ours, no wealth, no education, number also very limited.  To such a poor people, why did they do that?  It seems that they are having to faces.  Under the title of help they suppress us.  To the world they gained their reputation as benefactors of disappearing tribes.  They built their reputations on us for many years. While many Akhas served to assist this reputation for many years, assistance came back only to a few.

The way they behaved upon us seemed as if we did not know about God before they arrived here.  Why do missionaries think they are the only ones who can perceive God?  If there is no good teachings among the Akhas, we are sure that we can not have survived until this day. "

End of Akha statement

****
 
 
 

--
 
 

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.
01-881-9288  when in Thailand
66-1-881-9288  when out  Thailand

Web Site:
http://www.akha.com
mailto:akha@loxinfo.co.th

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:

In the US can be transfered to:

Wells Fargo Bank
Akha Heritage Foundation
Acc. # 0081-889693
Keizer Branch
Keizer, Oregon, USA

Outside the US:

Matthew Duncan McDaniel
Bangkok Bank Ltd
Acc.# 3980240778
Maesai Branch
Thailand
  --------------35F9DBB253FFC920D6490133-- .