Akha Hill Tribe Tradtional Headress.

The Akha are a relatively poor tribal people living on the very top of the most inaccessible peaks. Of Tibetan origin, they are the most recent hill people to have migrated to Thailand, and they are perhaps the least conversant with Thai as a language. They are immediately distinguishable by the elaborate and beautiful headgear of the women — perhaps the most remarkable single feature of Thai hill tribes.

Today there are more than 55,000 Akha living in Thailand, practising shifting cultivation of various crops including maize, dry rice and temperate vegetables. Until quite recently the Akha were often involved in opium cultivation, though today this has been replaced by lamyai (longan) fruit, coffee and tea as the crops of choice.

Akha women are most easily distinguished by their elaborate, helmet-like head-dress, made up of silver coins, beads, feathers and fur. Clothing — characteristically a long-sleeved jacket over short skirt ending just above the knees — is of indigo-dyed cloth, often made with home-grown cotton, decorated with embroidery, buttons, cowry shells and seeds. Akha women also wear elaborately embroidered puttees between the knee and ankle. Pendant earrings and broad neck bands of silver are highly prized, the latter worn with multiple strings of brightly coloured beads.

AKHA SWING CEREMONY

The swing ceremony, held in mid-August and September, is the best known of all the Akha rituals and celebrations. The annual ritual is performed when the rice and corn have matured and are almost ready for harvest, approximately two months before the harvest season. It is in essence a sacred thanksgiving ritual and a form of ancestor worship performed as an expression of respect and gratitude to ancestors. Merry-making, feasting, song and dance continue throughout the four days and nights of the festival.

On the first day of the four-day ceremony, family members gather at approximately 11.00 a.m. to help prepare ritual offerings. The construction of the ceremonial village swing is the main focus of the proceedings on the second day. The third day is the day of the grand feast and Akha Swing Ceremony. The swing ceremony is the main activity on the evening of the final day.

The annual swing ceremony is also a ‘rite of passage’ marking the transition from adolescence to adulthood. For the first time in their life, Akha girls are dressed in their full adult attire, complete with a heavily-ornamented head-dress adorned with silver, fur, strings of beads, seeds, tassels made of brightly-dyed chicken feathers. For Akha girls and women, the costume and particularly the head-dress reflects stages in their life, evolving through childhood to adolescence and culminating in the elaborate adult attire worn for the first time at the annual swing ceremony.