Karen Hill Tribe

Hello! I emerged from the hill tribe! I was there for three weeks, and have spent the last week trying to get into India, where I am now finally.

Living with the hill tribe was so incredible…I am still recovering from the fact that I just went three weeks without speaking! At first getting them to trust and include me was the priority, but when I started helping make the embroidered shirts a shift happened, and I was brought everywhere with all the women. A joke started that Nathu, whose home I lived in, was my mother, and I often heard her calling me the only word Nathu knew in English, “baabeeee”

In the morning we went into the village to work with the other women; and in the afternoons I herded the water buffalo and cattle around the rice fields.There were several ceremonies that Nathu brought me along for that blew my mind, and one that I would like to write about, despite how intimate it was:

We arrived in the evening to a hut with lots of smoke coming out of it. Inside the oldest people sat around a fire, and there was a wooden coffin. Men were walking around and around the coffin, chanting this beautiful slow chant. The woman in the coffin had coins over her eyes. After the men, all the virgins of the village began to walk around the coffin and chant. Virginity is considered a high virtue for Karen people, and these women were in their eighties, having committed their lives to it. They wear a special white dress that distinguishes them. Because I was not married, Nathu decided the white dress was right for me (haha), so that evening I was pulled up to join them. I walked around and around the coffin for hours chanting, with these amazing old women. The husband of the dead woman was chanting in a harmony with ours, and moving coins systematically around a white symbol of a bird painted on a black rice mat. The whole scene and the chanting was so astounding I really couldn’t believe what was happening. This chanting went on continually at the woman’s hut for three days!

After the third day Nathu dressed me up and we walked down the dirt road. Suddenly she took off into the jungle at high speed! There was hardly any path where she left, and the woods were so thick I could just barely keep her in sight in front of me. At the top of a hill we came to the burial. After the coffin was covered up, they poured water onto huge leaves that then fell onto the coffin. Then we all lined up in a line and I was given a piece of bamboo, not knowing what to do with it. Suddenly everyone threw the bamboo over their shoulder, and without looking back ran full tilt down the hill through the woods. Again I found myself chasing them with a lot of effort. When we hit the road everyone slowed way down. It felt almost like we had to get out of the woods as quickly as possible because something we did had just set them in motion.

Everyday I was surprised by what Nathu brought me to and by what she did. (One time she randomly started filing my toenails, another time she took her shirt off to show me that one breast was bigger than the other). These moments came more at the end and I think if I had not been there alone they wouldn’t have happened.

Here are a ton of photos that I took as they became more comfortable with me. Really hoping for another experience like this one!!

With love and the newness of India,
Annie