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Wrist Binding - Karen People - Thailand
It’s just before 10am on a Thursday, and I’m drinking homemade moonshine whiskey from a communal plastic cup, in a tribal village in Northern Thailand. The smell of wood burning from distant fires hangs like incense in the air. The morning sun burns high above, giving me pause for gratitude for the cool of the shade. My surroundings are simple, but I feel welcome and in the company of people who could become friends. Life is good.
It’s the lunar new year and I was invited to witness the wrist binding ritual of the ethnic Karen people, a fascinating tribal group occupying remote pockets of South East Asia. I’m deeply honored to be here, not only to observe but to be included in this special tribal family ritual.
The Karen people began inhabiting what is now Myanmar (formerly Burma) approximately 2,500 years ago, migrating from Mongolia and Tibet. This period in human history, known as the Axial Age, saw the creation of the Hebrew Torah, the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato and the birth and rise of the Buddha.
The Karen people settled in the Northern Mountains of Thailand more than 400 years ago. Many Karen people from Myanmar fled persecution and now call Thailand home. Their language, which bears no semblance to the Thai language, is as distinctive and different as their dress and their traditions. They live in isolated rural communities in mountainous, rugged terrain. Wild elephants still roam free in this region.
The village I’m visiting sits less than 160 miles from the Myanmar border, a country torn apart by the world’s longest recorded civil war, now spanning more than eight decades. Refugees can be found in every village here. They bring humility and a strong work ethic, living peacefully and with profound gratitude for escaping their country’s civil war with little more than their lives.
The Karen are a diminutive people. They offered me one of their brightly colored cloaks to wear during the wrist binding celebration and laughed as I tried to squeeze into it. We all agreed to let me wear the clothes I arrived in.
We sit cross legged on the floor on a large hand-stitched red flax mat. A bowl of chicken stew, containing the meat of both a hen and a rooster, and simmered in local spices sits tantalizingly in a stainless steel bowl, flanked by bowls of rice at the center of a wooden serving platter.
The father of the family lights the candles to signify that the spirits are present. His voice trembles a bit and he begins chanting, hitting the wooden edge of the platter to call the spirits forth to join us for this meal.
The Karen are animists. They believe that all natural elements like trees, rivers, and mountains possess spirits. These spirits influence the lives of believers in untold, myriad, measurable and mysterious ways. The spirits must be appeased through rituals and offerings to maintain harmony with the natural world.
This meal, that we will eat, is part of this offering. As we sit together, melodic chanting fills my ears, the living are joined by the gods of nature and the spirits of generations of ancestors who made this moment possible.
The Karen believe in a vast spirit world and that these spirits are immanent in nature. Guardian spirits surround us, but we should be mindful that these spirits might be beneficial, but they could be malicious. This helps them make sense of the capricious whims of nature, which can be peaceful in one moment and deadly the next.
With a heart as open as my curious eyes, I give myself to this moment. I cannot understand a single word, and yet it all makes perfect sense.
As they chant prayers on my behalf, pleading with the forces of nature, the spirits of the sky, rivers and mountains, to look upon me with gentle eyes, and grant me good fortune in this new year, they tie a white string around my wrist to bind me to them, to their ancestral spirits and to this place and time. I have become a part of their family; one of them.
I’m edified that the average age of their elders is well over 90 and that many Karen live to 100 years or more. I close my eyes and hope to absorb by osmosis, the secret to their longevity.
To celebrate my welcome and to appease the spirits, we eat bowl after bowl of chicken stew and sticky rice till another bite is unthinkable. We drink homemade moonshine whiskey as smooth as the potholed roads we drove on to get there. It’s my fifth cup and if I have another, it may take the strength of the entire family to lift me to my feet.
I still have a three hour hike along, in and through a winding jungle river to return me to my guesthouse in the valley below. I will need my wits about me for this adventure. I choose wisely and allow the last cup to pass me by.
After sitting cross-legged on the floor for over an hour, I muster my remaining strength and heave myself to my feet. My Karen friends do the same but with considerably more grace. I bow to them, one by one, my hands pressed together as in prayer and offer my humble thanks for their kindness to a stranger. I leave them, somehow, inexplicably changed.
We are bound together now with a simple string blessed by generations of ancestors and the gods of nature, sky, water and mountains.
We are bound together now, not because we look the same or speak the same language; not because we share the same perspective or even worship the same gods.
