The Story of the Beginning of Hill Tribes
There are six different hill tribes in Thailand. All hill tribes live in northern Thailand,
in the hills, and mountains.They occupy the province of Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai,
Mae Hosong, Lampang, as well as Tad, and Kajanaburi. Akha people originate from
Tibet, to Burma, then to Thailand. The Lisu people, as well as the Lahu people all
originated from Tibet as well. Then there are the Yao people that came from China,to
Thailand. Hmong people have also come from China, but then to Laos, then Thailand.
The Karen people originated in Burma, but are now found in Thailand as well. The
population of the Akha hill tribe is 80 000across Thailand. The Lisu is at 35 000,
Lahu is 58 000, the Yao is at 50 000, Hmong are at 82 000,
Karen are at 280 000. Making a grand total of 535 000

hill tribe people across all of Thailand.
In the past 20 years the Akha people have been farming. Growing there rice fields,
cutting and burning the jungle making room for more rice farms. Every year new jungle
must be cut down for new rice fields,if you use a field more then once for rice,
the rice will be no good. Since so much land is taken every year for new fields,
a village can only occupy a piece of land for a maximum of 3 to 4 years before the land
is thoroughly exhausted. Then it is off to a new location, new farms, new land, and then
the old one is burnt down. The houses of bamboo are burned with it, and then a crop
of rice is planted in its place. Now adays things are different though. The Thai governmen
t now controls the land, and is stopping the burning and the cutting of the jungle.
Now they have to do rice fields on the same field every year.
This is very hard for the hill tribe people, with out the use of new fields there is
not enough rice growing to feed them all year. This is also destroying the customs
of the hill tribe people. With no work in the fields more have to go to school.
Most schools are far away and expensive though, the parent?s scraping money
together to pay for it. Then after the children are are educated, they are unable
to work in there villages.No work for them there in their chosen professions, so
they move away, finding a mate somewhere else, never moving back.With the
cities growinglarger the hill tribe people are now able to commute
from the villages to work quit easily.

Twins
Akha people many years ago where not Christians, but believed in spirits.
In this time the birth of twins was believed to bring bad luck to the village
they were born in. This not only scared the people of this village, but also
surrounding villages hearing of the twins? birth. When the twins were born
everyone in the village was forced to take three days of holiday, as everyone
was too scared to leave the village. Then the magic man (or women)
of the village (each Akha village having there own magician) had to remove
the twins from their mother, and take them out of the village to the jungle,
where they were killed. Then parents of the twins where forced to leave
the village for one year after the twins were killed. They would have to find there
own food, water, and shelter, not allowed to return home until after they had been
cleansed. Then after retuning home, the village was still convinced that even by talking
to the couple bad luck might be passed on. Then the families where always cast aside,
making it very difficult for any of their children to marry.This is one of the reasons the
Akha people became Christian. Akha History

Sickness
One of the Akha people?s spiritual beliefs was that when someone fell ill they
had to go see a magic man or women. The magic person would then take a
personal belonging from the sick person and place it under their pillow.
During the night the sprit of the sick person would come to the magician
telling them what sacrifices that person had to make in order to get better.
The sacrifices were always large such as: three pigs, three dogs, three chickens,
and three eggs. Most people did not possess these things that they were ordered
to kill though, so they were forced to buy them. Some people were to poor though
to buy those things for the sacrifice, meaning they could never get well.
This is one of the reasons that Akha people became Christians. Now 90% of
Akha people are Christian, while the other 10% of the Akha people still believe in spirits

MR. APAE WAS IN CON TEST WITH ALL THE TOURIST GUIDES IN THAILAND
THE T.A.T THAILAND CHOSE MR.APAE AMOR AS THE WINNER OF THE THAILAND TOURIST GUIDE AWARD 2006-2008