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Karen ethno-nationalism and the wrist-tying ceremony along the Thai–Burmese border

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Prasert Rangkla
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Abstract

This article presents an ethnographic investigation of displaced Karen in a border area of northern Thailand, and in particular, the reasons for their enthusiasm for the wrist-tying ceremony. It examines the way in which Karen ethno-nationalists have both influenced this cultural practice and appropriated it. This study argues that Karen nationalist intellectuals invented and reinvented the tradition of wrist-tying by borrowing structure and content from the use of soul-calling for healing and other purposes. The invented tradition is persuasive and efficacious because of its continuities and ties with existing cultural practices. Ordinary Karen participants utilise vernacular elements of the wrist-tying rite — such as sensory experiences through the handling of ritual objects — to assure a well-balanced life and spiritual security.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 74 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2014 

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References

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13 These village names are pseudonyms.

14 See Cooler, Richard M., The Karen bronze drums of Burma: Types, iconography, manufacture, and use (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995)Google Scholar. The Karen bronze drum is characterised by a less bulbous cylinder, a protruding lip on the tympanum and three-dimensional frogs at four equidistant locations around the periphery of the tympanum. This is why it is sometimes called a frog drum or klo in Sgaw-Karen and Pwo-Karen.

15 Anonymous speech quoted in Karen History and Culture Preservation Society, ‘Wrist-tying’, Karen Heritage (2004), p. 50.

16 The KNU is the political arm of the Karen ethno-nationalist and secessionist movement. Its military wing has battled against the Burmese army since 1949 in the Irrawaddy delta. In the mid-1950s, the KNU retreated into eastern Burma. From the late 1990s, it completely lost territorial control inside Burma and then drew back into Thailand.

17 Saw Aung Than, ‘The Karen traditional wrist-tying ceremony’ [in Burmese], (n.d.). Most documents of the Karen nationalist movement are written in Burmese.

18 See the full description about the Karen migration into present-day Burma in Saw Aung Hla, The loyal Karen in Burma history (n.p., 1929).

19 Rajah, ‘A nation of intent in Burma’, p. 527.

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21 Ibid.

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23 Ibid.

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25 Obtained during an interview with Tipadu, translated from Pwo-Karen by Eh Thamawk.

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