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A group of women gather in the shade of a flimsy, earthen-floored structure on the bank of a parched creek that snakes into the village. Their gaze is concentrated on Ma Lai, a small, weather-tanned woman in her mid-thirties, swatches of coloured cloth tied into her hair and her lower arms wrapped in heavy metal bracelets. She is performing a ritual that has made these people famous throughout the world. | ||
| In this isolated jungle encampment near Nai Soi on the Thai-Myanmar border, a forty-minute flight from Chiang Mai in Thailand’s far north, the women continue to practice a tradition that first began in the villages of their home country across the border. | |
Ma Lai hunches over, locks her elbows, and forcefully presses down. Her strong hands skilfully manipulate a large spiral made of brass that stretches to more than seven metres. She bends and twists it until it wraps closely around the neck of Ma Yung, a 14 year old girl who has asked her to replace the 17 cm high neck coil that she removed a week earlier. The women belong to the Padaung tribe and are known around the world as the “giraffe women” of Myanmar because their tradition of wearing a heavy brass coil around the neck gives the impression that their necks are enormously elongated. "The rings are not close enough to each other", she complains and unwraps part of the coil from around the young girl’s neck. |  | |
| The heat from the late afternoon
sun penetrates the roof of dried leaves on the small shelter and roasts
the still air that hangs in the valley and blankets the cluster of simple,
split bamboo houses that occupy the narrow cleft between two steep, jungle-covered
hills. Ma Lai sits down to rest and ponder how best to achieve the most
beautiful coil. | |
Ma Lai is aware that her
ability to fashion a beautiful coil is being scrutinised by others in the
village and she is meticulous in her work. "Girls are not beautiful if they don’t have the coil around their neck," maintains 14 year old Ma Kaou, her head swathed in a blaze of yellow, blue and pink flowers atop delicate layers of lace, as she watches Ma Lai work the brass rod into a narrow coil, flared slightly at each end, around Ma Yung’s neck. "I will never take mine off even though it is sometimes uncomfortable." |  | |
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It was discomfort that prompted Ma Yung to remove her coil for what was the third time in the past few years."The coil sometimes makes blisters and it can be very itchy when it is hot,” Ma Yung explains. "I took it off to allow my skin to improve." She originally intended to leave the coil off for about a month but constant teasing by other girls in the village prompted her to put it back after only a week."The skin on my neck is discoloured and still has some blisters that haven’t completely healed,” Ma Yung reveals. "But many of the other girls told me that I am not beautiful without the coil so I don’t want to wait any longer to replace it." Exaggeration, half-truth and misinformation surround the Padaung people and their exotic customs. This story looks at their unique concept of beauty and examines some of the mythology. | ||
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