Thailand Hilltribes

The Akha 

• The Akha are arguably the most colorful of the Thai hilltribes and everyone’s idea of what a hilltribe should look like. They are therefore the most well-known minority.
  
  

• Most of the 30-40,000 members of the tribe live now in areas just south to the border to Burma, but the Akha have roots tracing back from the Yunnan region in Southern China through Burma and Laos. They have reached Northern Thailand about 100 years ago and are trying to adapt to modernization.
  
  

• They have their own religious beliefs and practices, called the Akhazan - the way of life. It is the guiding code to all Akha activities, from allocating land to how to conduct the ancestor ceremonies to building a house, it has the answer to how to do it the correct way. It is handed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next because there is no written language.

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