Culture of Karenni Tradition

 

Why karenni tradition is not popular in American?

Due to the American people never heard of the tradition, the karenni tradition doesn’t have much follower because people don’t know much about it and it not that popular in any country.

We been practicing that tradition for many generation, the tradition has passing on to our grandparent and they practice the tradition only in July. The tradition only practice in Thailand, it can’t be practice outside of Thailand but you have to practice the tradition on specific date and day.

The tradition is called the Dee Ku Festival, it mostly eating

Rice boiled from a bamboo leaf and practice the dancing for Dee ku festival, this is the kind of tradition that everyone can follow. Anyone from anywhere all around the world but they have to practice on specific date/day. This religious has never been hearded outside of Thailand.

There are 5 different type of karenni tradition

Dress, you have to dress specifically in order to join the Dee ku festival it require by the culture

Founder and the female and male having different kind of clothing, Women they wearing dress for dancing in a group of dee ku women and men wear Red Shirt and Red short for dancing in a group of dee du festival. The Women and Men don’t dance together, While the male are dancing the women

Pour a bucket of water on a man to make cool them off for working hard and while the women are dancing the men play the music for the women,

Music, the karenni people use a metal design like a bowl but very heavy only allow men to carry the instrument and they use what they called touw made out of bamboo and cow skin, that is can be carry around your neck but very long, they need a tall man to carry the touw, third they have what they called “cha” made out of flat metal circle plate, the men can only carry and play the instrument women they have to dance while the men are playing the instrument.

Food, is what they called Dee Ku, the dee ku takes about 5 hours to boil in a big hot pot full of boil water, they dee ku wrap out of bamboo wrap string. The string that is made out of bamboo are really strong can hold up to 100 pound of weigh.

Dance, the way the women dance is more traditionally because they dance correctly and the women doesn’t dance correctly have to be banned from the group because we don’t want to embarrassed the whole dancing group.

What Is Karenni

Karenni covers around 9 different people groups who speak different languages and dialects in Kayah State, Myanmar (Burma).  Kayah Li Phu is the name of the largest people group in Kayah State.  Kayah Li is also the language that the Kayah people speak.  In former times, Kayah State was known as Karenni State.  Most of the refugees currently resettling throughout the U.S. and other countries are Kayah speakers. The karenni people escape from the Burmese soldier for killing the karenni peple in a camp , they have to migrant from one place to another until they find a safe place to regugee and reunited again. Due to the attack of Burmese soldier the karenni people don’t have enough food to survive and sometime they starve to death.

When they finally find a place to live, they come up with traditional dance, food and festival for them to celebrate from escaping from the Burmese soldier.

They come up with a tradition called dee ku festival and lay loo festival, they festival begin in June to august, basically all they do is making rice out of bamboo leaf and boiling in hot pot full of water and they waited for 5 hours for the dee ku to be fully boiled, If it not boil properly the rice that being boil inside of the bamboo leaf will still be hard and wont able to eat it.

The Karenni are a resilient, gracious people with a great sense of humor. They have a very strong work ethic, and don’t complain. They live out of a basic belief that life is difficult, so you do what you have to do in order to survive. If faced with a difficult task, they might respond with ‘a lay hey oh to’ it doesn’t matter/ no problem. They demonstrate great dignity in providing for themselves and helping their fellow Karenni. They have a very strong connection and commitment to their own country, language, culture and people. They are not easily offended by outsiders Americans, and are very appreciative of any kind of help they receive. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for them to ask for help, even if they desperately need it. They might be almost completely out of food, yet give you the last food that they have if you came to visit.

The karenni refugee camp are located in Thailand (Bangkok City ) On the southern of the Thailand, They  First live in the northern west of Thailand than they migrant to southern for a safer place to live in. They Sometime have to leave their family and friend behind because they get sick and die when migrating because they didn’t have any medicine to cure the sickness of the people who is migrating together.

They Have education for adult and children when they find a place to settle down, they also started the community for the people who ineed of help, they build a hospital starting college  in Thailand. And some of them have brain damage. And when they finally free they come up with a dee ku festival and lay loo festival they all begin in June to august because it the time of summer and it really hot. When they migrating to the southern it was very hot and sunny that why they did their festival in summer season.

Dee Ku Festival

Dance The men dance around a very tall pole and the woman watch. The boys and girl do a line dance together.

When? People celebrate the Dee ku festival on September 9th or 10th.

Why? People celebrate the Dee Ku festval because three groups of Karenni people fought together in a war and won.

Where? People celebrate the Dee Ku festival in Thailand. k

Clothing We wear traditional karenni clothing. Girl wear red capes with stripes and wrap skirts and sashes. Boy wear red shirts with stripes,parts and head wraps.Dee Ku is the symbol of unity for the Karenni people, and it is made by sticky rice and green leaves which can last for 4 or 5 day without rotting and smelling. The Karenni people used the sticky rice when they fought the Yun King to get out from their land. After Yun King left, they celebrated their success with sticky rice packed by the green leaves which represented their symbol of unity. Because three tribes of Karenni, Kayah, Kayaw and Kayan participated in the war, they make small groups of DeeKhu and pick up three of them as one.

Food We eat Dee Ku. It is made of rice wrapped in leaves. We tie three pieces together to represent the three Karenni tribes that fought together. We eat with the sugar and it is delicious!

Music We play the drums, gong, flute and guitar. We sing traditional Karenni songs that tell Karenni stories.

Games We light fireworks. They are very loud! They are scary, but they are also beautiful and fun.

They have firework at the end july , it is scary and lound because they firework from Thailand are much danger than the firework from the united state.Due to the loundness of the firework it cause people to be deaf and sometime accident can happen at anytime, that why people karenni people who are standing close to the fire work most likely to be deaf and can’t  hear anything at all .

We Called our self The Red Karen, more commonly referred to as the Karenni, also known as the Kayah or the Kayahli meaning red human, are a Sino Tibetan people living mostly in Kayah State, Myanmar (Burma). The Karenni States were a collection of small states inhabited by Karenni people, ruled by petty princes named myozas. These included Kantarawadi, the only state whose ruler was promoted to a saopha or sawba, Kyebogyi, Bawlake, Nammekon and Naungpale. They were independent until British rule in Burma, and had feudal ties to the Burmese kingdom. The states bordered the Shan States of Mong Pai, Hsatung and Mawkmai to the north, Thailand to the east, the Papun district of Lower Burma to the south, and a stretch of the Karen Hills inhabited by the Bre and various other small tribes to the west. During British rule, the Karenni had a garrison of military police, which was stationed at the village of Loikaw.