Hmong and Khmu compared

15 January 2013

Nine months ago, back in Poole, when we were first planning this trip we had a meal with our friend Roy, who had spent some time in Thailand, to pick his brains about life in SE Asia. At the time we arranged to meet up in Luang Prabang if our travel plans coincided. Sure enough, this week, on Saturday, he arrived on the night bus from Vientiane and is staying for a few days here in one of the bungalows.

We knew Roy back in early 1980s when he owned Earthfoods in Bournemouth while we were running Coaster magazine, and then when we had adjacent flats in Beaulieu Road, Westbourne, but have not seen much of each other since he left to live in Northern Ireland in the mid-eighties. It’s been good to catch up and renew our friendship.

Roy and Trevann discussing veg in Phosy Market

Sunday was spent walking, exploring the side streets and main sites of Luang Prabang, showing Roy our favourite areas, from Phosy Market and the weaving centre Ock Pop Tok, through to the monument to the Clapping Red Prince, the UXO exhibition (although closed on Sunday), the old bridge over the Nam Khan, and Mount Phousi.

Then on Monday we arranged a trip with Khoun to visit two traditional hill tribe villages – one Hmong and the other Khmu.

The five of us set off in the jeep, wearing surgical facemasks against the dust and bearing two carrier bags of instant noodles and eggs, which Khoun assured us were suitable gifts to offer in exchange for a view of the hill tribe family homes and life.

We wound our way up into the hills for perhaps an hour, the mountainsides getting steeper and the valleys deeper. Eventually, just past a new looking block-built primary school, the road petered out in a dusty Hmong village and we all piled out.

Typical Hmong house.

The Hmong are traditionally mountain dwellers, but these villagers had been displaced 20 years ago, forced by the government to leave their villages high in the mountain and resettle in lower lands in a US-funded bid to combat opium production. Of course, having had their source of income removed they are very poor and have no access to the money economy. They practise a bit of subsistence agriculture, growing bok choi in the valleys and spring onions on the rocky slopes, sell a few needlework souvenirs and continue to hunt for small animals and birds in the forests.

We wandered round the village, with Khoun guiding us to families he knew would be welcoming and explaining everything to us as we went. We handed out noodles and eggs to women and children. Some families were happy for us to see inside their homes. (If a family didn’t want visitors they hung woven straw symbols around the front door.)

Superficially, the village looked lovely - an idyllic setting.

This girl was wearing school uniform so probably went to the Japanese-funded school at the edge of the village.

Girls still get married at 14 or 15 and start families very young.

Making a mallet.

The Hmong houses are made of bamboo and thatch and have no windows. The cooking is done on an open wood fire on the earth floor inside. Most of them have electricity – and there were a couple of satellite dishes. We were invited in the village shaman’s home to have a look around but because it was dark it was difficult to tell what I was photographing at first. Sacks of rice, squash and gourds were stored in sacks at one end; the telly took centre stage, whereas the altar for the spirits was on a side wall!

Khoun looks doubtfully at the Shaman's lunch - rat and greens. yum.

Khoun told us about the ceremony the shaman performs, dancing on a platform in a trance for up to 8 hours, communicating with the spirit world.

Animism is practised. This was the spirit altar in the Shaman's house.

Inside the Shaman's home. No windows so it was dark.

Food is cooked on an open fire. The ceiling was black and sticky from the smoke. Not good for the lungs.

Food stored in sacks at one end of the room.

Kitchen utensils and bottles of pig fat.

This bed had a mosquito net but Khoun said that was unusual in this village. Malaria is a constant threat.

The other sources of income come from materials the Hmong gather from the forest. All around the village there were strips of bark drying in the sun. These are bought by the Chinese for traditional medicine. One husband and wife were busy making strips of grass thatch as roofing. This is where Khoun buys the thatch for the bungalows. The couple gather the 6-foot-long grass on the mountain slopes and sew it into panels – nowadays using nylon string – arghh!

Strips of bark sold for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

Grass harvested in the mountains.

It's then sewn together in panels for thatching.

Sewing grass roof panels - 12-14 hours a day.

White threads for good fortune. A bridge to the spirit world.

Rice storage - protected from termites

Roy, Khoun and Trevann with sugar cane.

Having distributed our noodles and eggs and been given sugar cane to chew, we said our goodbyes and drove off, Khoun carrying the cooked rat the shaman had insisted on giving him!

The Shaman insisted on Khoun accepting his kind gift. We took it home in a plastic bag.

We stopped at the next door village – a Khmu community. The Khmu come from mid altitudes, rather than the high mountains of the Hmong, and traditionally use animal husbandry, rather than hunting. The houses are on stilts and the families living upstairs while (traditionally) the animals – cows, buffalos, goats and chickens - live on the open-sided ground floor. Rice is the staple for these people – either dry rice grown on the hillsides or wet rice grown in water in the valley bottom.

A typical Khmu house.

snug.

Khoun demonstrates a rice threshing machine.

Children were playing hoopla with a bike tyre and stick.

The villagers get together to help each other in building a new house.

Rice drying in the sun.

They seemed more prosperous than the Hmong next door. The children were well fed and found it hilarious to present us with little “bouquets” in the form of twigs and wilted leaves.