Thailand blog

I really don't know much about the background of the Akha traditions & what the meaning of the swing & everything is. But Tyler found some interesting & pretty accurate (from what I've heard) information.

Akha people who have converted from their traditional belief system (worship of the ancestors, or animism) to Christianity, hold on to some of their original customs and ceremonies IF they convert to catholicism.
Those who move to a protestant based faith, discard all of this. It explains why in some Christian Akha villages, the traditional swing, and spirit gates, can still be seen, while they have disappeared from others.

Hundreds of years ago the Akha had their own kingdom in China, but it was conquered by stronger tribes. Many Akha were made slaves, while others fled to remote mountain areas. Later, these refugees were chased away again, further to the south into Burma, where, so it turned out, peace was also difficult to find. About 1900, the first Akha crossed the border to settle in the mountainous north of Thailand. The kingdom was to become a relatively safe and peaceful haven for them. More than 40,000 Akha now live in Thailand spread among 200 villages, most of them in Chiang Rai province. But another 700,000 Akha still live in China, Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

‘For centuries they have fled suppression,’ explained the late Dr. Leo Alting von Geusau (1), a well-known Akha-expert who lived in Chiang Mai. ‘So, when missionaries and anthropologists described them as semi-nomadic, this was a rather slanted interpretation of the real situation. They are born losers who have internalized their fate. Mere survival has become the core of their culture. They regard the outside world with great suspicion, as being full of potential evil forces. Even now, visiting officials are regarded with distrust and spoken to with sweet words and offered glasses of rice liquor to appease them. But once a year the Akha throw off these feelings of constraint. Then, after the rice has been planted, they erect giant swings in their villages, ‘because when you don’t have your country any more,’ according to a Akha New Year song, ‘you still can feel free while swinging in the air.’