MYTHOLOGIES OF THE LA HỦ/MUSER HILL TRIBE

The La Hủ tribe (Chinese: 拉祜族 Lāhùzú; Lahu: Ladhulsi / Kawzhawd; Vietnamese: La Hủ) are an ethnic group of China and Mainland Southeast Asia. The Chinese name “Lahu” literally means “to drag favour from heaven” (拉, lā, “to drag”; 祜, hù, “blessing, favour”). It replaced the older and more-offensive “Luohei” (猓黑) as the official Chinese name for the Lahu people. The Lahu divide themselves into a number of subgroups, such as the Lahu Na (Black Lahu), Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu), Lahu Hpu (White Lahu), Lahu Shi (Yellow Lahu) and the Lahu Shehleh. Where a subgroup name refers to a color, it refers to the traditional color of their dress. These groups do not function as tribes or clans – there are no kin groups above that of the family. Lahu trace descent bilaterally, and typically practice matrilocal residence.

Numbering less than 10,000, the La Hủ have one of the smallest populations of the ethnic minority groups in Vietnam. Living a semi nomadic lifestyle until 1996, many La Hủ are still active hunters in the dense forests of the far North Western mountains. Recently, their lives changed immeasurably with relocation due to hydro-electricity projects and the decision to convert to permanent settlements. The La Hủ now live in three villages in Muong Te District of Lai Chau. Most households now grow dry rice and corn. The La Hủ wear their traditional costumes which consists of a black, long-sleeved jacket reaching down to the ankles. The middle and lower front part of the jacket is decorated with thin red bands, while the sleeves are banded red. Headdresses are very colourful and made of bright pompoms. The La Hủ also make very unique, intricately designed conical hats from bamboo. La Hủ women usually do not weave. but sew, embroider and decorate their costumes from fabrics bought from the Lao or other ethnic groups in their vicinity. The La Hủ make colorful shoulder bags, either woven on a back-strap loom or sewn from pieces of cloth and then decorated with embroidery. These shoulder bags are carried by both sexes. The La Hủ have a good reputation as craftsmen and craftswomen, producing certain utensils made from bamboo and rattan. They weave sturdy back-baskets and storage-baskets of open or close weave, various kinds of traps for catching fish, birds and small animals and several musical instruments in many sizes. La Hủ men are also skilled blacksmiths, producing axes, knives and hoes.

The Lahu are a strong independent and very diverse ethnic group who number about 60,000 in Thailand. The Lahu are located primarly in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces, but can also be found in considerable numbers as far south as Tak province. Their settlements are usually remote from roads and towns, due to their strong commitment to the maintenance of the Lahu way of life. The Lahu are complex and diverse ethnicity. In Thailand there are no fewer than six different Lahu tribes, some of whose languages are not mutually intelligible. The majority of Lahus in Thailand are Red Lahu, pantheistic animists who follow a Dtobo, a messianic leader. There are also a significant number of Black, Yellow and Shehleh Lahus in Thailand, many of whom have been Christian for nearly one hundred years. Black Lahu are the most populous throughout Southeast Asia and theirs is considered to be the standard Lahu dialect. Although primarily subsistence farmers, growing rice and corn for their own consumption, the Lahu are also proud of their hunter-warrior heritage. They remain a strict, serious people governed by strong principles of right and wrong, every individual in the village answering to the common will of the elders. While less importance is placed on the extended family than in other hill tribe communities, the Lahu are still strongly committed to principles of unity and working together for survival. Lahus may have the most gender-equitable society in the world.

The La Hủ live in scattered hamlets on hill slopes. Each hamlet comprises a group of three or four families. However, they have adopted a sedentary lifestyle and begun to build more and more house on the ground, with partitịons and sides made of plaited bamboo. Some houses have clay walls like those of the neighboring Hà Nhì. The interior design does not follow any conventional order but there is ahvays a hearth serving as the kitchen and “heating” for the family. The hearth is located in the part of the house where the head of the family sleeps. The altar to ancestors is fixed to the partition at the head of the latter’s bed. La Hủ women usually wear knee-length or dark indigo dresses, buttoned on the right and decorated at the neck and chest level with pieces of cloth in different colors and a band of green, red, white and black cloth sewn
together. On special occasions, they put over them white sleeveless vests,
closed at the front and adomeđ with motifs of butterílies, pieces of silver or
alluminium money, and íringes made of red thread. The La Hủ live mainly on slash-and-burn cultivation, hunting and gathering. Corn is the principal food crop grown beside gourd plants, beans, vegetables and others. Work on milpas is done with knives, small picks and especially, the digging sticks with ends and “hardened” by fíre. Each plot
of land is cultivated for one or two years, then left fallow for two or three
years. The cycle may be renewed three or four times, and the land then is
abandoned for good. The La Hủ have to eat various tubers, roots, wild
fruits and vegetables, and starchy plants during the pre-harvest time.
Agricultural output is very low. Besides the crossbow as the usual weapon
for hunting, they also use ílintlocks and traps. Fishing is carried out with
bow-nets and more recently, with nets, or by hand at the moment when the
fỉsh or frogs lay their eggs in ponds or streams. The La Hủ are skilled in
basketry and ironwork. The Products are primarily used in the community;
some are exchanged with the Thái, Hà Nhì and other groups for salt and
agricultural implements.

The inhabitants themselves normally consist of the nuclear family of parents and unmarried children, and will often include one or more sons-in-law and perhaps grandchildren. It is a Lahu tradition that a man will live with his wife’s parents, at least for a few years, and provide labor. The labor may be provided for a longer time if it is given in lieu of a dowry payment for his bride. Since it is not uncommon to have ten or more children, the house can get very full. Usually, though, as soon as the next daughter gets married, the previously married couple will build a new house for themselves in the wife’s village. The Chinese refer to the Lahu as tiger hunters. Noone is certain how this designation originated, but the La in their name means tiger in their own language and, to this day, much of the meat they eat comes from hunting wild animals — including tiger. The Thai name for the Lahu, mussur, means hunter. The technology may have changed from crossbows to guns, but they hunt with the same enthusiasm. Most of us have never experienced hunting in the part of the world where the Lahu live. Dense, semi-tropical, monsoon rain forest, this land is home not only to wild tiger but also boar, deer, lethally poisonous snakes and dozens of other species which make a fine meal. The tiger also features in a somewhat bizarre part of Lahu mythology, which recounts the first solar eclipse when a tiger ate the sun.

Images