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Karen Tradition According to Christ or Buddha: The Implications of Multiple Reinterpretations for a Minority Ethnic Group in Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

Yoko Hayami
Yoko Hayami
Affiliation:
Kyoto University
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Abstract

This article discusses the significance of religious diversity for a minority ethnic group (the Karen) in the midst of integration into the Thai nation state, addressing both the historical and cultural momentum of initial acceptance, and the subsequent diversifying reformulation and redefinition of identity and community through the adopted religions.

Type
Symposium: Protestants and Tradition in Southeast Asia
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , September 1996 , pp. 334 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1996

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References

1 Keyes, Charles F.,”Introduction”, in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: the Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma, ed. Keyes, C.F. (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1979), p. 12Google Scholar.

2 Peter Kunstadter, “Ethnic Group, Category, and Identity: Karen in Northern Thailand”, in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity, ed. Keyes, p. 131; and Hinton, Peter, “Do the Karen Really Exist?”, Highlanders of Thailand, ed. McKinnon, John and Bhruksasri, Wanat (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 162Google Scholar.

3 According to the Karen Baptist Convention's annual meeting files, the total number of baptized Baptist Christians among Karen in Northern Thailand, was 11,500 in 1988 (Karen Baptist Convention, 1988), and Feuilles Missionaires, a bulletin published by Catholic missionaries in Thailand gives the number of baptized Karen Catholics as 9,630 in 1986 (accounting for more than half of the 15,281 Catholics in Northern Thailand). The figures do not include younger family members and other non-baptized Karen who also participate in Christian activities.

4 For example, in 1987 the number of monks and novices at the training centre for the programme in the North, was 226, out of which 95 were Karen. Others are 18 Akha, 17 Lisu, 11 Shan, etc. (Annual Report of the Thammacarik Program, 1987).

5 Examples of studies on millennialistic cults include Peter Hinton, “The Karen, Millennialism, and the Politics of Accommodation to Lowland States”, Ethnic Adaptation and Identity, ed. Keyes, pp. 81–94; Stern, Theodore, “Ariya and the Golden Book: A Millenarian Buddhist Sect among the Karen”, Journal of Asian Studies 27,2 (1968): 297–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wijeyewardene, G., “The Theravada Compact and the Karen”, Sojourn 2,1 (1987): 31–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Studies which mention Buddhist activities and Christian conversion among Karen include Madha, Michael, “Economic Development and Social Change: The Structure of Two Sgaw Karen Communities in North-west Thailand” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1980)Google Scholar; Peter Kunstadter, “Ethnic Group”, and “Animism, Buddhism, and Christianity: Religion in the Life of Lua People of Pa Pae, North-Western Thailand”, in Highlanders of Thailand, ed. McKinnon and Bhruksasri, pp. 135-54. Studies of changes within traditional practices include Iijima, Shigeru, Karen-zoku no Shakai Bunka Henyo [Social and Cultural Change among the Karen] (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1971)Google Scholar; Mischung, Roland, “Religion in a Cgau (Sgaw) Karen Village of Western Upland Chiang Mai Province, Northwest Thailand” (Bangkok: Final Research Report presented to the National Research Council of Thailand, 1980)Google Scholar.

6 For a more detailed exposition of the process of religious change among the Karen, see Hayami, Yoko, “Ritual and Religious Transformation Among Sgaw Karen of Northern Thailand: Implications on Gender and Ethnic Identity” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1992)Google Scholar. The Thammacarik programme is discussed in detail in Hayami, Yoko, “Buddhist Missionary Project in the Hills of Northern Thailand: A Case Study from a Cluster of Karen Villages” (in Japanese), Southeast Asian Studies 32,2 (1994): 231–50Google Scholar.

7 Charles F. Keyes, “The Karen in Thai History and the History of the Karen in Thailand”, in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity, ed. Keyes, pp. 25–61. Throughout this paper, I use “Burman” to designate the ethnic majority in what is today Myanmar.

8 There is no standardized system for transcribing the Karen language. In this paper, an approximation of the International Phonetic Alphabet is used without tone markers.

9 See for example, Peter Hinton, “The Karen, Millennialism and the Politics of Accommodation”, p. 86; Peter Kunstadter, “Ethnic Group”, p. 163; Marshall, Harry I., The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1922), pp. 279–80Google Scholar; and Stern, “Ariya and the Golden Book”, p. 303.

10 Hinton,”The Karen”, p. 86.

11 Shwe, Loo, “The Karen People of Thailand and Christianity”, Manuscript in the Payap University Archives, Chiang Mai, 1962Google Scholar.

12 Hinton, “The Karen”, pp. 85–86; F.K. Lehman, “Who Are the Karen, and If So, Why? Karen Ethnohistory and a Formal Theory of Ethnicity”, in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity, ed. Keyes, pp. 215–53; David H. Marlowe, “In the Mosaic: The Cognitive and Structural Aspects of Karen-Other Relationships”, in ibid., pp. 165–214. See also Kammerer, Cornelia A., “Territorial Imperatives: Akha Ethnic Identity and Thailand's National Integration”, in Ethnicities and Nations: Processes of Interethnic Relations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, ed. Guidieri, R., Pellizzi, F. and Tambiah, S.J. (Houston: Rothko Chapel, 1986), pp. 277–91Google Scholar.

13 Lehman recognizes this same tendency among the Kayah Karen (Red Karen). In explaining how the Kayah in Thailand superficially adopt Buddhism from neighbouring Shan, he points to the “Kayah ideological attitude” of, firstly, accepting wisdom from charismatic leaders from the outside, and, secondly, acknowledging the departure of their own charismatic leader iyluw. Lehman, “Who are the Karen”, p. 244.

14 Tapp, Nicholas, “The Impact of Missionary Christianity upon Marginalized Ethnic Minorities: The Case of the Hmong”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 20,1 (Mar. 1989): 70–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Marshall refers to Ywa as the creator deity of the Karen (The Karen People of Burma, p. 211). While the above legend does attribute such characteristics to Ywa, the extent to which it has been subject to Christian influences is impossible to determine. The status of Ywa among the traditionalist Karen is ambiguous.

16 See Aberle, D., The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho (London: Aldine, 1966)Google Scholar and Burridge, K., New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969)Google Scholar.

17 See Hinton, “The Karen”, and Stern, “Ariya and the Golden Book”, p. 303.

18 H.I. Marshall, “The Karen People”, p. 297; Stern, “Ariya and the Golden Book”, p. 303.

19 Hinton, “The Karen”; F.K. Lehman, “Who Are the Karen”; and Stern, “Ariya and the Golden Book”.

20 Millenarian cults are also prevalent among the Lahu, and Christian and Buddhist influence are also relatively strong. In the Lahu tradition, there is a creator deity Guisha whose imminent return is anticipated by the millenarian cults, which are similar to the Karen Ywa cults. See Walker, Anthony R., “The Lahu People: An Introduction”, in Farmers in the Hills: Ethnographic Notes on the Upland Peoples of North Thailand, ed. Walker, A.R. (Singapore: Suvarnabhumi Books, 1986 [1975]), p. 121Google Scholar, and “Messianic Movements Among the Lahu of the Yunnan-Indochina Borderlands”, Southeast Asia: An International Quarterly 3, 2 (1974): 699–711Google Scholar. Among the Hmong people who have also frequently followed messianic cults which worked both for and against Christian missionary efforts, there is a similar legend of a culture hero Tswb Tchoj. See Tapp, Nicholas, Sovereignty and Rebellion: The White Hmong of Northern Thailand (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

21 U Zan and E. Sowards, “Baptist Work Among Karens”, Burma Baptist Chronicle, Book I, ed. Wa, Maung Shwe (Rangoon: Burma Baptist Convention, 1963)Google Scholar. See also Stern, “Ariya and the Golden Book”, and Rajah, Ananda, “Transformations of Karen Myths of Origin and Relations of Power”, in Patterns and Illusions: Thai History and Thought, ed. Wijeyewardene, Gehan and Chapman, E.C. (Canberra: Australian National University, 1993), pp. 235–74Google Scholar.

22 This differentiation of worship and custom contrasts with the Akha case discussed in Kammerer, Cornelia A., “Customs and Christian Conversion Among Akha Highlanders of Burma and Thailand”, American Ethnologist 17,2 (1990): 277–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Akha, Akha zah is coterminous with Akha religion as well as Akha identity, and encompasses not only “religion” in the western sense, but also kinship, economy and all aspects of traditional life. Conversion to Christianity is a replacement by ye su zah (the way of Jesus).

23 Loo Shwe, “Karen People"; U Zan and Sowards, “Baptist Work”; and H.M.N. Armstrong, “Karen Folklore: An Unwritten Bible”, manuscript dated 1913 held by the Payap University Archives in Chiang Mai.

24 A more detailed version of a similar legend is reported in Kumiko Yoshimatsu, “The Karen World: the Cosmological and Ritual Belief System of the Sgaw Karen in Northwestern Chiang Mai Province”. Research Report Presented to the National Research Council of Thailand, 1989.

25 The degree to which traditional practices are discontinued differs somewhat between denominations. In general, the Catholic missionaries incorporate or allow more traditional practices than the Baptist. For example, a notable difference between the Baptist and Catholic churches is that the former bans liquor while the latter does not, a major point considering the importance of liquor in traditional ritual practice.

26 Conklin, James E., “Worldview Evangelism: A Case Study of the Karen Baptist Church in Thailand” (D. of Missiology diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1984), p. 28Google Scholar. Conklin mentions that Thra Loo Shwe, a Karen evangelist sent from Burma in the 1930s, introduced this form of prayer meeting. It is not clear whether he brought it over from Burma or devised it himself for the Thai Karen.

27 Keyes, Charles F., “Buddhism and National Integration in Thailand”, Journal of Asian Studies 30 (1971): 551–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 The structure has not been given formal “temple” status by the Department of Religion. However, the villagers refer to it as a wat.

29 Detailed accounts of a Northern Thai version of this ritual are given by Davis, Richard, Muang Metaphysics: A Study of Northern Thai Myth and Ritual (Bangkok: Pandora, 1984), pp. 104–118Google Scholar, and by Cohen, Paul T., ‘“Paeng Baan’: the Reification and Regeneration of a Village in Northern Thailand”, Mankind 9 (1974): 319–23Google Scholar. In many of the Northern Thai temples, the ritual is performed annually by monks. Laurence Judd reports a case where it is presided over by an abbot. See his Chao Rai Thai: Dry Rice Farmers in Northern Thailand (Bangkok: Suriyaban Publishers, 1977), p. 273Google Scholar.

30 Kunstadter notes that Karen feel very little attachment to a particular village or territory, and their identity is not bound to any place of residence (Kunstadter, “Ethnic Group, Category, and Identity”, p. 138). It may be true that swidden cultivating Karen may have been less bound to a particular locality and land. Nevertheless, a sense of belonging to a community is crucial, both for subsistence and ritual reasons.

31 Robert W. Hefner, p. 28, “World Building and the Rationality of Conversion”, in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, ed. Hefner, Robert W. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 3–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Mischung, Roland, Religion und Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen in Einem Karen-Dorf Nordwest Thailands (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1984), pp. 224–25Google Scholar. Mischung could not elicit any answers from the villagers as to why they were not interested in Buddhism, but draws his own conclusion.

33 Barth, Fredrik, “Introduction”, in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, ed. Barth, F. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1969), pp. 9–38Google Scholar; Leach, Edmund R., Political Systems of Highland Burma (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954)Google Scholar; and Lehman, F.K., “Kayah Society as a Function of the Shan-Burman-Karen Context”, Contemporary Changes in Traditional Societies, ed. Steward, Julian H. (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1967), pp. 1–104Google Scholar.

34 Barth, “Introduction”, pp. 14–15.

35 According to the Thammacarik headquarters annual report, in 1987, 219 households underwent this rite in all of Northern Thailand.

36 Ronald D. Renard, Prasert Bhandhachat and G. Lamar Robert, “A Study of Karen Student Mobility to Northern Thai Cities: Directions, Problems, Suggested Courses of Action”. Submitted to the Thai Norwegian Church Aid Highland Development Project, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1987.