Sunday, December 18, 2011

18/12/2011 International migrant day Bangkok Thailand.





၁၈/၁၂/၂၀၁၁ ဘန္ေကာက္ ကမၻာ့ေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းအလုပ္သမားေန႔ အမွတ္တရဓါတ္ပံုတစ္ခ်ိဳ႕

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Nothing is impossible in life

From one of the poorest family's chair to the most powerful chair in the world.


OBAMA PIC... in 1987 21 yrs old at his birth place.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The 7th Pa-Oh National day Bangkok Thailand.

ขอเชิญร่วมงาน

งานศิลปะวัฒนธรรมชนเผ่าปะโอ ครั้งที่ 7

มื่อนีเคือปะโอ แด่นสีหล่าบ่วย

ประจำปี 2554

วันที่ 20 มีนาคม 2554 เวลา 08.00 – 17.00 น.

สถานที่ วัดท่าข้าม ถ. ท่าข้าม ซอย 7 หลัง บิ๊กซี พระราม 2 บางขุนเทียน กรุงเทพฯ



ปะโอคือชนกลุ่มน้อยหรือกลุ่มชาติพันธ์กลุ่มหนึ่ง คนไม่ค่อยรู้จักกันมากนักเท่าไร ประชากรมีโดยประมาณ ห้าล้านกว่าคน ในประเทศพม่าส่วนมาอยู่ตามที่รัฐฉาน รัฐกะเรี่ยง และรัฐมอญ ในประเทศไทยก็อยู่ในจังหวัดเชียงราย เชียงใหม่ แม่ฮ่องสอนและตาก ส่วนมากคนไทยเรียกว่ากะเรียงดำ ที่จริงแล้วคือชนเผ่าปะโอนั้นเอง ปัจจุบันนี้ แรงงานปะโอในกรุงเทพและปริมณฑล มีประมาณ ๖๐,๐๐ กว่าคน ชาติพันธ์ ปะโอ มีรากฐานทางวัฒนธรรมที่เป็นลักษณ์ของตนอย่างชัดเจน ไม่ว่าจะเป็นภาษาพูด ภาษาเขียน การแต่งกาย ดนตรี ตลอดจนความสามารถด้านหัตถศิลป์

ดังนั้น เพื่อให้เกิดการเรียนรู้ ความเข้าใจ และทัศนคติที่ดีต่อความหลากหลาย ทางวัฒนธรรมดังกล่าว ได้ขยายผลออกไปสู่ สังคมในวงกว้าง จึงได้จัดงาน วันรำลึกชาติพันธ์ปะโอ งานแสดงวัฒนธรรมปะโอ และนิทรรศการ ชื่อว่า แด่นซีหลาบ่วย เน้นแนวความคิดร่วมสมัย ที่สะท้อนประเด็นของความเป็นอยู่ วิธีชีวิต และเสรีภาพที่ขยายเติบโต รวมถึงการเปิดกว้างในการรับค่านิยมอย่างไม่มีขีดจำกัด จุดประกายความคิด ในการสร้างความอยู่เย็นเป็นสุข ให้เกิดขึ้นในสังคม ด้วยมุมมองใหม่ และหลากหลายนิยามความหมายของคำว่า หลากหลายทางวัฒนธรรม

นอกจากนั้น ในกิจกรรม ยังมีการจัดกิจกรรมเสวนา เพื่อเรียนรู้ในด้านกฎหมายแรงงาน การศึกษา และ ด้านสุขภาพ เพื่อที่จะประยุคใช้ในชีวิตประจำวันของแรงงานปะโอและแรงงานข้ามชาติทั่วไป.... ฉะนั้นจึงขอเชิญ ผู้มีเกียรติ์ทุกท่าน มาร่วมงาน ชมงานวัฒนธรรม ชาติพันธ์ปะโอ



ร่วมจัดงานโดย ပအို၀္းအမ်ိဳးသားေန႔႔၀ိုင္း၀န္းကူညီက်င္းပေသာအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ား

1. กลุ่มแรงงานปะโอ (Pa-Oh Migrant Workers: PMW)

2. เครือข่ายปฏิบัติการเพื่อแรงงานข้ามชาติ (Action Network for Migrants : ANM)

3. เครือข่ายองค์กรด้านประชากรข้ามชาติ (Migrant Working Group: MWG)

4. โครงการพัฒนาคุณภาพชีวิตแรงงานข้ามชาติและผู้มีปัญหาสถานะบุคคล (สสส.)

5. โครงการรณรงค์เพื่อแรงงานไทย (Thai Labour Campaign : TLC)

6. ศูนย์วัฒนธรรมแรงงาน (บางกะปิ) (Labour Culture Centure ‘Bang Kapi’)

7. โครงการ การศึกษาชนเผ่าปะโอ (Pa-Oh Education Project: PEP)



รายละเอียดโทร : 081 6926813





กิจกรรมและกำหนดการ အစီအစဥ္

08 : 00 – 08 : 30 ลงทะเบียนผู้เข้าร่วมงาน

ဧည့္ႀကိဳျခင္း

08 : 30 - 10 : 00 กล่าวชี้แจงวัตถุประสงค์การจัดงาน ความเป็นมาของชนเผ่าปะโอและวัฒนธรรมปะโอ โดย ตัวแทนกลุ่ม

แรงงานปะโอ

အမ်ိဳးသားအလံေတာ္အေလးျပဳျခင္း ”ပအို၀္းသြီး”သီခ်င္းသီဆိုျခင္း

· အစီအစဥ္ႏွင့္ အမ်ိဳးသားေန႔ဦးတည္ရည္မွန္းခ်က္ဖတ္ၾကား = နန္းေထြးရီ (ျမန္မာလို) နန္းငဲခမ္း (ပအို၀္းလို)

· ပအို၀္းေနာက္ခံသမိုင္းအက်ဥ္းထုတ္ေဖာ္ေဟာေျပာ = ခြန္က၀္းဗြန္း

· ေတာင္ေပၚေျမျပန္႔ေသြးစည္းညီညြတ္ေရး ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေဟာေျပာ = ခြန္ခမ္းေက်ာ္

· ၾသ၀ါဒ = ခြန္ခမ္းေမာင္

· ၾသ၀ါဒ = ခြန္ေမာင္လွ

· กล่าวเปิดงานโดย (คุณบัณฑิต แป้นวิเศษ ประธานเครือข่ายปฏิบัติการเพื่อแรงงานข้ามชาติ)

အခမ္းအနားဖြင့္လွစ္ျခင္း ( ဗန္ဒစ္ ပိုင္း၀ိစစ္ ေရႊ႔ေျပာင္းအလုပ္သမား၀န္ႀကီးဥကၠဌ )

· แสดงการเต้นรำปะโอ ( มื่อนีเคือปะโอ )

မွဴးနီခွဳိပအိုး အကေဖ်ာ္ေျဖတင္ဆက္ျခင္း

· แสงการเต็นรำ วัฒนะธรรมปะโอ โดย (คุณอองคำ)

ပအို၀္းရိုးရာသိုင္းအကျဖင့္ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖတင္ဆက္ျခင္း

10 : 00 -11 : 00 แลกเปลี่ยนความรู้ในด้านการศึกษา และด้านสุขภาพโดย

ပညာေရးႏွင့္က်န္းမာေရးဆိုင္ရာ ႏွီးေႏွာဖယ္လွယ္ျခင္း

· ลัดดาวัลย์ หลักแก้ว มูลนิธิเพื่อการพัฒนาเยาวชนในชนบท

လတ္ဒါ၀န္ လတ္ကေရာ (လူငယ္တိုးတက္ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးေရးအဖြဲ႔အစည္း)မွ ေဟာေျပာေပးျခင္း

· ธิดารัตน์ แดหวา องค์กรอินเตอร์เนชั่นแนลเรสคิวคอมมิตี

ထိဒါရတ္ ဒယ္၀ါ (International Rescue Committee) မွ ေဟာေျပာေပးျခင္း

11 : 00 -12 : 00 ทำบุญเลี้ยงพระถวายสังฆทาน อุทิศบุญกุศลให้ สูริยะ จันตา

သူရိယစႏၵာမင္းအားရည္စူး၍ သဃၤာေတာ္မ်ားဆြမ္းကပ္ျခင္း

12 : 00 -13 : 00 ให้ความรู้ในด้านกฎหมายแรงงานและขั้นตอนการแก้ไขปัญหาที่ แรงงานเผชิญบ่อยครั้ง

အလုပ္သမားဥပေဒပညာေပးျခင္းႏွင့္အလုပ္သမားမ်ားရင္ဆိုင္ရေသာျပႆနာ

မ်ားကုိေျဖရွင္းျခင္းနည္းလမ္းမ်ား

โดย นาย นัสเซอร์ นาย ธนู นักกฎหมาย จากสภาทนายความ (Lawyers Council of Thailand)

ထိုင္းေရွ႔ေနေကာင္စီမ်ားအဖြဲ႔မွ ဥပေဒပညာရွင္မ်ား တက္ေရာက္ေဟာေျပာေပးျခင္း

· การศึกษา มยช.= ช่วยพูดเรื่องวิธีการสมัครนักเรียนต่างชาติเข้าโรงเรียน กทม. ในเขตกทม.ใต้ การเตรียมความพร้อมเด็ก

ထိုင္းပညာေရး၀န္ႀကီးဌာနမွ ေရႊ႔ေျပာင္းအလုပ္သမားပညာေရးအစီအစဥ္ ေဟာေျပာျခင္း

· สุขภาพ IRC = ถาม-ตอบข้อกังวล เบ็ดเตล็ดเรื่องการประกันสุขภาพ ประกันสังคม อื่นๆเดี๋ยวจะรวบรวมว่ามีเอกสารพม่า

ကမၻာ့ကယ္ဆယ္ေရးေကာ္မတီအဖြဲ႔ IRC မွ က်န္းမာေရးအာမခံခ်က္ႏွင့္လူမွဳလံုၿခံဳေရးအေမးအေျဖေဆြးေႏြးျခင္း
13 : 00 -17 : 00 ชมการแสดงวัฒนธรรมปะโอ เช่น เต้นรำและร้องเพล
ယဥ္ေက်းမွဳအဖြဲ႔မွ အဆို အက မ်ားေဖ်ာ္ေျဖတင္ဆက္ျခင္း
17 : 00 ปิดงานและเดินทางกลับโดยปลอดภัย ပအို၀္းအလင္းေတာက္ပရမည္ ပအို၀္းကမၻာၾကာရွည္ရမည္ဟု
အခမ္းအနားၿပီးဆံုးမည္

ัตถุประสงค์ของการจัดงาน

1/ ่งเสริมกำลังใจ, พัฒนาคุณภาพชีวิตและศักดิ์ศรีความเป็นมนุษย์

2/ ร้างความสมัคคีน้ำหนึ่งใจเดียวกันและ เอกลักษณ์ ที่ชัดเจน

3/ นุรักษ์ภาษาพูดและภาษาเขียน

4/ นุรักษ์วัฒนธรรม, เครื่องดนตรีและ ชุดแต่งกาย

5/ ัฒนาการศึกษาและ ส่งเสริมความรู้ในด้านเทคโนโลยี่เพื่อเข้าสู่โลกกว้าง

6/ พื่อที่จะได้รับสิทธิเสรีภาพเท่าเทียมกันและ ความยุติธรรมในความเป็นมนุษย์

7/ พื่อที่ชนเผ่าปะโอและวัฒนธรรมปะโอได้มีอยู่ต่อไป ในโลกใบนี้จนกระทั่งโลกสิ้นสุด


The Commemorative Pa-Oh National day,20/03/ 2011


งบประมาณจาก โครงการ การศึกษาชนเผ่าปะโอ (Pa-Oh Education Project: PEP)

ရန္ပံုေငြေထာက္ပံ့ေၾကး (ပအို၀္းပညာေရးစီမံကိန္း) paoheducation@gmail.com

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Pa-Oh in Burma

The Pa-O in Burma
     The Pa-O is called Taungthu by the Burmese, and Taungsu or Tongsu by the Shan. The term Taunghu has a double meaning in Burmese. It can mean “southern people,” when referring to those Pa-O living in the Thaton area of Lower Burma, as well as “hill people.” The Pa-O interprets the latter as “peasant,” a demeaning term. They refer to themselves as Pa-O.
The Pa-O are regarded as one of four main subgroups of the Karen. The other
three subgroups are the Sgaw, Pwo, and Karenni. The Pa-O are most closely related linguistically to the Pwo. C.M. Enriquez identifies ten tribal divisions
within the Pa-O: five in the Thaton area and five in southern Shan State.
Aye Myint, who confines her study to southern Shan State, also lists ten     Pa-O subgroups. Maung Khun Noay (Inle) lists fifteen subgroups in southern Shan, karenni (Kayah), and Karen (Kayin) states. However, there may be as many as twenty-four Pa-O subgroups. The Pa-O from the Thaton area in lower Burma refer to their people on the Shan plateau as highland Pa-O, while those in southern Shan State refer to those in the Thaton area of Lower Burma as lowland Pa-O. For the most part, the highland Pa-O has maintained their distinct language, traditional dress, and culture. They are recognizable by their black or dark blue traditional dress and colorful turbans. However, among the  subgroups there are variations in language and dress. It is commonly accepted that the lowland Pa-O have largely become Burmanized. Along with their neighbors the Mon and the Karen, they have largely adopted Burmese language, dress, and customs. However, over fifty years ago C.C. Lowis noted that the Taungthus are “almost the only Lower Burma Karens who have preserved their tribal homogeneity (sic). According to Pa-O legend, they migrated south into Burma from the high plateau of central Asia. In lower Burma they established the city of Thaton, east of present day Rangoon. There they prospered, developing a kingdom and a sophisticated culture. Even though the Pa-O shared Thaton with the Mon, the Pa-O claim Thaton as their capital and regard the kings of Thaton as their own. Although virtually all historians agree that Thaton was a Mon Kingdom, the Pa-O cite a work by a Pa-O abbot that states that the first 158 kings of Thaton were Pa-O and the last seventeen were offspring of Pa-O/ Mon intermarriage. Enriquez lends support to their claim when he reports, “There were once Thaungthu Kings at Thaton, of whom Thit Tabang Mingi is still spoken of. To add to the confusion, G.E. Harvey cites from the Glass Palace Chronicle, “From Thirharaja to Manuha there were eight and forty kings in Thaton.” Arthur P. Phayre notes that the Mon chronicles contain “a list of fifty-nine kings, for the most part fabulous, who are said to have reigned there. It is not uncommon for different groups of people to live in close proximity and still maintain their own language and traditions, and recognize a common leader. It is likely that the Pa-O living in Thaton, along with the Mon, accepted Manuha as their own king. Phayre adds that as “all records were destroyed or carried away (by the conquering Burmese in A.D.
1057), no account remains of the early history” of Thaton. Along with the lack of written documents, G. Coedes adds that “there are no archaeological remains of any importance” at the site to settle the dispute. Virtually nothing of the early history of Thaton survives except legend.
  The Pa-O and the Mon were among the earliest converts to Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia. J. George Scott wrote seventy years ago that the Taungthu are “nominally Buddhist” but they are in fact “animists. His observation probably was incorrect then, and certainly is today. Lowis more accurately described the Pa-O belief system as “Buddhism, tempered with animism. Most Pa-O are devout Buddhists. However, Buddhism was superimposed on animism over a thousand years ago and still has not entirely replaced it. Enriquez notes that “the Taungthus are Buddhists. They retain the Nat (animist) superstition.” In contrast to Western religions, Buddhism tolerates traditional animist beliefs as long as they do “not interfere with the keeping of the precepts and the more public observances fo Buddhism. Animism remains an underlying belief, particularly in rural areas where animist shrines are frequently found on the edges of many villages.
   Of the Karen subgroups the Pa-O are the only ones to develop a written language. Scott states that “the Taungthu certainly have a written character, but those who are able to read it are even fewer than the specimens of the literature. So far none of these have been obtained in the Shan States. William Dunn Hackett, writing fifty year later, and who lived among the Pa-O south of Taunggyi for five years, actually saw “in two or three of the oldest (monasteries) in and near Has Htung town . . . hand-written manuscripts. . . quite evidently of fairly ancient times.” He adds that “two factors led me to believe they were hundreds of years old; one was the yellow and archaic form which was almost unintelligible to monks, and completely so to the laymen. The abbot . . . told us that some of these writings had been brought with them when they moved from Thaton to Has Htung (present day His Hseng).” The Hackett stated in the early 1950s that the Pa-O language “has been written for years or more, perhaps.” The Pa-O written script was most likely developed when their civilization flourished, before the destruction of Thaton in A.D. 1057. If that is the case, then archaic Pa-O script is most likely to be more than one thousand years old. Thaton was at the time accessible from the sea and had considerable commercial, cultural, and religious contact with southern India and Ceylon. The Pa-O and Mon scripts were originally adapted from Indian script introduced by traders and Buddhist monks. Present-day written Pa-O is similar to the circular script of written Burmese; however, unique accent marks make it distinctive. Spoken Pa-O is very different from Burmese and the other over one hundred ethnic minority languages of Burma. Pa-O has more vowels than dose Burmese, and has six possible tones for syllables, while Burmese has only three. The other Karen subgroups either adapted Burmese or Roman script.
   The story continues: In A.D. 1057 the Burmese king, Anawrahta, from Pagan, in his desire to acquire copies of Buddhist sacred texts (the Pitakas)
That the king of Thaton had refused him, led a large army southward. After
a long siege Anawrahta conquered the kingdom, sacked the walled city, and captured the Pa-O king, Manuha. Manuha, together with most of the royal court, many monks, scholars, artisans, as well as the Buddhist scriptures, was taken back to Pagan.
       Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma was compiled in 1829 by a royal committee of scholars based upon earlier records. It recorded what at the time was believed to be the historical truth. The Glass Palace Chronicle
was so named because it was written at Ava in the Palace of Glass, whose walls were decorated with pieces of mirror and colored glass. It was translated into English in 1923. We learn from the Glass Palace Chronicle.
    So the (Burmese) king made ready a store of gifts and presents and sent a wise minister t Thaton to ask for them (the Pitakas) in seemly words. But the heart of the Thaton king was rancorous and evilly disposed, and he answered ill. There at Anawrahtanimsaw ( Anawrahta) waxed exceedingly wroth, and he gathered all his mighty men of valour and marched by land and water. By water he sent eight hundred thousand boats and four score million fighting men . . . His land force, it is said, contained eight hundred thousand elephants, eight million horses, and eighteen million fighting men.
       They constituted a formidable procession when viewed from the top of the late rite-faced walls that surrounded Thaton.
     Again from the Glass Palace Chronicle.
        He ( Anawrahta) brought away the sacred relics which were kept in a jeweled casker and worshipped by a line of kings in Thaton; and he placed thethirty sets of the Pitakas on the king’s thirty-two white elephants and brought  them away. Moreover, he sent off in turn the mighty men of valour and all the host of elephants and horses. Thereafter he sent away separately, without mixing, such men as were skilled in carving, turning, and painting; masons, moulders of plaster and flower-patterns; blacksmiths, silversmiths, braziers, founders of gongs and cymbals, filigree flower-workers; doctors and trainers of elephants and horses; makers of shields, round and embossed, of divers kinds of shields, of shield both oblong and convex; forgers of cannon, muskets, and bows; men skilled in frying, parching, baking and frizzling; yakin hairdressers, and men cunning in perfumes, odours, flowers
and juices of flowers. Moreover, to the noble Order acquainted with the books of the Pitakas he made fair appeal and brought them away. He also took the king Manuha and his family and returned to (Pagan).
        As a result of the forced removal of these scholars and skilled artisans to Pagan, Buddhism, as well as the art and culture of Pagan flourished. Regarding the “forgers of cannon, muskets, and bows,” Harvey points out that “the first extensive use of fire-arms that can be accepted without question is at Martaban (fifty kilometers south of Thaton) in 1541 when the Portuguese were present,” nearly five hundred years after the conquering of Thaton. (Harvey didn’t comment on those skilled in “frizzling.”)
    D.G.E. Hall states that the entire population of Thaton was taken north to Pagan, which, if true, would make the Pa-O migration north to southern Shan State, after the fall of Thaton, difficult to explain. A simpler explanation is put forth by Scott: in addition to King Manuha and the royal court, “ the wealthier people were . . . carried off, and those who were left migrated from the ruins of the Taungthu capital to the Shan States. Michael Aung-Thwin is more specific, stating that Aniruddha (Amawrahta) brought back to Pagan “the bulk of the Mon population, including large numbers of the artisan class. No scholar writing in English about the sack of Thaton mentions that the Pa-O were a minority and though unworthy of mention in the chronicles or that being traditionally agriculturalists and living primarily outside the walled city of Thaton, most of the Pa-O escaped forced relocation. Enriquez states that “after the fall of the (Pa-O dynasty, the people appear to have been widely dispersed, and their numbers were no doubt reduced. As Robert Halliday, a Mon scholar, notes that “Thaton, which had been a center of civilization and learning for more than sixteen centuries, became a waste . . ..
While the length of time Thaton was a center of civilization and learning is open to question, there is little doubt of its destruction. An example of the vagaries in the recording of historical events is Scott’s observation: “Nothing is said of Pegu (onehundred kilometers northwest of Thaton and on the main traditional invasion route used by the Burmese on their way to Siam and Tenasserim), which even then materially, if not spiritually, was a much stronger place (than Thaton), but no doubt be (Anawrahta) took it in his stride. The destruction of both of these cities and the occupation of the region provided revenue and access to the sea. The Pa-O had little reason to stay on and considerable incentive to migrate out of the area. Due to periodic Mon rebellions, the area continued to be ravaged by the Burmese from the north. The Burmese king Bayinnaung conquered Pegu in 1551. Two hundred years later (1757) King Alaungpaya ascked Pegu again, as well as Martaban and Tavoy south of Thaton. Much of the land “relapsed into the jungle. And to add insult to injury, “Burmese armies on the way to Siam (to attack Ayutthaya) would lighten the tedium of the march by devastating the Pegu country. It was not a place to linger in unless one had extremely strong family ties.
         The legend focuses upon the Pa-O’s migration from Thaton to Hsa Htung. Scott relates that “those who were left (after Thaton was destroyed) migrated from the ruins of the Taungthu capital to the Shan States and there founded a new state, to which they gave the same name. this is the modern Hsa Htung (Hsi Hseng); others settled in the Myelat. Since no records of this migration exist, the details of the population movement are open to question. It is unlikely there was a one-time major shift in population over a distance of nearly five hundred kilometers. It is more likely that over time there was a migration of a considerable number of Pa-O northward, possibly in waves following the periodic Burmese destruction of the Pegu-Thaton area, with each succeeding generation moving further north in stages. Today there are considerable numbers of Pa-O in the upper Sittang River valley, the main route of travel north from Thaton. Large numbers of Pa-O are found east o fThaton along the Thaton – Pa-an- Kawkareik-  Mae Sot road, the ancient invasion/ trade route to Thailand, lending credence to the suggestion that Pa-O ancestors may have migrated east rather than north. Those Pa-O arriving on the Shan plateau settled in the area west of Inle Lake. Scott, who spent many years in the area around the turn of the nineteenth century, notes the Pa-O made up “nearly half of the population of the Myelat. The middle country between Burma and the southern Shan States, the Myelat, was made up of “foreigners.” Scott reports few Shans in that territory, and that the Shan language was not only not spoken, but also rarely understood. The Pa-O shared the myelat with other minority groups, primarily the Danu and Taungyo, as well as the area around Inle Lake with the Intha. East of Inle Lake the Shan became more numerous. Three states west of Inle Lake and two to the east had Pa-O majorities as well as Pa-O chiefs. W.S. Desai, writing thirty years later, confirms that five Shan states were ruled by Pa-O chiefs. In addition to being the majority population in five of the southern Shan States, the Pa-O were significant minorities in several others. They continued their migration into the mountains east of the Lake and settled in Hsa Htung and Ho Pong states as well as the area to the south of Inle Lake and in northern Karenni State. The actual ( versus the legendary) early history of the Pa-O is open to debate. However, it is likely that they migrated south out of the highlands of central Asia to the Shan plateau. They may have settled there for a time before being forced out by the Shan who themselves were later migrants from southern China. The Pa-O then settled in lower Burma and developed a rather sophisticated culture and a distinct language, even while living in close association with the Mon, with whom they seem to have gotten on rather well. Theodore Stern, commenting on the relationship between ethnic groups in the area, notes that the Mon were in close contact with the Thaungthu. Scott writes that the people of Thaton in Lower Burma report coming from a place of that name in the hills, and that the Taungthu of Hsa Tung say they come from Lower Burma. Stern speculates that they may have been driven south and “later may have recolonized their original home or reinforced the remnant that remained there. If there was a remnant population left in the southern Shan States when the Pa-O moved south to the Thaton area, it is possible that informal contact was maintained over the years between the two locations. Hackett, writing fifty years later and referring to Scott’s work, states that the “Pa-O of Shan States say that they came from Thaton. Those who live around Thaton say that they came from Hsa Htong. Hackett then restates Scott’s theory that two migrations took place, the first when the Shan drove them southward and took their land, and the second when they were driven northward after Thaton was conquered by the Burmese.
   When the Pa-O migrated north and settled in the southern Shan States, the  Shan already occupied most of  the fertile valleys. To avoid conflict with the established Shans, the Pa-O settled on the unoccupied hills to cultivate the less desirable land. This was common practice for non-Shan ethnic groups who arrived in an area after Shan occupation. Even though living on the hills made agriculture more difficult, sometimes there were advantages. The Pa-O was able to avoid malaria that debilitated many Shan who lived in the valleys near flooded rice paddies where the anopheles mosquito thrived. As a result, the Pa-O were more “robust.” The number of their villages increased, while Shan villages actually decreased in number. As a result the Pa-O began to replace the Shan in the area. In addition to living in the hills the Pa-O also settled in unoccupied valleys. Scott notes that the Pa-O “houses are for the most part large and well built and the villages well kept and clean”and that the “women and men alike are very industrious in their garden cultivation. In 1885 the Burmese withdrew their garrisons from the Shan states to oppose the British advance on Mandalay. In the absence of a stabilizing force, internecine fighting broke out among the Shan hereditary princes (chaofas or saophas in Shan, sawbwas in Burmese) plunging the entire hill country into war. However, “from its rather out-of-the-way position, partly, too, from the peaceful and industrious character of the Taungthu race, by which the State is mainly peopled, Has Htung . . . suffered little from the intestinal struggles of the other Shan States.
   Prior to the British administration the Pa-O in the southern Shan States were victims of Karenni slave-hunting raids. As Archibald Ross Colquhoun states “The Karen-nees (Red Karen) . . . are renowned for their kidnapping propensities. Scott also describes the Karenni as “highly organized slave-traders, making raids into the Shan States to the north to carry off men, women, and children, whom they sold over the border in Siam. Initially they “raided the neighboring Shan States in pursuit of slaves. They gradually became bolder and at length overran the whole of the Myelat, burning villages and carrying off women and children. The Karenni raided to the east, west, and northwest of the state of Has Htung, which was regarded as the real headquarters of the Taungthu race in the Shan States. However, the “Taungthus have seemingly been well able to protect themselves from (Karenni) raids which were so much dreaded by the Shans of . . . other States bordering on the Red Karen country. It is unlikely that the Pa-O in the other southern Shan states were so fortunate. The British, after taking over the Shan State in late 1880s. worked to put an end to these slave-hunting raids with the establishment of a military fort in 1887 on the east side of Inle Lake south of Yanghwe. From Fort Stedman, patrols were sent out to end the on-going warfare between the Shan sawbwas, as well as the karenni slave raids.
      The Pa-O are traditionally farmers, but a few are local merchants or traders of cattle and horses. In paddy fields they grow rice, vegetables, garlic, onions, soybeans, peanuts, potatoes, beans, mustard, tomatoes, as well as strawberries. On the hillsides, they cultivate tea, coffee, fruit, seasame, and hillside rice, the Pa-O are also known for producing thanatpet(cordial) leaves that are used for the outside wrapper of Burmese cheroots. Most of the trees grow on Pa-O occupied hillsides surrounding the Shan settled valleys, and as a result, the Pa-O tend to dominate thanatpet production, an important cash crop. Although little known outside of Burma, the Pa-O have not gone completely unnoted. In the nineteenth century Cr. D. Richardson, who was sent north from British (lower) Burma to open a trade route to the Shan State, reported a “considerable town,  Thataung,(Has Htung/ His Hseng) inhabited by people from the old town of Thataung (Thaton) . . . and broungt here by Norata Meng Tsoe, king of Pagan, ( in A.D. 1018). Colquhoun regards Dr. Richardson as correct with regard to the people and places, but incorrect about their means of travel and date of arrival. A.R. McMahon, the Deputy Commissioner of British Burma, describes the inhabitants of a Taungthu village that he and his party came across in the hills near Toungoo in 1869. The people called themselves “Pa-au,” were “industrious and interesting, but . . . little known” and wore “dark blue or black garments, the women having the usual frock worn by the Karens, supplemented by a head dress of the same material and colour, with a border of deep red, which has a good effect. He also states that the Pa-O were “scattered in small communities” in Central and Lower Burma, as well as the Shan States and Cambodia. Colquhoun reports, somewhat inaccurately, that the main body of the “Tong-thoos” live in Thaton, an ancient town in the Martaban district, situated in the hills to the north, “In A.D.1007, many of them were removed to the Shan States west of the Salween by A-naw-ra-hta in Pagan at that time. The descendants of the latter are still found as a distinct people in Northern Karen-nee, and on the Shan Plateau to the north of it, but little is known of them.
     Scott, working in the Shan States as a political officer before he became superintendent of the southern Shan States, relates that in 1887 the chaofa of Yaunghwe, located just south of Taunggyi, said he would “buy a Taungthu woman and give her to us for dispatch to England as a curiosity. He suspects that her curiosity value would have been modest as Pa-O women were no more exotic in their dress than many of the other ethnic minority in the area. Scott, the compiler of the five volume Garreteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States., devotes several pages to the Pa-O” However, he appears to repeat McMahon’s inaccurate assertion, together with his own elaboration, that in addition to living in Lower Burma and the Shan States, the Pa-O were well known through out Siam and Cambodia. In a later work, Scott also states that Taungthu villages are found all over the more western Shan states, but they do not spread northward, and there are none east of the Salween except in Siamese territory.” Later in the same book he asserts that there are “a great many” Taungthus in the northern Shan State of Hsi Paw. In his earlier work he had noted that there were only three villages of Pa-O, consisting of over eighty households. Scott regarded this settlement to be in all likelihood the most northerly one whose inhabitants are said to have come form Lai Hka some hundred and twenty years ago and so intermixed with the Shans that most of them had forgotten their original language. Fifty years later Norman Lewis observed Pa-O in the Lashio bazaar wearing their their dark blue “indigo” dress.
  Enriquez, in his Races of Burma, describes his version of Thaton and the Pa-O’s migration north to His Hseng. The Ferrars in their book, Burma, note that the Pa-O of Lower Burma “have maintained themselves distinct from the (Mom).” And that they “are expert craftsmen in all the arts of the Peninsula. They are strict Buddhists and build magnificent (monasteries) in the prevailing wood style. Around the turn of the twentieth century. V.C. Scott O’ Connor observed “comely Taungthu girls” working at silk weaving looms in Mandalay.
     In the 1970s, Western scholars studying hill tribes in northern Thailand, noted the existence of the Pa-O, but considered them only as one of the smaller Karen subgroups. Their role as minor players in the anti-government insurgent movement of the 1970s and 1980s was later reported. Pa-O leaders, such as U Hla Pe and Aung Khum Hti, also were mentioned, as was Tha Kaley, a Karen, who led the pro- Communist faction of the Pa-O. It is likely that the next person to write about an individual Pa-O was Jonathan Falla, who describes his experiences with the Karen rebels in the late 1980s in his book, True love and Bartholomew: Rebels on the Burmese border. Although
Falla writes at length about Bartholomew, he mentions only in passing that he is a Pa-O from the Thaton area of Lower Burma.
  In Richard K. Diran’s book of photographs entitled The Vanishing Tribes of Burma, the Pa-O is portrayed as one of the country’s many ethnic minority groups. The latest book to mention the Pa-O isAndrew Marshall’s, The Trouser People-  In the Shadow of the Empire. Following in the footsteps of Sir George Scott, Marshall wanders through the Shan States and beyond, which includes visiting the “Land of the Pa-O.”