Until 1965, a highway in Chiang Mai led directly to The village of Naisso, where the "long-necked" people had been living in isolation until then. Girls there have to wear a copper ring weighing about 1 kilogram around their necks from the age of 5, and from then until they are 25 years old, the copper rings around their necks can only increase and not decrease. Among the "long-necked" women, the longest known neck is up to 70 centimeters, and the copper ring on the neck weighs up to 10 kilograms. Why are they doing this?
In fact, the "long-necked people" first lived in Myanmar, in the 1940s, they were invaded and oppressed by the Rakhine ethnic group, in order to escape the chaos of war, twenty or thirty "long-necked" tribesmen, tirelessly trekking through mountains and rivers, came to the Mae Hong Shun Mountain Nest in northern Thailand, and lived a life of remote avoidance and self-sufficiency.
The part of the "long-necked" women who remained in Burma did not escape the injustice of fate, and in the human trafficking market that arose in Europe in the nineteenth century, strong black slaves would abduct them and sell them to the "Museum of Man" in Chicago for white people to see. This practice is cruel and inhumane and is now prohibited.
So why do "long-necked" women wear copper rings around their necks?
One theory is that they firmly believe they are the descendants of the Dragon.
As a matriarchal society, women should be more like dragons, and their long necks coincide with the slender limbs and necks of "long-necked dragons".
Of course, this is just an old legend, and the more plausible version is that the ancestors of the "long-necked" people lived in an era where tigers were often found.
When tigers attack people, they always start from the neck of the person first, in order to prevent the tiger from taking the woman away, or directly biting the female artery and causing death, the woman began to wear a copper ring on her neck to seek safety.
Moreover, in nature, an adult giraffe stands at a height of 6 to 8 meters and can kick a lion with one foot, so even in today's African savannah, one or two lions do not dare to rush close to the giraffe.
Although the habitat of tigers and giraffes has since been separated, the fear of giraffes is hidden in the tiger's genes, which has become one of the reasons why "long-necked" women wear copper rings around their necks.
In the "long-necked people", the number of copper rings on the neck of women is closely related to beauty, and after they began to wear copper rings from the age of 5, they began to get used to the pressure that copper rings brought to the collarbone and surrounding muscles.
After the age of 10, they add a collar to their birthday every year, and the largest female elder wears 32 copper rings, and the neck is more than twice the length of normal people. People there also believe that the more copper rings a woman has around her neck, the more beautiful a woman is.
In their lifetime, they can only remove the copper ring 3 times, namely marriage, childbirth, and death.
But even if there is a chance to remove the copper ring, the "long-necked" women cannot let any man see their necks, including their husbands.
Because of the heavy copper rings for many years, the neck muscles of the long-necked people are very fragile and will tear if they are not careful, which makes them always walk together when they take a bath.
From a very young age, the women of the long-necked tribe have mastered the recipe of cleaning herbs, and every time they take a bath, they will dip the herbs with a cloth and wipe each other's necks.
Therefore, although they wear copper rings for life, they do not stink and do not deposit many dirt like in the ear holes.
Today, the total number of long-necked people is less than 200, and it is officially protected by Thailand and set up as a tourist attraction.
Thai officials have tried every means to extend this ethnic group, the men in the group are normal farming, and the women sell hand-knitted blankets, scarves, clothes, etc. in artificially built stilt houses and grass huts, and they are also responsible for taking photos with tourists, which has become the main source of income for a family.
There is no doubt that today's long-necked women live happier than the women of other ethnic groups in Thailand, but the brass ring around their necks has still become a shackle for their whole life.
From the day they put on the brass ring, the long-necked women are destined to spend their lives in the gathering place prepared for them by the Thai authorities, they can't see the scenery of the world, and they are imprisoned in place by the copper ring around their necks.
What is even more tragic is that they will always be a landscape for people from all over the world to take pictures.
Although the women of the "Long-Necked Clan" are all good-looking, their life experiences are lamentable, as the saying goes: "If you have not seen the sun, you can endure the darkness." But today's long-necked women, who have already seen the "sunshine" around the world, how long can they stay willingly in the dark center?
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