Long-necked women of Myanmar
By Shirish Joshi

THE long-necked women, once called ‘Giraffe Women’ by explorers, belong to the Padaung sub-group of the Karen ethnic minority, whose homeland is Kayah state in eastern Myanmar, old Burma.

Some of them — refugees from ethnic conflict in Myanmar — have settled down in Nai Soi village of Thailand. They have now become a tourist attraction for visitors, who wish to see this unique brand of body stretching. These women polish the brass or copper rings in their necks daily with rice straw and lime, and sit quietly in the doorways waiting for tourists.

The tourists pay as much as $ 10 to 12 to see these long-necked women. The 200 residents of Nai Soi, including about 30 long-necked women and girls, are members of the Karen tribe in Myanmar. Poverty and abuses by the Myanmar’s military rule have driven them into Thailand in the last decade.

These ‘Giraffe Women’ receive $ 60 a month to be on show for tourists. While in Myanmar, they worked every day for long hours and even then, there was not enough to eat. There is plenty of money in Nai Soi. The men, too, do not work. They spend their days swinging in their hammocks, smoking hand-made cigars and sipping rice beer.

None of the long-necked women seem to know the exact origin of this strange custom. They wear the rings because their mothers and grandmothers did the same. Various legends are told about the origin of the metal rings or coils in their necks. Some guides tell the tourists that they are worn to keep tigers from attacking them and biting off their head while they work in fields.

According to others, it is like taking your saving bank account on your person much like wearing jewellery in India. However, most of them wear the coils in their necks because their mothers and grandmothers wore them.

The initiation, which starts when the girls are as young as four or five or six, does not involve any religious ceremony, nor is it the beginning of womanhood. The first coil of brass or copper weighs about 1 kg. A second coil of the same weight is added at the age of 8, a third at 12, and if the girl’s neck is strong, the last coil weighing 2 kg is added when she is 15.

The girls take some time to get used to the rings. Sometimes the coils are removed to relieve chafing on the shoulders. They feel that they appear most beautiful when their necks are long. The pushed-up chin gives an elegant impression of a tiny head floating on a golden stem. Many of them will never take them off, put up with the occasional chafing, and prefer to be buried with them. In addition, they wear similar rings round their calves and wrists.

The coils do not stretch the neck but push down the collar bones and ribs. After years of use, the neck becomes too weak to support the head without the coils.

According to Guinness Book of Records, the maximum extension of the neck by the successive fitting of copper coils is 40 cm. When the coils are removed, the muscles developed to support the head and neck shrink to their normal length.

A jeweller in the USA has created a giraffe necklace, a series of flexible gold or silver-coloured metal hoops that open in the back, wrap around the neck and tie for closing up. That gives the neck an elongated look like the ‘Giraffe Women’ of Nai Soi. It helps them to look taller.