Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Numbering around 2000 to 3000 individuals, scientists believe they have been floating
around these islands since at least 2000 BC.
Totally at home on the water, Moken families spend almost all their time on wooden
boats, called kabang . As the boys come of age they build their own boats, and as the girls
come of age and marry, they move away from their parents' boat.
Breathing through air hoses held above the water surface, the Moken dive to depths of
up to 200ft in search of shellfish. For all their skill, this can be a lethal activity with
divers dying in accidents each year, mainly from the bends caused by rising too quickly
to the surface.
Today the Mon make up just over 2% of the population of Myanmar - find out more
about them at Independent Mon News Agency ( http://monnews.org ).
Mon
The Mon (also called the Tailing by Western historians) were one of the earliest inhabit-
ants of Myanmar and their rule stretched into what is now Thailand. As happened with
the Cham in Vietnam and the Phuan in Laos, the Mon were gradually conquered by
neighbouring kingdoms and their influence waned until they were practically unknown
outside present-day Myanmar.
As in Thailand, which also has a Mon minority, the Mon have almost completely as-
similated with the Bamar and in most ways seem indistinguishable from them. In the pre-
colonial era, Mon Buddhist sites including Yangon's Shwedagon Paya were appropriated
by the Bamar (though the Golden Rock is still in Mon State), and Mon tastes in art and
architecture were borrowed as well.
THE WOMEN WITH TATTOOED FACES
The most extraordinary (but no longer practised) Chin fashion was the custom of
tattooing women's faces. Chin facial tattoos vary according to tribe, but often cov-
er the whole face - starting at just above the bridge of the nose and radiating out in
a pattern of dark lines that resemble a spider's web. Even the eyelids were tat-
tooed. A painful process, the tattooing was traditionally done to girls once they
reached puberty.
Legend has it that this practice was initiated to keep young Chin maidens from
being coveted by Rakhine princes whose kingdom bordered the southern Chin
Hills. But it's just as likely that the tattoos were seen as a mark of beauty and wo-
 
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