ABOUT Karen Hill Tribe Silversmiths: A Brief History

Southeast Asia has always been on the edges of civilization. For centuries, various nomadic tribes migrated from China into the mountainous region where Burma, Thailand and Loas find a common point. Today the area is exotically referred to as “The Golden Triangle” where the Mae Khong and the Mae Kok rivers intersect creating the borderline for the 3 countries. Spread out through the mountainous range of western Thailand, Burma and Loas, hill tribe settlers live an unsettled life, always at risk of having to move further on.

The Karen, (called Kaliang or Yang in Thai) are found along most of the length of the Thai-Burmese border. Their population is about 300,000 in Thailand (as of 2010), with over four million in Burma. They are concentrated mainly in Mae Hong Son province, and western areas of Chiang Mai, Lamphun, Mae Sot, Chiang Rai and Phayao. There are four main subgroups. The main groups are the Sgaw Karen (the most numerous) and the Pwo Karen. The world- famous Padaung, or “long-neck” Karen, and the Kayah are two other Karen subgroups.

The Karen costume for women is very attractive and distinctive. Unmarried girls wear loose white V-necked shifts, decorated with Job’s Tear seeds at the seams. Married women wear blouses and skirts in bold colours, predominantly red or blue. Men wear blue baggy trousers, with typically red-striped shirts, a simplified version of the women’s blouses. Black Karen men wear black shirts with a red cummerbund or head scarf. Karen houses are not usually large. Adult children usually leave the home when married - there is no extended family housing in most Karen villages. Houses are on stilts, made of bamboo or teak. Central steps lead to a porch, with a store room or kitchen to one side, a living area and bedroom on the other. Beneath the house is a working area, often with a foot-operated rice pounder. The Karen have strict laws against immorality. They are matrilineal societies, so that two married women do not live in the same house. In some villages, the punishment for adultery is death. The village chief has great power over his community, and is regarded as the spiritual as well as the administrative leader. Traditionally hill tribe people have supported their families by engaging in slash and burn agriculture, which required them to move their villages every few years in search of new fields when old ones lost their fertility. It is now no longer possible for them to continue this semi-nomadic lifestyle, as there are no new places to move on to. Mainly for ecological reasons the Thai Government now prohibits harvesting of trees and clearing of hillside land. Thus, the tribal people are finding that they have less land on which to support their families. Opium cultivation was a major source of income for many of the hill tribes and the government worked hard to eradicate this cultivation by successfully substituting it with other cash crops, such as cabbages, corn, rice and fruits.

In the early 1960's, their Majesties, the present King Rama IX, and Queen Sirikit, undertook to help the Karen people develop an alternative to growing their traditional cash crop - opium. As part of The Royal Project of Thailand, silver experts were dispatched to impart their knowledge of jewelry to the farmers of the Karen Hill Tribe. Research and development were priorities for the Project's first decade. When meaningful extension work began to be carried out, the Project began gradually, but dramatically, to see significant results. From the beginning, many agencies have cooperated with the Royal Project to establish the work on strong foundations. These agencies include universities, the Ministries of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Interior, State Owned Enterprises, the private sector, international organizations and foreign governments. Today, the work of the Royal Project has evolved into four major endeavors: research, agricultural extension, development, and socioeconomic activities. The first generation of Karen silversmiths were taught to carefully handcraft each design from scratch, using high-content silver (always 99.9% silver content). They learned to give each design a unique appearance only seen in their own creations. From Karen mother and father to Karen son and daughter, they have passed down their silver work skills and traditions. Today, each handmade ornament is a unique masterpiece that represents centuries of Karen culture and art. Often, the jewelry is engraved with plant, animal, or geometric designs, symbolizing their direct connection to their land and spiritual world. Choosing Karen hill tribe silver is much more than buying jewelry of rare distinction. Your purchase also helps preserve the timeless culture, art, religion, and language of the gentle Karen Hill Tribe people, and helps their Majesties, the King and Queen of Thailand, realize their goal of providing a stable economy for the Karen people, an economy based on beauty - instead of illicit drug crops.