‘karen sgaw’,cultural code on built environment

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BURMESE KAREN SGAW : THE VERNACULAR-PARTICIPATORY TRADITIONON BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN 1916

(DRAFT) PARTICIPATION TRADITION

/ , , , Saran Samantarat Paisarn Tepwongsirirat

Motloch,JohnOrnsiri Panin

ABSTRACTAs one of the best practices on resourses-nature-harmonized, Karen culture is still being on the ecological crisisEarth. The minority group of Karen approximately have 4-7 million people living on both side along Myanmar Thailand s border from Salawin watershade of Shan , Kayah,Kayin untill Tanintharyi former TenasserimDivision(~700,000 in Thai). They problably settled in this region for thausand year ago or more.

The indigeneous Karen did not have manuscript since 1832 ,when Dr.Jonathan Wade adopt manuscript system fromBurmese alphabets for Karen phonetic .Originally they built and maintain their cultural practices through lots oftales, speeches and lyrics[ Tah or Eutah ]. Carrying on, containing all with cultural code cosmologies,culturalschemata- from generation to generation by distributed through several medias several scale among their builtenvironment within everydaylife practice which opportunated those for reproduction of perception places timeritual mostly.Rev.Harry Ignatious Marshall wrote The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology andfirst printed in 1922. This book, stressed on Sgaw a subgroup of Karen in Burma ,is one of the most important Karenethnographic statement before civil war time after departure of British empire colonisation untill now in Myanmar.The main idea of this article is to compare the cultural code consisted and latented in built environment, in term ofRapporpot sHigh -Level meaning of Karen Sgaw in Burma in 1900 with recently research in the same ethnicgroup study in Thailand 2000- Indigenous Knowledge and Relativity in Cultural Landscape of Pa -ga-ger- yor .

The comparison derives on four narratives ,from little to larger rely to built environment scale . First the interior perspective inside the individual house der . Second , the public house Blaw founded in both countries and time.Third comparison is on the female social welfare house Der pee muemare and its gender discourse . The lastcompares the layout planning of the villages Hipur , Th waw , with an emphasis on each historical contexts.The main codes from four scale on both place-time studing intrepretes in same direction that using of sustainablilitycosmology for all scale in both private and public from individual- community- World in Amos Rapporport s High -level meaning according to his book The M eaning of the Built Environment .

INTRODUCTION

People who are without writing have a fantastically precise knowledge of their environment and all their resources. All these things we have lost. (Claude Levi-Strauss,1978: 19)

The ethnicity of Karen has approximately 4-7 million populations distributed in large area where nowadays along2000 km of Myanmar-Thai borderline. They are found between the tenth and twenty first degrees of north latitudeand between the ninety-fourth and one hundredth degrees of east latitude (Marshall1922:1). As Language FamilyGroup, Karenic branch is a member in Tibeto-Burman group, classified in name of Tibeto-Karenic. This branch candivide in 3 zones -northern, central and southern Karenic sub branch. Which southern Karenic composed with 3


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language tribes -Lekeh, Sgaw and Pwo. The Sgaw group is the largest and most widely scattered, (Suriya 2000;PMCSA2007) the paper focuses on the Sgaw group also.

As a political reclaiming in deep ecology movement, Karen agriculture cultures were studied by many qualityacademic papers for their behaviour on nature respect. (Yos2008; Pinkaew1996; P.Kunderstadter, E.C.Chapman,and Sanga Sabhasri1978; Kannikar1999; Anan2000; Arunratana2003)

Their swindle rice field agriculture as rotation system was understand and substitute the slash and burn agriculturewhich normally condemn in the nature conservation. Their rotational swindle agricultural system providessubsistence-sufficiency-sustainability for self. The system that consumes none of non-renewable resources and littleenergy produced zero waste with low carbon emission. By that, Karen culture should be known as one of the best

practices on nature-harmonized culture still living in the SEA region on Earth,regarding to Levi-Strauss .. have a fantastically precise knowledge of their environment and all their resources. All these things we have lost.

Sustainability become the most interesting discourse in Trandisipline of Landscape,Environment,Urbanism, Social Engagement as the World -matter of urgency- agenda, keywords such as flow , dynamic , resilence , liva ble , renewing social ideology become significiant by reviews . (Thongpan Poonsuwan; SulakSiwalak;Folke2006;Hamin & Gurran2009;Swilling2011).

This paper shows cultural codex meaning evidents in term like that but not from currently Buddism Ideology,inindigeneous knowledge side. Ever those keywords happened in Buddism Ideology too before.Karen culture, in between from pre-history period till modern era, is the otherness of current knowledge. Cause theKaren had no written language in the early. The cultures were conveyed by no manuscript which rejected fromWorld currents (white- Christian colonize- masculine) knowledge along the linear trajectory same pattern to beprimitive implication. It is not to be inferred that they were without a literature. On the contrary, a large quantity of

bard literature was handed down orally from generation to generation in tales, legends, and mythical stories ( tah;hta ) much more than the number of leaves in the forest. The Sgaw language was reduced to writing by using the Burmaalphabet in denoting most of the sounds by Dr.Jonathan Wade in 1832. By his word the Karen language is a beautyand force of expression unsurpassed perhaps in any other language in the Word . (Marshall1922:32-33). This culturecoded of high- level meanings (related to cosmologies, cultural schemata, worldviews, philosophical system, and thesacred) upon their built environment as in their everydaylife practice . To make way to understand the otherness ofknowledge ,this paper intended to find how culturally coding extracted to this ethnic built environment and toinvestigate clue that take part to its sustainability according to a Rapporports s tatement it is the social situation thatinfluences people s behavior, but it is the environment that provides t he cues .(Rapporport1982,1990:57)

Contents of this document separated in eight parts; first, Introduction, showed brief information on Karen culture;second, Reviews, show literature for key ideas and essence history researches, which construct following corenarratives compare cases from Burma1900 and Siam2000. Third show cultural code comparing on micro scale ofhouse furniture especially fireplace meaning; forth narrate and compare the ideology code on blaw public-housecase that almost disappeared from Thailand ; fifth on social welfare of widow house; and sixth narrative onth waw , hi pur , village scale; finally end up by conclusion.

REVIEWS

The method of this qualitative research becoming from mixed with historical method on documentariesinterpretation and gathering empirical data in field as ethnography or anthropological fieldworks and vernaculararchitecture fieldworks .On the former stressed onto ;( Greetz, erving guffman;processual symbolic analysis Turner and the latter is regard to the meaning in Built environment of Rapporport1980 . Both done in recently research: Indigenous Knowledge and Relativity in Cultural Landscape(Saran 2009) .

Ritual


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vernacular architecture reports from 1975-2007. Where representative all the settlements of Karen Sgaw orPakarkeryor in Thailand.The results of the study found classification nomenclature system of Karen Sgaw architecture on their ownterminology; the common tradition lay out planning of house and its auxiliary buildings; the cultural Code embeddedin architectures such as village, house, construction system, utensils, and hearth. Building material as bambooencoded by oral literature and language structure in everyday life practices contained cultural system such as social-

collectiveness. The discovery of blaw -public house in Thailand. The social-welfare system in case ofderpeemuemare -non kid widow s house .The genderism spatial system in case of the household stove that not onlykeep its basic functions of wants and needs but the hearth also conveys the essence Ideology or Karen Sgaw culturalcode. Metaphorically, if a Karen common house infer to body of productive of a female subject , a stove at the heartof the house infer to her productive womb . Karenic stove is furniture that take part of reproduces the culture andethnic identity forever.Karen Sgaw s architecture and their built environment are not only supply the basic needs, but also contain thecultural identity, the cosmology as cultural code. Differenced to mainstream value assessment in Architecture,stressed on aesthetical senses from the observers out-side, the study invited the assessment from cultural codexinterpretation in-side.Relativity sytems from cosmological codes, in between of becoming of new life, changing of seasoning dynamicalstill in the relationship found in the baby-mother thought the earth-moon relationship formed by unseen web asumbilicus spiral and its imitation of norporgra - the spiritual stick. The Karen paradigm and their cosmological

cultural codes embedded in the practice of everyday life. As well, sometimes the smallest detail reveals the most important meaning about a Culture .(Saran Samantarat2009)Burma1916: The Karen People of Burma.A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology The Karen People is a classical anthropological monograph . It is full of data ,ironically, it is still the mostrecent general description of basically all aspects of Karen culture in Burma. Since it was written 75 years ago thereare evidently many current questions which the book cannot answer. But it is still a significant ethnographicstudy,which has been widely read and widely quoted. , Marshall gave the Karens respec tabibliy though this book,not by overdoing all their great efforts,but by the emphasis on a comprehensive description of the life of the groupsliving in the forest with their veneration of the forest spirits,etc.This accomphishment can not be overemphasized. (from Anders Baltzer Jorgensen Forward in 1997 version) Sites on this book was around Ayeyawaddy Division and Bago Division nowaday. In the page 59 there is a drawingof plan of longhouse village , presumed drawn by the author Rev.Harry Ignatious Marshall himself. For help forcompare and explanation I use this picture and its specification to be core of following.

Legend1. Fireplace2. Hso Hko for receiving guests3. Sleeping Room4. Back Veranda

(1.- 4. is a unit of family room is a house der ) 5. Paddy Bins6. A Widow s Room (Smaller than the others) 7. A Detached Family RoomWith

Blaw - Guest room specified in a room in plan. Theheading of the picture is PLAN of SHATAW VILLAGE, T HARRAWADDY

DISTRIC.BURMA.March.1916From here short name and code used for any informationfrom this book is Burma1916 ,(B19) andSiam2009 ,(S20) for my research. The next session is Codeof House and its parts w here 1.-4. includeed,then to the

public Blaw code and then Widow house code and then the


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village and its parts as paddy bins, stockade,etc,stessed in cultural code not physical Data which I reported in paper2009.

THE HOUSE AND ITS PARTS CODES

Karen family system (matrialineage and verilocallity)

Before go to the house and its code. I will show cultural code in Karen cloths. There are 2 gender men, women and 2status youth and elder. Cloths coded foreveryday and instrumental meanings; mnemonic cues for identifying uses or Low- level meaning. However it useas social constructive instrument too. It is importantly prohibit for dressing wrong gender-status cloths. So the codesis cultural schemata , explains the familiar and pre-acquainted knowledge one uses when entering a familiarsituation in its own culture, or High-level meanings . Actually some pattern arranged in their cloths came along withmythical characters of ancient times in their legendary. It s good example to show how otherness of knowledge existsin other culture.

Terminology of house 1 ,the research found 6 types in Karen legendary tales; king-house [Derjorpa,] ;orphan-house[Derplowkaeh] , male-house [Derkwa] ;female-house [Dermue] ,widow-house [Derpeemuemare]. Last is public house [Blaw] . Former 3 types are only in tales but male house which probably is a Karen Pwo house. The latter 3typefound in study. In this section is for female-house,actually, almost every Karen houses are in this type house that

belong to female and be representation of her body. Derpeemuemare found once in a while in any villages . Blaw found only just one in Chaigrai. (S20)In the page 62 of (B19) there is a picture expand unit of Karen family room in a long house.

Legend1. Waterjoist place htip ulaw (B19), Tihterloah (S20)2. Fireplace cooking3. Fireplace-Social hearth4. Guests lounging place Hso Hko for chief unit only(B19), Tohkoh (S20)5.Family sleeping room6.Back Veranda

My research found two hearths house especially in one case that son family live with his mother house ,his wife andhis mother have each clan spirit, which need their own stove as female matriarch shrine. However, this ambiguous

situation was in temporary. (S20)

1 First presented by Pati Kaew Jige and Siwagon Odochaw, on31th March 2006, Faculty of Arch. KMTL, after that developed from Pati JoniOdochaw interviewed by author.


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Actually the unit of longhouse (B19) differs much in plan and circulation compare with the single house (S20).However several cultural codes are the same surprisingly. Like the swidden rotation agriculture system, both houseshad its destiny to live and die in rotation as life. Longhouse is habitable only for a year or two, was built by thecombined efforts of the men of the little community from material of which the supply is abundant, and can bereplaced quickly(Marshall:63). Dermue,Der house metaphorically means female owner s body. It is reason to destroythe house , her pigs and her chicken to nature along her funeral rites.(S20) Clues for masculine place both happenedin HsoHko (B19) and in t oh koh especially in jorplaewoo (which raised platform like hso hko ) and male shrine-perhjokoh (S20).The most important female sign in the house is her wombs that is hpa k pu , the fireplace where cooking, healing to

improvised the new born mother and custom ceremonies such as kih jue wrist tying or the calling back of the k la or ta kweh k la and house rite of au xae . As Marshall one who has entered into intimate association with these

people,has been entertained in their houses, and has sat beside their fireplaces will testify to their love of fun and their jolly laughter. (M arshall:23)[MaeUrLoh], [piklapoo] , hpa k pu fireplace consists of four upright bamboo poles fastened in the floor beams

below and reaching to the cross-beam above. On the floor a rough box-like enclosure is built around the bottom ofthe poles and filled in with dirth and ashes. Three round stones give support to the cooking vessels A hole cut ineach of two front poles of the fire place a lit tle way above the floor serves as a holder for the bamboo stick kept forstirring the cooking rice and others foods. (B19:61)The cultural codes that underline items explains more here .Four upright bamboo poles S kee terh columns are sitting on 2 pieces of bamboo trunk bases called Pah kw ah . It has proverb refer that two bamboo trunk bases are parent in the house, and refer four columns as theirsons in-law, bonding deeply connected family relationship. In the field work one who accepted researcher as a part

of family invited the conservation around the fireplace, called it S kee terh in place of piklapoo . S kee terh form asacred space, to pass something to other person through this space is vigorous prohibit.Three round stones Lershaw , each piece of stone refer to mother, father, and predecessor spirit. So it taboos to actwithout respect here. First rite for start living in new house TohKehDer is finding appropriately of the dirt, threestone and three fruits of chilli procured for new stove. (Akkarapong2007)Pieces of used charcoal with ash should be use as medicine with water to heal bellyache and ash use to shower in theair for lucky journey for member of family.The holes and bamboo stick LonDohKwah . The sticks always use in the most rites of Karen including comfortceremony ta kweh k la [riak Kwan]. Case of Karenic elephant k la riual in Kanchanaburi use londohkwah to
http://dict.longdo.com/search/bellyachehttp://dict.longdo.com/search/bellyache


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be one of ten essence things such as bannana, sugar cane, black sesami,[t iedboiled rice, mold sticky rice ,streamedsticky rice, sacred water( with cucurma root; Acacia concinna ripped fruit ) water, red thread and white thread; andlast stir rice stick londohkwah .The bamboo stick and its holes that keeping place calling the same name. They used as family remote spiritual tele-relationship, eg. Parent can call their son who absence to come back by talking in this holes or in stick like psychicmobile telephone.

Karen parent must intent to construct LonDohKwah as good as they can both hole and stick, the irregular shape of LonDohKwah may cause of abnormally shape of newborn baby mouth. LonDohKwah means the langur(Semnopithecus ;Presbytis spp.) tale which still live in their tales which told always along the stove. This is a waycultural codes latent in built environment.(S20)

Others artefact Norporklah and ?

-

CELOSIA ARGENTEA LINN. CHINESE WOOL FLOWER, COCKCOMB AMARANTHACEAE 1

2 2 5 5

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7 2554, 05:01 .

Cnestic palala Merr. Con-naraceae ( )

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( On temporary house the compromising of Pado house(right) connect with its modern growth)

THE PUBLIC HOUSE BLAW CODESAccording to Marshal , In a few Karen villages a young men s club -room blow is still maintained ,but not inmost........in term of the guest chamber and boy club-room, however, I found blaw as village place for ritual custom

sometime . According to Marshall, In the earlier days among the Karen of the hills the blaw was an important

feature of village life. It is still retained, although it seems to have lost some of its former significance. It is the guestand club-room reserved in the central part of the village-house. Strangers coming in for a visit or passing by on their journey are entertained here. Such a convenience was necessary in the days when the tabu of the Bgha feast was strictly observed, and no outsider was allowed to enter to Der . There was raised dais (in the blaw ) . Besides serving as guest- chamber, the blaw has another important uses, namely, as the gathering-place for the young menof the village, repairs to the blaw to be with his fellows and to sleep there. Among the Kachins the blaw is a placeof license. (Marshall:62,138-139)

Blaw , and its plan


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Blaw , interior riaise dais, its upsidedown skeeter According to my research, code of blaw latent in its skeeter and its raised dais in my field work blaw here referto the chief of the village actually Karen village chief position is Hi k ow but in this case he is blaw kow . Theraised dais in plan related to male villagers in an annual ritual which separated place for elders and youth villagers.The up-side-down skeeter may refer to other of world beyond, related to their cosmology somehow according to thefuneral.

There are more interesting codes about blaw , such as Prohibit to construct it more than one day , which allow onlyreal surplus labours and materials for village. According to its location blaw is in front of the village and separatefrom most villagers units (both longhouse, and single-house village). Other adapted blaw in Thailand found in Tak

province , the village chief built up to keep everyday instruments like museum, which also expressed their re-identifyself of the village along the problem with the border refugees camps.

However, blaw issues contained as action part on recommendation of Education and culture for Karen traditionconservation subcommittee, a part of the resolution of Thailand Government in 3 August 2010, item16th. Oneimportant detail is Push ing, the Karen rotation agriculture landscape had to be a Cultural Word Heritage .

Adapted blaw in Guitah Village,Tak

DERPEEMUEMARE , THE WIDOW HOUSE CODESThe old practice of village communities in exiling widows and orphans to the jungle, and the occasional

abandonment of little children by their parents who were attempting to escape from raiders are, happily, things of the past. Fear, the instinct of self-preservation, and superstition serve to explain such phenomena,...Nowadays orphans find a home without difficulty; widows and aged persons are cared for; parents enjoy their firesides and manifestlove for their offspring, with whom they are, in fact, too indulgent, ever to their hurt; and young men and women arenot above giving tender care to some little niece or nephew. (Marshall:27)

2

For derpeemuemare key codes latent in its locality and appropriated size, interpreted in research. Actually it is an

example of self-organization social welfare.

2 Karen Women Organization2010http://www.karenwomen.org/Reports/WalkingAmongstSharpKnives.pdf


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Comparison of size, a Karen local house derker and awidow house derpeemuemare in TakOn Marshall pictures page 59 , legend no.6 is A Widow s Room (Smaller than the others). A Karen female widowis supposed to self sufficiency on her ever day life in her little hut and of courses her stove, sign of her clan spirit

body, in affordably of self- maintenances . It s tiny s cale must plan from the construction phase both span and bay in

th waw ,consider it is more complicate to built. The explanation is tiny scale in this case is culture code too.According to Rapporport, it fits in Middle -Level meaning.

The other code is locality. Widow s House always located near core of the village such as centre of longhouse in thwaw or sideway of the main road middle of the village. Every villager can visit and takes care for her welfare in that

position. I only found a dog living closed to upon the platform just only in case of derpeemuemare .

VILLAGE-HOUSE , TH WAW ; HI , P HI , HI PUR :COSMOLOGICAL CODES

In Karen Sgaw word ze p hi means teakwood plant, p hi same word in the meaning of village. Its clues formaterial codex in linguistics. There are lot of taboo for many wood species and also characteristic types of plant suchas double-trunk tree using as construction materials, however the teak wood is allowed to do. Generaly the most ofthe houses were made by several species of bamboos.In Karen village there are few groups of houses, each clusters keep only for brother-sister household direct from theirmaternity predecessor. It is prohibit to build new house penetrate between other clan cluster. Again that cultural coderelated to the locality of built environment.

Typical site plan of a house combine, with a house Der,DerKer , a platform chicken-hut ShorKarKoh and a platform barn BuePo r with piglet place underneath( to protect rodent thief) , are to be general typical unit ofhabitat-body in Karen Sgaw landscape.

According to Yoko Hayami, a Karen community, referred to as zi or hi is typically the largest autonomous unit,constitutes the basic ritual and moral entity that grounds a Karen person s sense of belonging. hi or zi , is often


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used in paired contras t to pga (forest) which is the realm of wild animals and spirits , the forest is the antithesis ofthe comunity s social order, the orderly space of human habitation. (Hayami: 141)

On( s20) study, there is variation of types of village related to the name of its chief. Basically, ordinary village is hi ;p hi ;hi pur (literally house) means village, which the chief of each villages name hi kow (literally house head) .Some village has its stupa- koh (the ancient Tibetian stupa in form of collected accumulate gravels probably

happened before buddism stupa ) name hi r tor koh and its chief name hi r kow . Blaw village in Chingrai nametheir chief both hi kow and blaw kow .

According to Marshall the village was the political unit, in village-house th waw each family having its living-roomopening off of the common corridor. Everybody was thrown into intimate contact with everybody else in the village.

Politically and socially the village was the center of their common life .In the village the elders (phga tha phgaliterally, the old men) were looked up to as connecting the village life with past, in which all wisdom and culture were

supposed to have been revealed.Above the elders was the village chief (th kaw or s kaw) (Marshall: 127-128)In my opinion, name the chief th kaw related to th waw longhouse-village; s kaw probably like zi kaw asHayami referred. She also endnotes thatIt may be that the Karen longhouse was a temporary manifestation during a period of severe ecological o r socialcrisis within the immediate environment .(Hayami:332)

As her statement, there are exists in Marshall s picture of gateway and stockade fence of th waw village. Heexplains that it is being modified by contact with the Burmese way of building (the fortress village), and every stageof evolution from the village-barrack to separate family houses may be observed in Karen villages to-day .(Marshall:62 -63)

The problem here is only from this last underlining phase. This introduce to the malicious , most assumed the lineartrajectory, that one is more original or authentic than the other one. About the fortress village concepts came fromsome text in Burma History also quote here.(Suthachai Yimprasert2001, Lieberman1984, U Khin Mg Kyi & DawTinTin1973)

CONCLUSION


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‘karen sgaw’,cultural code on built environment

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