Haibun Poetry | Padaung-Kayan
Giraffe Women Bonded to Their Neck Rings
GiaB prompt #2–13: jewellery
tradition decrees
beauty pips deformity
not my kind of bling
Tourist guides call them giraffe women on account of their jewellery giving a perception of anatomically stretched necks. A perception of. Meaning, not actual. An illusion of length. Orthopaedically impossible, else they’d be dead.
The rings of brass, unbound around 30 metres. Clavicles succumb in time, morph into neck extensions, thoracic vertebrae on chest-to-neck secondment.
These are the Padaung women, a branch of Myanmar’s Kayan, living humble lives, refugees, in far northern Thailand. They bind each other’s necks in brass, they themselves don’t know why they do it. ‘Our menfolk think we’re beautiful?’ They’re coy in their suggestion. ‘The tigers can have our faces, but our necks are spared a mauling?’ A question of possession, ‘Enslave ourselves to culture protects us from being prey to thieves?’
Girls as young as five ring-necked, longer coils applied with each advancing year. The burden can be massive, in the realm of 20 pounds, yet they proudly bear their neckwear, heads held high as if they had a choice.
