On an interview with Prasert Trakansupakorn and Wuth Boonlerd, the two Karen scholars, Indigenous Media Network (IMN) was informed about the origin as well as the meaning of this Kroh Yee important ritual. \u201cKroh\u201d means \u201cto close, to block, or to prevent\u201d and \u201cYee\u201d or \u201cHee\u201d means \u201cvillage\u201d. Occasionally, \u201cKroh Klae\u201d was referred to as \u201croad block\u201d. In most cases, the ritual is expected to be performed near the entrance to the village. There are two types of this ritual. One is performed annually called, \u201cBua Yee Bua Kho\u201d, or ritual to remove community bad luck, by shutting-down the village from 3, to 7, or to 9 days depending on the decision of each community leader. At present, Karen communities in Thung Hua Chang district, Lamphun province are practicing this ritual mostly in the sixth month of the lunar calendar. If by any chance, during the community closure, an outsider happens to enter the community, he\/she has to stay there to the end of the ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another type\nof more complicate ritual which is happening at this time, but not so often, is\nusually performed in serious cases, for instance, when several people die of\nunknown cause, or incurable pandemic occurs, each community is required to\nshut-down and to prohibit internal household visit. This ritual was used around\nseventy years ago when there was an outbreak of cholera. This type of ritual\ncan be observed easily, even by an outsider, from the sign of six pointed\nstar-shape made from bamboo called, \u201cTalaew<\/em>\u201d; with more serious case the\nsign, \u201cTalaew<\/em>\u201d is accompanied by the replica of spear, sword, or other\nweapons hanging at the entrance of the community and it implies the most\nserious incidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition,\nanother ritual called, \u201cWee Doh\u201d, or dispelling of communal malevolent spirits\nis performed by community ceremonial leader who has to prepare a bamboo basket\ncontaining chili, salt, tobacco, Acacia concinna, turmeric, and grains of rice to execute this\nritual. The ceremonial leader, together with community members cast all\nmalevolent spirits out of the community and take the whole bamboo basket with\nits paraphernalia to throw away outside the community to end the ritual and\nthat spot is referred to as \u201cDoo-eu\u201d (or no-man\u2019s zone). \u201cWee Doh\u201d is performed\nwhen there are several illnesses at the same time, but no dying incidence yet,\nor when bad, but not serious, omen occurs in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to make a\nliving when community is shut-down?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is\nwell-known that Karen communities are mostly located in the highland with\ndifficult terrain and isolated from modernity. Many Karen communities may lack\nof buying power to launch their food hoarding. Then, how do these Karen\ncommunities make their living when they have to shut-down for several weeks or\neven months?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Dr. Prasert Trakansuphakon, Ban Hin Lad Nai in Wiang Pa Pao district, Chiang Rai province is a good example of self-subsistence economy. The community is capable of feeding all members throughout the year. There are rotational fields with multiple food crops, terraced paddy fields, and agro-forestry in the community. Without main line electricity, Hin Lad Nai makes use of firewood and solar panels for their energy consumption. Apart from farm products, villagers have an abundance of non-timber forest products to gather from. Thus, community forest is equivalent to the supermarket for the whole community. If the village is compelled to launch its community closure, its members can survive conveniently throughout the year. Only a few things the community has to depend on the market, salt for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When there are illnesses, Hin Lad Nai is fully equipped with indigenous knowledge in traditional health care and remedy. However, Dr. Prasert admits that access to information and ICT is considered necessary for the community to catch up with the situation outside. Karen people in a number of highland communities begin to shut-down their villages one by one, not to allow entering nor getting out at all times. These village shut-downs were announced in conjunction with the revival of the ancient ritual called, \u201cKroh Yee\u201d (or village closure).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-imnnews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/90113553_3191480747537926_4281884374644817920_n.jpg","acf":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7b3dt-pq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1579,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions\/1579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imnvoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/89979855_3191480464204621_2618481486940078080_n.jpg\")
IMN English by Chupinit Kedmanee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"