introduce : Legend of Akha

     The Akha people believe that before they have Sumio (Recite the lineage), everything in the world such as the wind, sky and the air can speak. After Sumio, both human and spirit can speak. In the past they believed that humans had a wrest 7 cubits and speaking ever since they were born. As the story goes, a man goes to the forest to find wood to make a mortar. While he was out, his wife gave birth to their newborn child and the son went to the forest to find his father after asking his mother about his father’s whereabouts. The man chopped a tree which fell on top of his son.

      A twig stabbed into his son’s shoulder. The man chopped the twig from his son’s shoulder, and from that time on, humans have a small body. After Sumio, there are many more lineages and the last one is JeTherPer and TherPerMor. TherPerMor is the first person of Akha and JeTherPer is the mother of human and spirit also gives the religion birth to the world. Akha calls this person “Ama Mata”. Ama means Mother and Mata means together. The meaning of “AMa Mata” is the mother of human and spirit. The character of this person has 9 breasts at the back for the spirit and 2 in front for the human. That is why humans have 2 breasts now. At that time, the human and the spirit were family. The spirit worked in the night while the human worked in the day. The tiger and buffalo also lived together, as well as the eagle and the chicken also.

      

          When Ama Mata died, the human and the spirit started fighting. The eagle and chicken also went separate ways while conflict arose between the tiger and buffalo. The human and the spirit cannot be family because they can not run the ceremony together – the human and the spirit are absolutely different as the spirit sleeps in the day, which is opposite from the human. Ama Mata died in the day time and would like to give 9 breasts to the human. However the human rejected the offer and the 9 breasts were then turned to the spirit.
The spirit raised the ceremony for Ama Mata by inviting the religion spirit leader (Phima) to find pregnant animals as offerings in the ceremony. However, all of the animals escaped except a bear and a squirrel. Hence now if the Akha people go hunting and end up with two animals, it would mean that the animals cannot be eaten as the Akha believe that the animals signify offerings in the Ama Mata ceremony.
During the ceremony, the religion leader, or Phima, prayed for the Ama Mata to be taken to heaven, but Ama Mata stood up and said “I cannot go because the way is difficult.” Phima prayed 3 days and 3 nights but Ama Mata still could not go to heaven. The spirit then invited the human religion leader (the first religion leader of Akha people) to come to pray for Ama Mata. The religion leader also prayed for 3 days and 3 nights. Finally, the Ama Mata died and went to heaven. This was how the ceremony originated and this ceremony is still being practiced now.
After Ama Mata died, the human and the spirit lived in the same house but they started to have fights because they had differing preferences. When one of them went to work, they would accuse each other of stealing their things but in reality no one saw each other do it. Finally, both of them swore that they will live separately, have their own personal area, and stop seeing each other by letting the human close his eyes and turn his back against the spirit. However, the spirit is still able to see the human. They also separated their respective ceremony times. The humans held theirs in the day while the spirits held theirs at night. They closed the dog’s eye by threshing the basket. This is why if the dog howls or barks at night, it means that it has seen the spirit. The Akha believe that the spirit sees the human while the human cannot see the spirit and the human is fearful of the spirit.
Usually, Akha people use swear words between humans and spirits and they do not cross the line each other at each other’s incantation. Also, the Akha believe that the spirit is afraid of saliva because when the spirit touches saliva, they will have leprosy. When the Akha are in danger, they will spit saliva to protect themselves from the spirits.  
http://akha.hilltribe.org