Lifestyle The Iron Equipments Beating

In the past, agriculture was the occupation of the Akha because they were living on the top of the mountain. This is the reason why they did the agriculture. It was so hard to buy the equipments for planting and there were no one who sold it. Therefore, there were the Akha who knew and was an expert n iron works called “Pa Jee”. They are in the 2 nd position in the society lower than the witch-doctor. Therefore, the Akha paid respect to them alot. Pa Jee is from the community election, the villagers would choose a person who had the ability on iron beating to be Pa Jee and he would be a person who made the iron equipments for agricultural stuff.

The villagers would take the charcoal got from the fire burning with them if they wanted Pa Jee to make the equipments. After Pa Jee had done them the equipments, they had to help him working in a field for a day. The Akha Iron Beating could be done everyday without any holidays. On the exception, if there were no more other missions to do or there were someone in the village died, the iron beating would be paused. The name of the place called “La Jee Zoom” was the holy place where every one in the village took good care of it. No one should show disrespect to this place.

Both men and women should not urine on the iron beating area “ Lar Jee Zoom” if somebody broke the rules. That village would be cursed.This is the Akha belief passed from generation through generation. On the other hand, if somebody saw him/her, he/she would get fined by one pig or a bottle of spirits in order to treat the ghosts.
At present, this duty is still remained for a group of people who are still strickly following the old tradition but they have less duty because the villagers are possibly looking for the equipments from the town. It is easier than find someone to do the iron work in many ways such as it saves more time and no need to find the charcoal for treating the maker. Besides, the villagers do not have enough land to do the cultivation, therefore, the using of agricultural equipments is decreasing without arguing.
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