The Mentawai

On the 13th of September 2008, the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples had been carried by several states in the world, despite of the disapproval of Australia, New-Zealand and Canada. But nowadays, a lot of tribes are still forced to leave their small villages and to integrate towns or government villages near the coasts.

This is exactly what the Mentawai people are suffering from since the government of Indonesia initiated the “Mentawai relocation plan”. The terms of the bargain are the following ones : if they accept to leave their big family house called “ umas” in order to live in town in a proper way ( in a globalized way ) , they will access to free education, clothes, medical care and other promises.

Before going further to this actual problem, let us introduce you the Mentawai tribe, which certainly have the most interesting indigenous culture, and the most preserved despite of all the persecutions they are suffering from.

The Mentawai tribe is an indigeneous tribe of Siberut (Indonesia), a quite big island (4480 km2), off the Sumatra’s coast. Nowadays, the number of Mentwai is nearly 30 000.

The Mentawai people has a way of life very traditional : they hunt, with poison prepared by themselves with several natural ingredients ( leaves, pepper, roots.. ) ; the women also contribute by fishing with landing nets – and all these things are done with the respect of nature. When they kill an animal, they never forget to thank the animal soul in order to preserve the balance of the forest. This concept is part of the several shamanism concepts: men have to live in harmony with nature, because if not, the forest spirits will punish them.

a Mentawai women fishing

The Mentawai live in big and long traditional houses where all the family stay (they are approximately 25 in it). The house is elevated, in order to keeps to pigs under it. They are used to eat on the floor, so they have pierced a hole on it, so that the scraps of their meal fall down directly to the pigs.

But the particularity of the Mentawai from others tribes, -and which is the origin of all the persecutions they underwent for centuries-, is their physical appearance: all their bodies are covered with tattoos from the head to the feet (as you can see on the photos posted).

Actually, the Mentawai tribe is probably the first one in the world that has done tattoos. There are several explanations of this practice:
Some will say that it is a religious act in continuity with shamanism. In fact, they believe that everything have a soul, which is able to leave his material envelope. In consequence to that, their biggest fear is that their souls leave their bodies. That is for that reason that they tattoo their bodies, believing it will keep their soul protected, and so, they will be protected from death.
Another reason of these tattoos, which seems the more logical to occidental spirits, is that their tattoos permit them to recognize to which family the tribe’s members belong.
There is a third explanation, but less spread than the others that say that the tattoos are here to replace their clothes.

It seems logical that the tattoos’ sessions are numerous because of the size of them. It is the shaman of the family concerned that will tattoo the other members of the family, following his tattoos’ example. The ink is prepared with a kind of coal and cane sugar. The sessions are very long and hurting, but all the family assists to them, and so, they try to relax the man tattooed by telling him jokes and singing.

The other physical particularity of the Mentawai that disturbs a lot the others is that they file their teeth, so they can be pointed. And you must now think to yourself, why? Because they use to be cannibals. Now, they are not anymore because Indonesia government prohibited it, but they insist to keep this appearance, characteristic of the belonging to the tribe.

As we said before, the Mentawai have always been persecuted since the 50’s: some armed forces came into their villages and cut their hair, burnt their skins (considered as maleficent). And now, The Mentawai, also called “flower men” are now threatened to leave their forest and island for economics profits. In fact, there are a lot of forest’s exploitations that want to install in Siberut Island, which makes the Indonesia government very happy. But not only they will destroy the Mentawai tribe but also they will destroy the fauna and the flora.

The tribes with appearance very unusual have all been persecuted during ages, and now, with the globalization and all the standardization that it imposes, they are completely chased without any pangs of remorse of the governments. All these provisions made against these tribes are to much radical, and will lead to a world devoid of meaning and identity.

giraffe women's appearance in danger

“Visit the unusual and exotic Long-Neck Giraffe Women in the jungles of Thailand. They wear numerous brass rings around their elongated necks.”

This is what you can find nearly all the descriptions of organized tours in Thailand purposed by travel agencies. The Karen women, commonly named “giraffe women” live in a kind of village in Thailand.

According to the tradition, brass rings are put around the neck of girls as early as their five years old. Before, dog grease pomade, coconut milk and royal jelly are spread on their neck. Every year, one or two rings are added until the young girl gets married, twenty-eight being the maximum number of rings that they can wear.

The origin of this tradition is still a mystery, nevertheless, several hypothesis are emitted. The first one is that they wear these brass rings in order to protect them from tigers’ attacks when men went hunting. Another hypothesis explains that men wanted to make them ugly to prevent them to marry with men from another tribe and so leaving the village. It can be also explained by the fact it is a way to guard their wealth in place of safety. Many other explanations are possible, like superstitions or beauty criterions.

Contrary to some generally accepted ideas, the neck is not elongated by the rings, indeed those rings rest on their shoulders and as a result muscles and ribs are subsided under their weight. So the vertebras are not separated and that’s why the withdrawal of the ring does not involve their death.

Those women were welcomed, after their escape from Myanmar. In fact, over there, they were persecuted by the uncompromising army, well known by them as rebellious. So they came to Thailand for many of them, and they established themselves in villages that had been given by Thailand government. It seems useless to precise that, in offering them those villages, their first idea was to take advantage of them. Obviously, they had guessed those strange women with elongated necks by a dozen brass rings will satisfy the increasing tourist’s hunger of incredible pictures.

For many years, wearing those brass rings, clearly meant for the Karen women their belonging to the group. And now, this belonging proof is jeopardizing their liberty and moreover, their status of human being.

Today, they are really locked in those villages, such as horses could be put in paddock, and they have to act all the day like models in front of the aggressive flash-lights of the tourists, who paid 250 B (6€) to enter this new kind of “zoo”.
That is the reason why Zember, 21, decided in March 2008 to deny her rings and casted them off.

Zember, 21, without her brass rings.

Although the first generation of the tribe accepted without frustration the idea of being locked in “zoo-villages” because they knew they had got away from the army offensive, the new generation understood that they were humiliated and under-human treating by having this way of life.

Furthermore, Zember explained to a journalist that when they arrived they used to receive a little part of the profits made by the entrance tickets and post-cards’ sells, however it is not the case anymore.

We can easily imagine that this young woman is torn between two opposite feelings when she said to a journalist: “I want to keep my people’s traditions but we are suffering because of those rings.”


Nowadays, it seems more and more difficult to save some groups appearance when they are too marked or too much unusual in the era of globalization, an era of standardization, and paradoxically, with an increasing will of the human to slake their thirst with incredible things. And that is for this reason that, Karen women are isolated in villages, or decide to repudiate their origins: there is no way anymore for them to find a happy medium.

On May 2008, a new village of Karen women has opened in Sattahip, 100 km south-east of Bangkok, despite all the international criticisms. This is a vicious circle, more there are visitors, more they will exploit them.