Forbidden Songs of the Pgaz K’Nyau. By Suwichan Phattanaphraiwan (“Chi”). Translated by Benjamin Fairfield.

Abstract

The “forbidden” songs of the Pkaz K’Nyau (Karen), part of a larger oral tradition (called tha), are on the decline due to lowland Thai modernization campaigns, internalized Baptist missionary attitudes, and the taboo nature of the music itself. Traditionally only heard at funerals and deeply intertwined with the spiritual world, these 7-syllable, 2-stanza poetic couplets housing vast repositories of oral tradition and knowledge have become increasingly feared, banned, and nearly forgotten among Karen populations in Thailand. With the disappearance of the music comes a loss of cosmology, ecological sustainability, and cultural knowledge and identity. Forbidden Songs is an autoethnographic work by Chi Suwichan Phattanaphraiwan, himself an artist and composer working to revive the music’s place in Karen society, that offers an inside glimpse into the many ways in which Karen tradition is regulated, barred, enforced, reworked, interpreted, and denounced. This informative account, rich in ethnographic data, speaks to the multivalent responses to internal and external factors driving modernization in an indigenous and stateless community in northern Thailand.
 Originally published in Thai as เพลงต้องห้ามของปกาเกอะญอ. Bangkok: Santisiri Press, 2014.

“Kox Kwai Kauv Kox Kwai “:1 Ecopoetic Symbolisation in Pgaz K’nyau Oral Poetry

“…This 'Karen consensus' (Walker 2001) has been promoted by both international activists and Thai scholars (Tan- Kim-Yong et al 1988;Ganjanapan 2000;Laungaramsri 2001). It has also gained ground in the academic and popular texts produced by the Pgaz K'Nyau themselves (Trakansuphakon 2006;Phattanaphraiwan 2018), as a cultural marker of identity and social cohesion. In this latter literature, Pgaz K'Nyau oral poems or songs -hta -are often highlighted as a source of ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge that would come to demonstrate the essential character of the Pgaz K'Nyau as a people living in harmony with their natural environment.…”

“…Due to the growing popularity of modern Thai and Western songs amongst the new generations of Pgaz K'Nyau, however, the term hta is increasingly used to refer specifically to the traditional forms of oral poiesis, which for the most part only the elderly can still remember and perform. Moreover, in Christian communities, the traditional hta have been actively replaced by religious hymns and other imported songs, deemed more orthodox and modern by those who despise the old practice of maz hta for being too tied up with animistic beliefs (Fairfield 2012;Phattanaphraiwan 2018). While Buddhists have been less militant against the traditional hta, this practice is slowly dying out in most Pgaz K'Nyau communities, despite some efforts to modernise it, for instance by the performer Suwichan ('Chi') Phattanaphraiwan (Fairfield 2013).…”

“…In any case, these genres should not be viewed as a taxonomy of ideal-types, but rather as "socially operating frameworks, or metasemiotic entities" that are "learned, become recognisable and carry meaningful associations" (Koski et al 2016: 25; see also Fowler 1982) for the Pgaz K'Nyau. Some of these songs are handed down from one generation to the next as the embodiment of ancestral wisdom and might be subject to certain taboos, like the verses performed during funeral ceremonies to guide the soul of the deceased on its journey to the world of the dead (Phattanaphraiwan 2018). However, many other songs are composed and performed for social occasions, such as weddings or other gatherings, by anyone who is skilled enough to engage in the various forms of individual, antiphonal, or choral performance enjoyed by the Pgaz K'Nyau.…”