Akha Oral Tradition School

The Living Legacy Project was overjoyed to launch the Akha Oral Tradition School, the first of many to come, in July 2023, on a verdant expanse surrounded by ponds, forests, and fields, in Ban Saen Suk, a small Akha village in the mountains north of Chiang Rai.

Each week, twenty-two Akha students, aged twelve to fifteen, who hail from highland villages in Northern Thailand and Myanmar, attend classes spoken in their native tongue to uncover their traditional Akha heritage from highly respected Master Akha Musicians and Artisans.

Following a four-year program designed in a gradated series of steps, from basic to complex, the Akha Oral Tradition School aspires to provide Akha youth with a solid foundation in memorizing and recreating the Akha Oral Arts.

Thanks to the example of the Master Musicians, every class comes alive with Akha Songs and Ballads (from courtship to celebrations to personal expression); Musical Instruments (that trumpet festivals, woo a mate, animate dances); Proverbs, Legends, and Stories (relating Akha life lessons, historical accounts, mythic tales); and Dances and Martials Arts (that develop physical skills, animate Akha celebrations, and inspire joy).

Seeing as such practices are rarely, if ever, performed in Akha villages now, the survival of the Akha Intangible Heritage is on the precipice of vanishing from memory.

The Akha Oral Tradition School hopes to revitalize this precious legacy, so full of wisdom and wonder, through the young people it teaches.

Students of the Akha Oral Tradition School are so fortunate to be taught by six exceptional Master Akha Musicians, Storytellers, and Instrument Makers,steeped in ancestral knowledge, filled with deep love for their culture, and overflowing with good will. Each week, they contribute their special skills, personalities, and charm. And yet, there remains a common thread in their inexplicable sense of being Akha. This, too, is an important lesson the children absorb each week. It is an honor to introduce them to you:

Integral to the Akha Oral Tradition School curriculum is offering students the full array of instruments in the Akha repertoire. To magnify their musical experience, and appreciation, however, students are also trained to craft their own instruments, bringing them another step closer to the lives and practices of their ancestors.

Master Instrument Makers not only train students in the fine details of craftsmanship using a wide assortment of tools, they also explain the natural materials that instruments are composed of—bamboo, reed, wood, gourd, buffalo horn, and beeswax—and where to collect them. Students go to the forest to gather leaves for their Pipa, wood for their Thang drums, and beeswax for their Darbo bird callers.

What distinguishes Cultural Crossroads Asia and the Living Legacy Project from other institutions is their pledge to work with ethnic groups in a lasting alliance not only to support cultural transmission, but also to share their knowledge of protecting our planet. The Akha Oral Tradition School feels that the preservation of traditional culture and the environment are bound closely together.

Master Akha Musicians share their wisdom of the natural world in their songs, stories, and life lessons in hopes that the next generation may begin to apply ancient practices creatively to contemporary challenges.  They introduce the concept of maintaining ecological balance, firstly by discussing the diversity of plant species—how to identify them, where they grow, which make the best musical tones. Out of necessity, it is then incumbent to secure the source of the plants so it remains abundant enough to fashion future instruments. To protect our planet’s natural resources, it is crucial to learn to replant those they remove.

The Living Legacy Project’s four-year commitment to champion the Akha Oral Tradition School in Ban Saen Suk is founded on a multi-faceted approach, adding experiential training in fields beyond musical study to magnify the breadth of the students’ understanding of ‘preserving and sustaining’ culture and to ensure its efforts have a lasting impact.

The curriculum has been designed as an organized, interdisciplinary whole, a training ground that:  supports the transmission of ancestral oral traditions; impresses on Akha youth the value of their ancient heritage; and, importantly, provides practical knowledge that can lead to fulfilling lifework and financial opportunities that sustain their families, their Akha Oral Tradition School, and their Akha heritage. This plan of action takes many forms.

With an intention to instill in students the value of their material and intangible culture and, furthermore, the need to preserve it, Cultural Crossroads Asia is enlisting Clare Lyons, a former senior producer and reporter for BBC World News and a specialized trainer, to teach an intensive course in photo and video reporting, visual story-telling, mobile phone skills, documentation and organization, and vocal presentation skills.

The subject matter that our Akha students will explore is their own culture: interviewing Akha elders and wisdom-keepers, documenting and reporting on traditional Akha artifacts and customs on mobile phones, and creating photo slide shows and short videos that will be displayed on the Cultural Crossroads Asia YouTube Channel.

To complement archiving culture by telling stories through audio-visual technology, Cultural Crossroads Asia has invited Dr. Lisa Roberts, a Museum Professional of forty years and a Fulbright Specialist, to introduce students and teachers of the Akha Oral Tradition School and villagers of Ban Saen Suk to the importance of cultural preservation and specifically to the work of archiving, caring for, and exhibiting tangible and intangible culture.

At the end of their curatorship training course, students will have created a small exhibition based on their own research, documentation, and design.

Cultural Crossroads Asia will partner with teachers, students, and villagers of Ban Saen Suk to establish the Akha Heritage Center, a satellite Akha cultural center and workshop to store and exhibit Akha objects and media of historical, artistic, and sacred significance, to present classes in traditional Akha practices, to produce hand-crafted objects, to host Akha festivals, and to welcome groups of select international visitors.

Establishing the Akha Oral Tradition School, Akha Heritage Center, and complementary Training Courses in combination is meant to engage the entire community of Ban Saen Suk so that the villagers and leadership are able to maintain these initiatives independently, equally sustaining Akha culture and their families into the future.

Cultural Crossroads Asia is producing a series of Videos of Akha Musical Instruments. Each video, running from twenty to thirty minutes in length, features an Akha Master Musician playing, describing, and making the instrument.

Whereas the Akha Oral Tradition School inspires twenty-two students each week over years, the videos that will appear on our Cultural Crossroads Asia YouTube Channel have the capacity to reach an untold number of people, including the full diaspora of Akha around the world, as well as an international audience interested in learning about Akha music.

Akha Oral Tradition School Concert

On 24 February 2024, after six months of weekly classes taught by our accomplished Master Musicians, Storytellers, and Instrument Makers, students of the Akha Oral Tradition School gave their first concert in Ban Saen Suk. Over the course of the afternoon, the Akha youth performed ancestral Akha songs, dances, melodic instruments, many which they made themselves—the Chu Du Buffalo Horn, Hu Le Peu Whistle Flute, Darbo Bird Caller, Maeli Maelo Reed Pipe, Pi Pa Leaf—and the full range of festival percussion instruments—Thang Drum, Che Lae Cymbals, and Bau Lau Bamboo Beaters.

So engagingly did the Akha students play, and with such enthusiasm, heart, and concentration, that everyone in attendance was delighted, and quite moved, by the pride they displayed for their own heritage. We hope you enjoy this video of the concert of the Akha Oral Tradition School Students of Ban Saen Suk, Thailand.