The story of the #Kayan “”Long Neck Karen Tribe”” “ The Karen long neck tribe is unique by the fact that their women wear heavy neck rings around their necks for most of their lives. Some women also wear these heavy rings around their forearms and shins, but that’s different from neck rings and is up to their own choice. Some longneck women have it more like a style element. In real life, these women don’t naturally have extra long necks though. The heavy brass rings are a neck strecher, smashing their rib cage and shoulders down over the years. That gives the illusion that their necks are unusually long. The tradition or neck rigs actually started as a protection from tigers. Several Karen tribe woman were killed by tigers far back in the past. So the leader of the tribe decided to have woman wear these brass neck rings to protect their tribe from extinction. As per tradition, the more neck rings a woman carries on her neck, the more beautiful she is. Later the tradition evolved so that only girls who were born on a particular time of a month were destined to wear the neck rings. Usually, girls start to wear long neck rings from the age of 5 – 6. They start with 5 rings around their neck and 2 extra neck streching rings are added year by year. There’s no fixed maximum number of neck rings that they can wear, but it can go up to 25. Around the age of 15 girls are able to choose if they will continue the neck elongation by wear rings for the lifetime or will they stop now. After this age, their rib cage will become too damaged and neck would be too loose to hold on its own with neck rings removed. Wearing the rings around their necks is every Kayan women’s choice, which they have to make until their twenties. In the past women wore the rings to honor their ancestor’s traditions. . . Swipe right 👉🏽 to see more pics and videos. . . #BaanTongLuang #KarenLongNeck #Thailand #ChaingMai #MaeRim #Vacation #Holiday #PassportReady #Culture #International #Travels #Jewels #Thankful #PositiveLife #TravelWithSparkle ✨ #TeamFarrah 💋 (at Chiang Mai, Thailand) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsqptF4jm0u/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ctdxrvsbtulw
