The Wind Will yet Sing

By Gordon Young

From published author Gordon Young comes another tour de force with the release of The Wind Will Yet Sing. This time, he brings fascination to readers as he takes them to the captivating world of a Lahu village in Northern Thailand.

The Wind Will Yet Sing tells a fictional story based on the true history of a tribal mountain peoplethe Ku-lao Lahu. Through the characters of Chala Shelo and his people, Young shows how the Ku-lao live with much integrity and simplicity, and in harmony with nature, until foreign elements attack their idyllic and peaceful lifestyle. Forced to defend their village, people, land, game and even beliefs against various bands of marauding attackers, the Ku-lao must rely upon their great hunting skills. But are these hunters and their chief prepared and strong enough to fend off superior numbers of enemy groups with modern weapons?

While their origin might always remain a mystery, the Ku-lao Lahu can still be found in certain remote mountains. In this book, Young unleashes his storytelling prowess to share an enduring tale of their admirable courage, humor, perseverance, hard work and resilience. Having had opportunity to be intimately acquainted with the Ku-laoeven living, hunting, feasting and suffering with themYoung is able to capture the poetic dialogue and real metaphors they used, as no on else could. Every episode is based upon true experiences and events in Ku-lao life since about 1932. Woven with drama, action, and adventure, The Wind Will Yet Sing hooks readers as it unearths an incredibly absorbing culture and heritage that will remain endearing to those who recognize its beauty and value.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456819439

Gordon Young

Gordon Young grew up in Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors, where his accomplishments included learning to parallel park the family’s massive Buick Electra 225. After reaching an uneasy truce with the nuns in the local Catholic school system, he went on to study journalism at the University of Missouri and English literature at the University of Nottingham. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Utne Reader, and numerous other publications. Young has published Flint Expatriates, a blog for the long-lost residents of the Vehicle City, since 2007. He is a senior lecturer in the Communication Department at Santa Clara University and lives in San Francisco.

Book preview

Titles by Gordon Young

The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand

Journey from Banna, China

Run for the Mountains

Tracks of an Intruder

The Wind

Will Yet Sing

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GORDON YOUNG

Copyright © 2010 by Gordon Young.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010917096

ISBN: Hardcover     978-1-4568-1942-2

ISBN: Softcover       978-1-4568-1941-5

ISBN: Ebook           978-1-4568-1943-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

87513

For my dear wife Peggy,

And for the Lahu people in our lives

_____

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground . . .

And innocence, which most does please

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

 – Alexander Pope

_____

Contents

Foreword

PART ONE

The Crossing of the Stream

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

PART TWO

The Japa

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

PART THREE

The Heh-Pa

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter SEVENTEEN

PART FOUR

The Kaw-Mi-Ni and Others

Chapter EIGHTEEN

Chapter NINETEEN

Chapter TWENTY

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

Epilogue

Glossary

FOREWORD

THIS IS THE story of the Ku-lao Lahu as they were and as they are still to be found in certain remote mountains.

Their more-distant origin might always remain an enigma since no one knows just when they became the Ku-lao, the most obscure branch of the Lahu. That might have occurred as recently as a century ago or a thousand years before, depending upon when they separated from their closest cousins, the Lahu-na. Yet it can be known that they are true Lahu, a Tibeto-Burman race that came into Burma, Laos, and Thailand from southern China.

According to their own interpretations of animistic codes, which are similar among most Lahu-speaking peoples, the Ku-lao became the purists who refrained from opium cultivation and from intoxicating liquors. This individuality has separated the Ku-lao from all other mountain peoples within the infamous Golden Triangle area of Southeast Asia; it has been a force, which preserved them in close bonds of solidarity longer and more consistently than any of their other ethnic relatives. To other tribal mountain people, the Ku-lao are quaint, diffident, interior-living cousins who place small importance upon keeping trails open from their villages to the outside world; yet they were people to be respected, not because of their distaste for opium, but for mysterious magical powers, which could make them formidable warriors or gentle, aloof friends as the occasion demanded. Perhaps the most admirable characteristic that can be appreciated in this time and age is the Ku-lao’s concern for conserving the wildlife around them and from which they in turn could obtain a large portion of their meat. They are the last of their kind in this respect among the many mountain hunters who have rapidly exterminated the once-great herds of deer and wild cattle.

The author has tried to show, through the fictional characterization of Chala Sheh Lo and his people, how the Ku-lao lived. Every episode is based upon true experiences and events that were part of the Ku-lao life since about 1932. Research, consciously and otherwise, has taken place during most of the author’s life; many Lahu contributed to and made this possible. They were the inspiration for this novel, and the author will always remember them with deep gratitude for the many things shown him and for the friendship of Lahu leaders such as the following listed few from among the many:

Chalu Hki-ka, Chief of the Nam Keut Lahu, Burma

Chafa Po, Chief of the Nam Hpak Leun Lahu, Burma

ChaMvuh Sheh Lo, Chief of the Ah Pvuh De Lahu, Burma

Chakaw Sala, guerilla leader (1942-45), Burma

Chahkaw Paya, Chief of the Mae Pun Lahu, Thailand

Sheh Hka Leu (Sen Kham Leu), Chief of the Lahu-nyi, Thailand

Pusheh Ti, Chief of the Huay Mi Lahu-nyi, Thailand

Chanu Sheh Lo, Chief of the Mae Ngat Lahu, Thailand

Hpa Mvuh Teh, Paw Khu of the Huay Tu Ku-lao, Thailand

Chalaw Hpa Sheh Lo, Chief of the Ku-lao, Laos

Chaneh Pumeu, Sub-chief of the Ku-lao, Laos

And because most of the Lahu leaders mentioned above moved on and will never know their experiences have been recorded in a novel, the author would wish them what Hpa Mvuh Teh, the Paw Khu of Ku-lao, said:

May the rewards under the everlasting Na-pvuh-law tree be great for chiefs who have gone on to the Land of the Great Spirit, as great as their love for their children left behind, for it was merited through vested love.

 – G. Y.

PART ONE

*     *     *

The Crossing of the Stream

CHAPTER ONE

CHALA HAD NEVER known such pain in all his fifty years. He felt a dizziness surge as many hands eased him onto a makeshift litter, then the chest wound throbbed and flashed to dominate all things. The murmur of voices around him became vague, yet he was aware of his people and how gentle they could be when a member could not help himself. He winced and groaned when the new agony shocked him, and he fluttered his eyes open for a moment.

Young faces close by startled him; they were like his own, many years before. A man could breathe with ease then, he thought, even after a hard uphill chase, and he had the strength of a leopard. What joy a young hunter knew on the high range in the time of wild cattle! How good it was to laugh and shout and yell; when a man got thirsty, there was always water, water in every bamboo joint!

*     *     *

The moon disappeared. New sounds shrilled out and rose through the double canopy of tangled jungle vegetation to the distant limestone peaks on the western skyline. Chala knew from his hunkered position above the game trail that abrupt darkness would alarm nocturnal creatures, and they would move, move quickly

to safety.

Overhead, a scrappy owlet popped his beak in a Chinkapin Oak, ruffled his feathers, and relieved himself.

May maggots eat you slowly, Chala hissed through clenched teeth, his brown cheek fouled with the bird’s droppings. It was a bad omen, that bird, but movement on the game trail diverted his attention. Two brush-tailed porcupines scampered past; he brought his bamboo stick down hard behind them, and they plummeted headlong into his trap. Once sprung, the enmeshed animals swung, squealing over the game trail in a fiber net.

He forgot the cursed owlet and prepared for the kill. Without haste, he took his fire maker from a monkey-skin bag and pumped it vigorously. The horn cylinder grew warm, then hot, until a wad of hemp cotton smoldered. He blew it gently and used the small flame to light a short pine fagot, then stepped over to snap the necks of the cat-sized rodents. He jerked his net from the sapling, picked up his crossbow, and climbed up through the mass of sharp rocks toward the ridgetop.

A tiger boomed for the third time that night from across the valley, so loud that it worried roosting jungle chickens in bamboos just over Chala’s head. He raised the fagot and saw a cock bird, his head tucked under a wing; and with a quick leap, he grabbed the bird by the legs. There was a frantic squawking, then quick death.

Ehbo had made a fire at the camp on the ridge and glanced up when Chala stalked up to him. He moved the firewood around until the flame picked up into a bright blaze.

Thought I heard a wildcat killing a chicken, Ehbo said.

Only me robbing a wildcat for a meal he won’t miss, Chala answered.

Didn’t hear bowstring slapping arrow.

Didn’t hear because didn’t shoot.

Then how? Chicken just fall on you?

Aye, same thing. Just spit on his ass and killed him.

Ehbo grinned, and the wide scar on his left cheek disappeared into a thin crease. He looked at his friend over the smoke for a moment then said, Old Striper calls Chala close tonight, got too close to you, and that’s why you have the old-man look tonight.

That was no reason, Ehbo. Same old tiger just calls like that over there every year when she’s fussing about whether a bear got into her cave or is going to leave it quiet for her and her cubs.

Then you must have seen a ghost or got worrying about the chances getting smaller that Namico will be able to marry you.

No ghost, no bad dream, no stomachache, Chala said as he piled his bag and gear to one side and lowered onto his heels to stare into the fire. The smoke shifted over to engulf him as if it had waited to annoy him. He blinked and held his breath until a breeze rescued him.

Ehbo, how bad are owl omens? he asked.

Ah, bad, worse than snake omens, Ehbo said.

Shit right on my face tonight.

Can’t do anything worse than that.

Didn’t think it could happen and can’t believe it happened.

Man’s got to be pretty stupid to get shit on by an owl, shouldn’t even be sitting so close as to get contaminated, Ehbo grunted.

Think it could be reason for getting killed today?

No doubt about it, but it might not be today, might be the next day, Ehbo said, more interested in a thorn in his thick calloused heel.

Chala became morose, said nothing for long moments, and ran unwashed fingers through his rice-water-oiled hair to sort out leaves, moss, and globs of spiderwebs. His sensuous wide mouth was a tight line over a strong chin that had no hint of a beard. He tensed his naked torso against the chill breeze, and cords of muscle tightened under weathered, teak-stained skin. He fingered the small amulet bundle fixed on a greasy thong around his neck and muttered in a pensive monotone, Might even die today though a man slid from his mother’s skirt only nineteen rice reaps ago.

Ah, Chala, you think too much. A man’s time comes sooner or later, and in your case, it just might come sooner, that is all, Ehbo said without looking up from his thorn extraction.

Makes a man grind his teeth to think that one round-eyed owl can shit on him and make him feel so miserable.

Why blame that owl, Chala? Owl was just doing what Mvuh-ney-kai spirit told him to do. Think the owl was so accurate with his ass, all by himself, to be able to hit a man in the face? Just can’t happen. He had to have help.

Still it is the owl’s fault for obeying Mvuh-ney-kai. Didn’t have to listen if he was a good owl like all those that never shit on you or me or anyone else I know of.

"Well, this one had to. He had no choice."

Maggots are going to eat him anyway.

Won’t do you any good. Like a wasp, once he’s stung you, it doesn’t hurt less just because you smash his yellow ass and smear him on the ground from here to there.

Ehbo, you are a crazy, ugly, bad-smelling, motherless child, but you have always spoken truth, Chala said and spat with force into the fire. I am thinking that this child you see sitting across the fire from you was not named Man-Tiger so that he could die after only nineteen rice reaps and before he has made plenty of male babies to take his place. What do you think of that?

It is true, as I see it, that the Sheh Lo’s daughter will not be glad when you die, and it is true that I will need to find another companion, Ehbo said with rather more concern.

Might as well be here and now! Chala said loudly, then choked with sudden fury, he shouted, Come out, Mvuh-ney-kai! I am ready! Come out now or hide your face in shame from the Man-Tiger Child!

No! Chala, don’t call out like that! A fever speaks, and your mind flies away! Ehbo cried.

Feel angry like a wounded leopard! Feel no fear when you’re angry! Chala continued triumphantly.

Ehbo watched in bewildered fear, his eyes small beads in widened white orbs, certain that his friend had suddenly become insane. He saw Chala jump up, draw his long knife, and whirl to face what seemed like a sudden trembling of rocks and trees behind him. Then he realized that he was on his feet himself, his long knife in his hand, ready to join his companion against unseen demons. It frightened him to think that casual talk had taken so sudden a turn, and that in moments, the situation would undoubtedly become desperate.

They waited in spread-legged defensive stance and listened to the giant bamboos creak and groan in the wind, and in a little while, they were both amazed that omnipresent evil spirits had not heeded Chala’s bold challenge.

Chala shouted several more times, waited, and then said, Always wanted to do that! Ehbo, you are my witness, Mvuh-ney-kai spirits heard but did not come! He turned back to hunker by the fire, his face relaxed with a wide grin that reassured the still-fearful and amazed Ehbo.

They did not come! Only the Paw Khu and the Sheh Lo have crossed such a challenge stream! You are charmed now, Chala! Ehbo said with awe.

The eastern sky paled, and a large flying squirrel was silhouetted for a brief moment on an oak limb. It leaped out to glide away down into the valley, and then there was the sound of dogs from the distant direction of the village, followed in a few moments by the loud thump of the Sheh Lo’s great bull-skin drum.

Somehow knew the drum would follow when the dogs barked, Chala said.

Owl omen said something would happen, and something happened. Spirits couldn’t hold up to your anger, Chala, and decided to strike the village.

People will say we are fined again because young blood gets too hot around the love fires, won’t know I had anything to do with it.

Even the Sheh Lo will say so, but spirits would fine us anyway for the amount of sneaky loving that goes on. Just has to be that way every once in a while. You and I don’t have much time to tangle legs with maidens anyway, but then there’s no wrong, really, in reaching a hand under a girl’s blouse.

No wrong, Ehbo, and you don’t have to think I disapprove of you singing songs to my sister, Chala laughed.

Well, no wrong if it’s the same girl and all you are waiting for is a hog killing and wedding.

Ah, you get me thinking about Namico, and I can see her in my mind picture just as clearly as I see that tick-chewed leg of yours. Was thinking about her just before that plagued owl shit on my face and could see her stepping out of the stream all gleaming wet, her long hair flowing down her back right onto the two-hands-long bulge of her beautiful ass. I could see – I can see them now – her breasts, so pale, like something carved from elephant tusks! Ah-ya! And I don’t dare even think about her round, smooth belly, Ehbo, or I start sputtering like a pitch-pine flame.

No wrong just thinking, no wrong just peeking, Ehbo said and got up. We better believe now that Sheh Lo’s drum means for you and me to come home quickly, running all the way.

Gives me no joy to step hard on my right foot. Plagued green viper stung me three days ago, and it still itches and burns some, gets worse if I run a long time. Chala squeezed the slight swelling on his ankle.

First few times I got stung, it hurt so bad it would wet up my eyes, but then green snakes don’t even swell me up anymore. How did you manage to be so stupid as to get a green snake on you this time of year?

"It was a bad-luck day for me. First thing in the morning, the sow had rolled on one of her nice little four-day boar babies, then hawk got two of our baby chicks from the old ruffle-necked hen. Took a shot at a big cock silver pheasant from two jumps distance and the arrow glanced off a twig. Can you imagine that, Ehbo? Shooting from here to there, and I missed!"

Happens all the time.

Well, then I am going along the side of the little cliff this side of the waterfalls, stepping carefully because there’s a lot of sharp rocks there, you know. Then here’s this one snake that should have been in a hole, curled up for the cool season, and it happens to be his day to get out and lick some dew or something. I just step too close to him and don’t see him first, it’s that simple, Chala said, stalling Ehbo from his departure.

Maybe after tonight, you won’t need to read omens too carefully anymore, Chala still can’t believe you made a challenge and can sit there with nothing more to excite you than a half-healed snakebite. Yet I wouldn’t sit around too much longer, or some dog-assed centipede is going to find you and bite you right on your well-rested ass, Ehbo laughed. "And then you’ll know about something that really hurts," he added as he shouldered his crossbow.

Had to listen to you telling me about how bad that hurt for three days and three nights and all the time when I was carrying you piggyback down from the high range. Seems like you were a real baby then, Ehbo, not being able to walk just because a centipede pinched you on the foot. If you hadn’t just sat there howling and squeezed real hard, you’d have gotten out most of the poison, and maybe I wouldn’t have had to carry you. And come to think of it, it wasn’t even in a soft place, Chala said with pretended disgust.

Want me to pick you up and carry you back like when you were belly high and got stung by the big hornets? Ehbo chuckled.

No, better save your remaining strength for when I get gored by a big bull sometime. Think it could be a tiger that took a fine at the village?

Sheh Lo wouldn’t bang his drum over some skulking leopard. I’m thinking, aye, it might have been a tiger last night. Time to go, pick up your bag, Ehbo said, and with a short yelp, he bounded down the steep slope into the dim dawn.

In a short while, Chala caught up to his friend, limping only slightly.

*     *     *

CHAPTER TWO

DECEMBER 20, 1932, dawned over the fifty houses of Chasuh Sheh Lo’s village with a cool that made the smoke hang low over blackened thatch roofs until midmorning. It was Chicken Day for the Ku-lao, and if a man counted his sunrises correctly, seventeen more dawns would make the first day of the new year.

The people knew that their village location was a very special one. It was where the Creator had pressed his great thumb down between the ridges when the whole world was still a soft clay and made a wide meadow for wild cattle and other beasts that roamed the world before man. They could be glad that strong winds never came from the north to moan up the hollow as it did on the south side behind the hogback at the head of the village. Thus, in twenty years, the Ku-lao could not remember a single house being damaged by winds, and they were certain that God had meant the Ku-lao people to come there after the herds of wild cattle had so eroded the several acres that no trees remained against which the animals could rub their oily flanks.

A crowd mingled around the stilt-raised house of Ah Suh Pa, the silver beater, to watch and help him drag out a dying cow from the corral under his bamboo floor. There was no way to save the throat-gashed animal, and Ah Suh Pa cursed colorfully as he drove a long dagger into the cow’s throat. He cursed again because so much of the cow’s blood had already been drained, and there was hardly enough to fill two bamboo-joint containers. Many people had admired that cow, fattened on wild vetch since its first calf was lost when a cobra bit it on the nose.

The Sheh Lo trudged up from where the tiger had dragged away Ah-Suh Pa’s other cow and stopped to watch the butchering. His stolid face showed no emotion as he spoke in a deep bass. Won’t be enough blood out of so fat a cow to fry for one family. Should have cut it and bled it right after tiger opened it up for you, Ah Suh Pa.

Didn’t imagine this one to even be hurt and didn’t see it until it got light, Ah Suh Pa said.

A man has got to take care of and worry over his own cows. Do we bait the other one, or do you say that it too must be cut up? the Sheh Lo asked.

Leave it until noon, then cut meat. No use giving it all to tiger and birds. That’s if you say a shooter is going to wait and try a tiger-come-out-quick ambush. Otherwise, might as well cut meat quickly.

The Sheh Lo nodded. "Some thoughts to be made before making hunt plans. Tiger like this was sent. Spirit will send him again and tell him to fine double just like last night. It is no accident that he comes down from the high hills to look for cows when there’s enough deer and pig to feed fifty of his kind. He’ll come again as long as young people, and some older ones, keep looking the other way from Ku-lao codes and elder’s words, teasing the spirits with bare asses flipping under the bushes!"

Truth, Sheh Lo! a gaunt old woman half shouted. Ah-lo-lo, the flirting and itching and disrespect for elders that goes on around here! Sure, tigers are going to fine us, and so will leopards, pythons, and hawks. Too many hot crotches doing the thinking instead of good-thinking heads, Sheh Lo! Moon comes up, orchids get fragrant, minds fly away like butterflies!

Aye, it is like that. Next thing, tiger will go to eating people instead. Signs are clear, saw it in the chicken bones this morning, all leaning in the wrong direction, the Sheh Lo said.

Ai-ee, Sheh Lo, it was my daughter that tigers ate five seasons ago, just at the cool time like this. First it was pigs and cows, then people just like you say. Didn’t stop until we shaved a few offending heads and put ashes on them, the old

woman said.

Can’t let it happen again, Ku-lao mother. We’ll find this one before he takes anything else around here, and if we can’t do that, we’ll look for some heads to shave! I’m not going to take long trying to decide whether we dare or dare not go after a spirit-ridden tiger, the Sheh Lo said and turned to walk toward his big house with hands behind his back. He saw then that Chala and Ehbo had returned from their hunt and that they sat on his wide porch, their naked torsos glistening with sweat.

Came running all the way when we heard the drums, Chala said humbly.

You two, at least, summon fast, the Sheh Lo