Akha - Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The staple of the Akha diet is rice, cultivated mainly by the slash-and-burn (shifting or swidden) method. Known as dry rice, such rice depends solely on rainfall for moisture. Vegetables, including pumpkins, beans, and greens, are planted in rice fields; maize, chilies, soybeans, and cotton are grown in other fields. Where sufficient water is available, irrigated rice fields are built. Although primarily subsistence rice cultivators, Akha have long been involved in cash cropping and trade. In the last century, cotton and opium poppies were the principal cash crops; more recent cash crops are chilies, soybeans, cabbages, and tomatoes. Texts of the oral tradition mention traveling to the lowlands to buy salt and iron, items still obtained in valley markets along with other consumer goods. Gathering of wild fruits, mushrooms, and other edible plants contributes to the food supply. Guns have superseded crossbows in hunting; traps of numerous kinds are set. Game, such as wild boar, deer, bamboo gopher, and jungle fowl, is not as plentiful as in the past, in part because of deforestation. Fishing is done with traps and nets. Pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, cattle, and water buffalo are raised.

Industrial Arts. Villagers make chopsticks and other utensils out of bamboo. Baskets of many types are woven from bamboo or rattan. Until recently, most clothing was made from home-spun cotton, dyed with indigo. Patterns of embroidery and appliqué adorning men's and women's jackets are distinctive of Akha subgroups, as are the stunning women's hats—embellished with silver ornaments, beads, and monkey fur—for which Akha are famous. Each traditional village must have at least one blacksmith to forge iron knives, hoes, and other tools. Silversmiths are rare. Increasingly, Akha engage in wage labor in the highlands and lowlands.

Trade. One or more families in a village may operate a small shop in their home, stocking such items as cigarettes and kerosene. Itinerant traders, either lowlanders or hill-dwelling Yunnan Chinese, come to buy livestock or cash crops, or to sell blankets and other goods. As more roads are built into the highlands, traders are arriving by truck rather than on foot.

Division of Labor. Hunting is symbolically and in practice a male endeavor; rice cultivation is done by both sexes, though symbolically it is a female activity. Weaving, dyeing, and sewing are also female activities; in certain ritual contexts this domain contrasts with the male domain of hunting. Preparing rice is women's work, but men often cook, especially meat for feasts. This sexual division of labor is enshrined in the Akha religion.

Land Tenure. Slash-and-burn fields are held in usufruct, that is, while in use; a family's claim to a plot ceases when it is left fallow to allow the forest to regenerate. Irrigated rice fields, on the other hand, are the property of their preparer and can be sold. As Akha are incorporated into the states in which they reside, national land laws—frequently at odds with customary practice—come into effect.