Despite the globalization and the remarkable advances of the societies, still survive today many tribes characterized by extreme traditions very ancient.
One of these is the Padaung tribe, a tribe of “long-necked” women or “Giraffe Women”, on the border with Burma.
This name is due to an ancient custom that leads women to wrap their neck with a long series of brass rings, with the intention of deforming the neck bones to make it long and inhuman: they push down the muscles around the clavicle, compressing the rib cage and permanently deforming the clavicle and spine.
The motivations, at first linked to a mechanism of protection from tigers and abductions, are at the same time a symbol of beauty and for this reason this process is undertaken since very young, precisely from the age of 5 years.
Every woman is free to choose the length of her neck, starting from a few rings and getting to wear up to 25, removing them just to medicate, clean and replace them. It is a difficult and very slow procedure to change rings, which are actually a long and rigid spiral to widen and unroll accurately.
This tradition, dangerous for health, still exists in the tribes as a characteristic that differentiates them from other peoples and that attracts tourism.
The latter contributes to the survival of these tribes, but at the same time reduces them to an attraction to watch for the sole purpose of making money.
The most fascinating thing is surely the way these tribes survive together with their traditions, without the need to adapt to standard aesthetic canons that dominate the world.
Sara De Luca 4N
