Having an elongated neck has been a standard of beauty for centuries, and it’s a goal some of today’s women still strive for. We’re not necessarily talking about achieving it with surgical cosmetic procedures, though—we’re talking about the practice of lengthening the neck with rings.
Though strange to some, it’s one of the oldest types of body modification in the world, and one that many women still follow in a few different parts of the world—some even here in the United States.
In southeast Asia, historians have been able to date the practice of using neck rings all the way back to the 11th century. However, no one has been able to discover a concrete reason for why they did it. One of the biggest legends surrounding the rings claims that villagers wore them as a defense against tiger attacks, which were most likely to be directed at the neck. Another says that it was to protect women from being taken by men of rival tribes by giving them a less-appealing look. However, the exact opposite is true today, as the tradition is alive and well in Myanmar where the look is considered to be beautiful and elegant.
Within Africa’s Ndebele tribe, the women of the tribe wear copper and brass rings not only around their necks but around their legs and arms, as well. The rings are given to the women by their husbands and worn as a sign of faithfulness and were once removed only after the women died—today, however, the women don’t tend to wear them permanently.
At the age of 5, girls in the Karen (or Kayan) and Padaung tribes of Myanmar are fitted with their first rings. Wearing them isn’t always an easy task, though. The coils, which are typically made of brass, weigh around four-and-a-half pounds to start with, and then more coils are added over time.
In some cases, the coils they wear are replaced entirely so that thicker coils can be added in their place. It has been said that many of the girls and women enjoy having their coils changed because it is the only opportunity they have to see that area of their bodies uncovered.
Though the point of wearing the coils is to elongate a woman’s neck, that’s not actually what it does at all. Yes, their necks clearly will look longer after wearing them for some time, but it’s not a result of their neck bones somehow stretching out—it’s because the weight and pressure of the coils on their collarbones push them down. In fact, one of the main reasons why some tribes choose to begin the practice when girls are young is because their bones are more pliant, making the desired results easier to achieve and with less pain.
Wearing the rings doesn’t just affect the collar bones, though. When the rings push down enough, they can actually cause the position of the rib cage to shift, as well—typically, wearing the rings will move the rib cage and the collarbones approximately 45 degrees below where they normally sit in the body. They will also cause the shoulders to slope forward and weaken the muscles in the neck.
The neck is a fairly sensitive area to begin with, so adding that amount of weight and pressure to it doesn’t do great things for it. Not only are the coils not entirely comfortable to wear, but they can also lead to permanent muscle weakness in the head when worn for long periods—it’s the coils that hold up the head, so the neck muscles don’t get used and become weak.
The problems don’t stop there, though. The rings can cause near-constant chafing on the skin of the neck and shoulders, which is also more likely to become pretty susceptible to bruising while the rings are on. One woman even discovered that mold had been growing on the area of her neck hidden under the rings, and she developed permanent scars from wearing them.
Two decades ago, the intensified civil war between Karenni and the Burmese government caused the Kayan people to flee from Myanmar to the northern hills of Thailand. The Thai government granted them access as economic migrants, not as refugees. They were put in guarded villages, where they have been on display for tourists and the local governments to make money ever since. An estimated 40,000 tourists per year pay between $8-16 to stop by these hill tribes to gaze upon the women’s unusual appearance and take pictures.
Unfortunately, the entry fee is rarely dispensed to the villagers directly. Instead, neck-ring-wearing-women sell trinkets, crafts, and photo-opportunities, essentially working in a live-in gift shop. Residents receive an allowance of food and toiletries and profit from handicraft sales, and women wearing brass rings earn an extra salary. Village owners decrease wages if women discuss their plight with visitors or use anything modern, like cell phones or computers.
In the short documentary Silent Hopes, some of the women in the Kayan village of Huay Phu Keng are asked about their customs. Even though the younger generations are still eager to start wearing the rings as of 5 years old, there doesn’t seem to be a direct cultural significance to the coils apart from an esthetic principle. Of course, this in itself can be a reason to uphold such a tradition, but the lines are becoming more and more blurred as long as these women maintain in live-in gift shops, where their tradition is used as a means to raise capital for outside authority.
On top of this, there are serious health risks connected to wearing the rings on a day to day basis. It might seem like the rings cause the neck to stretch and the head to be floating above a pedestal of golden chains, but in reality, the weight of them is pushing the collar bone down, causing the vertebrae in the spine to collapse. Not seldom, the coils cause injuries to the back and neck, but without health insurance and easy access to hospitals, many chew betel nuts and leaves to have some pain relief, which is highly addictive.
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