Lisu Village Sticky Rice

We awoke to the noises of a village morning, pigs rooting around and cocks crowing. But there was another less familiar sound, a slow, regular, heavy thunk, thunk, thunk. We were in a Lisu village for the lunar New Year, late January in the hills of north Thailand. The day before we’d seen young men head out to cut down small trees, one for each family group or household, to be set up in front of each house. The children were already wearing colorful new clothing for the New Year. Later that day we’d see the dancing: a slow hypnotic tune plucked from a simple lute, a circle of children in New Year’s finery being drawn in by the music, holding hands as they slowly dance-stepped around the lute player, and finally, as the late-afternoon shadows lengthened, the arrival of the young men and women of marriageable age, gleaming with silver jewelry, wearing rich black jackets and pastel skirts or pantaloons, elaborate bags and ornate headdresses, who shyly joined the slowly circling, slow-stepping, hand-holding dancers. The children would eventually drop out, leaving the courting young people to dance all night, eyeing each other’s finery, while the village elders looked on.