Pa-O ethnic traditional festival, “Poi Luu Phai”

Pa-O is one of the small ethnic groups in Burma. In Burma, there are a lot of different ethnic groups. Some people, they don’t know a lot about Burma. In Burma, the military have been controlling the country for nearly 50 years. We want the world to know about our country and our Pa-O ethnic group. We, most of our Pa-O people, live on the mountains. Our business is agriculture. We grow crops, such as, corn, rice and other crops as well. Even though we grow crops, we can’t grow freely, because they take our land to grow for castor oil plant. Also, we can’t export and sell our crop to another place. In Burma, most businesses are owned by Indian and Chinese people. Although we can sell our crops, the cost of our crop depends on the Indian or Chinese people and they only pay a low price.
Since, we lost our “three Patakat” scripture, and the Burmese king separated our Pa-O people to different areas, some people are saying that we are losing our history. However, it is not true, we already found some of our evidence from the past, only a few are missing; we are still trying to find out about our Pa-O history.

Most of our Pa-O people are farmers. We lose a lot of our biodiversity because the military are cutting down our trees, because of that we also lose our water and the land becomes dry. In Burma, we have tropical climate. We have three different weather, we have dry, rainy and winter season. We don’t get enough rain and water for our farm.
In our Pa-O culture, we have some strange festival. For us, it is not strange but for other ethnic groups it is very strange for them. I would like to share about one of the festivals that only our culture makes. We make “Poi Luu Phai”, Poi means festivals, Luu is smoke and Phai is means fire, “the smoke of the fire”. The reason that we make this festival is to call the rain. The festival is on the full moon day of May, we make this festival to call the rain. This is one of the beliefs that our old people believe in our culture, and we still believe in today. In our town, the weather is always changing, when we grow our crops, we can’t get enough rain or the rain doesn’t come regularly.
When we have this festival; we have to make “Myae Phyoe”, which is made from gunpowder. Firstly, we have to find gunpowder. We crush gunpowder and put into a hollow metal pipe, and then we keep it for a few days. After that we will get “Myae Phyoe”. And then, we can burn it. Before, we burn it, we have dance around our monastery three times. Then, we will make a wish for a few minutes. When we crush gunpowder it is very dangerous and it is not easy to crush the gunpowder. We have a race for “Myae Phyoe”. There are many different villages and different villages make one “Myae Phyoe” per village. There are 40 villages that participate in the race of “Myae Phyoe” festival. When we burn “Myae Phyoe”, it has to go up to northeast and it has to go very far. We look for the one that goes up very high and we give highest mark for that one. This is what our old people believe.
Even though the festival is not modernized, we are really happy to have this festival. We are very happy for our own traditional festival. We have some of the festival that is not allowed by the military. In Burma, we can’t stay more than 5 or 6 people at the same time in the same place.
Many of Pa-O youth come to the festival, they really enjoy that festival. They will meet each other and talk to each other in the festival. They dance together. That is the beginning of their love. After that the boy will come and visit the girl’s home at night. Sometimes it can be in the day time. However, in our culture the boy can visit to the girl’s home at the night time, because our Pa-O people are working at day time and they don’t have time to visit the girl, the girl also work at the day time so, they don’t have time to meet each other. Therefore, the boy has to visit at the night time. If the boy comes to visit the girl’s home, the girl has to prepare tea or something to eat. During the time that the boy comes to visit the girl’s home, the girl’s parents also allowed their daughter to talk to the boy. If the boys come, they come group by group. Sometimes there will be some groups at the same time. If they coincide, the group that came first has to leave the girl’s home, if not, then the group that comes late has to go to another home. They have understanding between each other. Some of the other ethnic people think that it is not good culture, like the boy comes to visit the girl’s home at the night time. We believe that is good for us.
Most of our Pa-O people are very honest, very kind and patient. If the boy wants to visit the girl’s home, the boy must be honest. If they aren’t honest, we have our own traditional punishment. When we marry, if the boy marries the girl, the boy has to give present to the girl which he is marrying. Before, the boy marries the girl, the boy has to ask “Kho byind Than”, the leader of the young people, for permission.
Most of our Pa-O people believe in Buddhism. Some people also believe in Christianity. In our culture, we have “Wa Tawing Laa”; it means the Buddhist meditating months. During this time, on the full moon day, young people don’t go to farm and they stay at home making food for the old people who are meditating at the monastery. Young people are going to the “Kho byind Than’s” home with their kettledrum. When everyone has arrived, they start making flower or something to offer to God. After they finish making that they start to dance and sing our traditional song with kettledrum. Some of the young people are declaring their love using the metaphorical speech until the morning.
During “Wa Tawing Laa”, our young people are very happy. I like our own traditional festival or culture. Our Pa-O traditional clothes are very polite, and the color of our traditional clothes is “Dark Blue-Violet”.  I’m also very proud of myself that I’m a Pa-O.