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| My Akha Hat |
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| Akha Woman in Her Beautiful Dress |
The Akha or Hani as they are called in Xishuangbanna are of Tibetan original. According to folklore they are descended from frogs' eyes. They are closely related to the Yi as part of the Tibeto-Burman group.
They are famed for their river-valley rice terraces, especially in the Red River valley where they cultivate rice, corn and some poppy.
They are also known for their colorful and great variety of dress. Their clothing is made of home-spun blue cloth. In Xishuangbanna, the women wear jackets buttoned on the right side and decorated withsilver ornaments. They wear black turbans. In the Lancang area, they wear skirts, round caps, and strings of silver ornaments. Some Hani women (especially the Aini, a subgroup of the Hani) wear headdresss of beads, feathers, coins and silver rings, some of which are made with French (Vietnamese), Burmese, and Indian coins from the turn of the century.
Their homes build two-and three-story houses of bamboo, mud, stone and wood on hill slopes. A village comprises from ten to as many as 400 hoouseholds.
They are polytheists and ancestor worshippers. Rituals are regularly held to worship the Gods of Heaven, Earth, the Dragon Tree and their village, as well as their family patron gods. Many festivals take place during the year with the weeklong celebration of the New Year in October. An important part of that celebration is the use of an ox-hide swing to symbolically ward off bad fortune and augur.
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