ABSTRACT
The peoples who inhabit the high plateaus of the Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos, and Thailand live in villages consisting of about twenty households each. As isolated minorities, they have few indigenous social or political groupings larger than villages. Some have accepted the central government of the state in which they live, but most have only a tenuous relationship to it. There are more than a hundred such groups, including the Karen of Thailand and Burma; the Kachin in Burma; the Akha, the Lahu, and the Lisu in Thailand; the Hmong, the Kmhmu, and the Yao in Laos; and the Nùng and the Lati in Vietnam. Al l practice slash-and-burn agriculture and subsist mainly on rice. Some grow opium poppies. Most are illiterate and animistic, and have no formal system of education. Their indigenous dress is highly colorful, often indicative of their subgroup.
