Visitors connecting with indigenous place meanings

Episode 1: We are the river, North Carolina USA

The Coharie Indian Tribe is presently located along and around the Little Coharie River in the Southeastern region of North Carolina including Sampson and Harnett counties. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to two leaders  and a young entrepreneur of the Coharie community about their identity and their growing involvement in tourism. Each of them emphasized the river’s importance as the tribe’s namesake. Philip Bell is the coordinator of the Great Coharie River Initiative, a volunteer effort dedicated to clearing debris and restoring the river. For his generation, who grew up in times of segregation, the river was everything. “The river meant a lot to my generation, because that was part of us,” he said, “the river is my home. That’s who I am.”

His nephew Kullen Bell is a part of the river clean up initiative. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know about the river. We didn’t have access to it. So it’s like, these last few years, it’s almost been a cultural awakening. It’s been a cultural awakening in our community, our county, our city.” I also learned that the reawakening of the Coharies’ intimate connection with the river is having impact on the livelihood choices made by their younger generations.

Namely, in the last couple of years, the tribe has started to develop river ecotours for visitors. “Tourism is helping us to even realize a deeper meaning of how important that river was to the Coharie tribe. Seeing the hundreds and thousands of people that have been down that river in the last five years, let’s say, and their response--referring to it as medicine, referring to the river as being a living entity,” said Greg Jacobs, tribal administrator. “The tourism, and the response we get back from everyone that rides that river, has added to our responsibility of being good stewards of it.” 

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has put the tribe’s tourism development on hold. Nevertheless, in the absence of visitors, the work to clean the river has continued. “It’s been a blessing too,” Philip Bell  said. “We have a contractor who is doing debris removal in the river and he’s opened up a lot of area to paddle that wouldn’t have been open in the summer.” In addition, even with the pandemic, the tribe has been able to engage prospective tourists with their culture and their connection with the river through virtual “We are the river“ tours - consider participating in the upcoming virtual event on Saturday April 24th.

 

Episode 2: We are the forest, Mae Hong Son, Thailand

The ethnically diverse villagers of Huay Pu Keng live in Mae Hong Son province, northwestern Thailand. Via an online interview with Aye Muang, a villager who works as a tourist guide and is part of the Kayan ethnic group, we dove deeper into the relationship of these people with nature and the impact of the tourism industry.

Originally, the villagers of Huay Pu Keng lived in a forest in Myanmar. It was a flat area where they were able to do what they wanted with the nature surrounding them. As violence against their ethnic communities increased in Myanmar in the 80s and 90s, they fled to the northwestern part of Thailand in search of safety and a better future. Now, they live in a national park. It is still a forest area and they use nature, but the region is hilly and they have to ask permission of the Thai government for cutting (big) trees to build houses for instance. The limitations are a bit of a hassle, but luckily they can use the smaller trees and the bamboo that grows in the region as that grows back very fast, Aye Muang states. Additionally, they are able to cultivate some things for themselves, as well as for selling, such as crops, mushrooms, sesame seeds, etc.

They also use the river Pai which they live next to. Aye Muang describes how they fish in various ways depending on the time of the year. During the rainy season in winter, when the water is rather muddy, they use a fishing rod. However, in summer the fish can see them because the water is clear so they use self-made “arrow-guns” and fish at night.

Huay Pu Keng is the first and only Karenni village that made the transition from being a show village in the Thai hill-tribe mass tourism trail to embracing community-based tourism in an effort to share their culture and earn income in a more dignified way.  Aye Muang has been a key champion in this transition.  He indicated that during this COVID-19 pandemic, the “village life is coming back.” Furthermore, he says that now life “is more like it used to be in Myanmar,” without the tourists present. For now, they don’t worry about souvenir shops and workshops for visitors; instead, they have found other work outside the village or in agriculture. They also collect leaves and look for insects to sell, which in some cases, they even export. One of the things they set up to do with tourists is hiking in search of edible and medicinal plants. They still forage from the forest without the tourists, but as Aye Muang laughingly explains, the villagers are a bit faster at this job with no tourists in tow. About one hour faster to be exact. He does add that he is looking forward to the return of the tourists after the pandemic because he enjoys sharing the stories of his people. 

Luckily, technology has made it possible for him to do so even during the pandemic. On 5 May everyone can experience his enthusiasm by attending an online virtual experience providedby People-First Tourism and Fair Tourism, called “We The Karenni People”.

Takeaways 

Indigenous people tend to be neglected and even exploited by people and organizations in power, so when considering visiting these communities it is important to think about how our gaze upon them can support or undermine their efforts towards self-determination.  Here are some tips we formed after working with these two communities:

●      Celebrate indigenous people’s rights to sustainably manage their land - they often have to negotiate traditional access to nature with government and conservation groups.

●      Be curious and open-minded about what their surrounding natural wonders mean to them because their culture is often suppressed by the government, and they want to share their story and their culture with others to help it survive.

●      Sometimes “experts” from governmental and non-governmental organizations create false narratives about indigenous cultures. If at all possible, hire local guides to show you around and to share their knowledge. Indigenous people should be able to craft their own self-narratives.

●      Indigenous people need the revenue they make from tourism because they are often excluded from mainstream economic systems and have a need to support their livelihoods.

By: 

Madison Hostetter-Hill, Sustainable Tourism student at North Carolina State University, USA

Myrthe Koster, Human Diversity student at Leiden University College The Hague, Netherlands