The first volume of SEAMP-DIARA Akha archaic text manuals is to be published soon.
A sample chapter will soon be available for download on this page. The book is prin in 3 languages: A page in english is followed by a page with columns for archaic and modern akha. Take a look at the table of contents (in Akha and english), and introductions by Leo Alting von Geusau, Inga Lill Hansson and Aqbaw Busoev Dzoeqbaw.
The transcribed archaic text with "Old words of wisdom" directs itself first of all to those calling themselves Akha or Zaqnyiq. They are a people of more than 1,000,000 souls to be found in the Southeast Asian lower Himalayan mountainous area, dominated by the Mekong River. Those calling themselves Akha or Zaqnyiq can be found there interspersed with other minority peoples in the mountains near contemporary national borders dividing S.W.China's Yunnan province, E.Burma's Shan States, N.Laos' Namtha and Pongsaly provinces, N.Vietnam, and N.Thailand's Chiang Rai/Chiang Mai provinces.
The transcription of oral texts with their translations of the "Words of wisdom" of the Pirma or reciter/teachers is of the greatest importance. After having been transferred orally over many generations as faithfully memorized as possible, they can now be handed down in written form to the Akha generations to come.
An interesting aspect of the life-cycle text is its use of oppositions, akin to the old Taoist texts which, by the way, are said to have originated in what is now the Yunnan province, when it was still mainly dominated by the Yi and other "Barbarians". Oppositions are those of affirmation and negation, of high and low, of poor and rich, of heath and water and so on, with often a dialectical middle way as a conclusion. This locates the Akha/Zaqnyiq archaic texts in the same category as other old texts of wisdom written down after having been transferred orally over many generations.
Translation into English has been made to arouse the interest of the outsider and researcher into the wealth of Akha/Zaqnyiq culture. The translators editors have tried to add ethno-botanic appendices, introductions and notes which will certainly arouse the interest of ethno botanists, anthropologists and historians of the Mekong River's Quadrangle area and in general of those interested in ancient words of wisdom.