Description

This is a woman's headdress from the Akha people. This woven hat is adorned with silver buttons and balls, coins, pom poms and beads/seeds. The Akha people live in higher elevations of south east asia, such as Thailand, Burma, Laos, and the Yunnan Province of China. Akha women define their age or marital status with the style of headdress worn. At 12, they exchange their child's cap for that of a girl. Mid-adolescence, she will begin to wear the adult woman's headdress. This is an adult woman’s headdress as it is fully decorated. These headdresses are unique to the wearer as they are the ones to decorate them.