Chapter 4 Tribal People 123warfare, which forced people to cluster around local warlords for protection.
Another was the presence of certain trade routes through high passes where
warlords could sit and play robber baron, forcing Chinese, Indian, and Bur-
mese merchants to pay fees for safe passage. When the British put an end to
both warlordism and robber baron games, the incentive to keep up the terraces
was gone.
Today, however, there are new incentives: population growth in the Thai
hills. Therefore, swidden cultivators are again talking about building terraces,
and in the more prosperous villages, Hmong and others, one will see a few
acres of terraces being put in by farsighted cultivators.
Adaptation and Response: Opium
Hmong and other hill tribes are having to adapt to conditions of overpopu-
lation in the hills, just as they have adapted to changed circumstances in the
past. This kind of flexibility is nothing new, despite the popular misconception
about the “timelessness” of tribal societies and the antiquity of their lifestyles.
Opium cultivation is another example of responding to new opportunities.
In the late eighteenth century, extensive opium use began in China. Arab
traders had brought it to China in the seventh century for use as a medicine,
and for centuries it was mixed in various concoctions for a variety of ailments
and used as a sedative prior to surgery. But it was not smoked until the seven-
teenth century when the Dutch introduced tobacco smoking from Java, and
people soon thought of mixing a little opium in the tobacco for a stronger
impact. It is not easy to smoke opium by itself, but gradually the tobacco was
omitted as a way was devised to smoke opium by melting little bits over a flame
and rapidly inhaling it.
The trade in opium in the eighteenth century was almost entirely in the
hands of foreigners. The East India Company grew it in their colony in India
and brought it to China to trade for silk, tea, porcelains, and other products
desired in Europe (see chapter 12). China soon had a tremendous opium addic-
tion problem, provoking the Opium Wars of 1840–1842 with England. The
wars resulted in humiliation for China and the opening of the country to as
much opium as European traders could bring in, thus feeding the new addic-
tion problem and draining China’s wealth. In response, China began encourag-
ing local production of opium. Suddenly there was a new cash crop
opportunity for groups like the Hmong/Miao of China, many of whom
already lived at altitudes above the 3,000-foot level where Papaver somniferum
thrives. Chinese opium was not as high in morphine content as Indian opium,
but it was cheaper and there was soon a large market for it.
For the Hmong, opium became a crop as important as padi. Padi provided
subsistence needs and opium provided cash. Both were essential, and the trick
was to strike the right balance of the two. Padi does best between 2,000 and
3,500 feet; higher than that, it is a little too cool for padi at its best. Poppy does
progressively better from 3,000 to 5,000 feet. It likes cold weather and a gentle