Lisu Cultural Heritage Center is the first place in Chiang Mai where visitors can view Lisu culture and heritage in all its varied aspects; rituals, music, livelihood, handicrafts and costumes. In addition, the center holds a treasure trove of archival photographs of ethnic Lisu people, the field notes of an anthropologist studying a particular Lisu village, as well as other documents related to the Lisu. The center is open Monday – Thursday – 9am until 4.30pm and Sunday 10am until 5pm.
Religion,Culture and lifestyle
The religion of the Lisu hill tribe is a mixture of ancestor worship and spirit propitiation. They believe all animate things have an associated spirit as do some inanimate objects. Important spirits are those of ancestors, water, mountains and villages. They are not preoccupied with afterlife and see the spirit world as something for the present, to be dealt with on a daily basis and believe spirits have emotions and failings the same as humans so that they can be so dealt with.
The Lisu hill tribe women are distinguished by their brightly coloured tunics, worn over long pants; some of the older generation continue to wear tasselled turbans on their heads. Occupying villages above 1,000m, they keep livestock and cultivate corn and vegetables. Unlike other tribes, they don’t usually live in stilted houses. Within each Lisu house is an ancestral altar. And in each Lisu hill tribe village, there is a “village guardian spirit shrine” which is located above the village, in a roofed pavilion which women are forbidden to enter.
The Lisu hill tribe grows rice and vegetables for subsistence. At the same time, these villages are relatively close to the market so that the Lisu can trade. Most Lisu live close to water because they believe water has a special power.