Amazing Burmese Women

Amazing Burmese Women

A Burmese woman, with traditional neck-extending rings, celebrates her twenty-first birthday with a cake in Folkestone with her friend. They are both part of Bertram Mills Circus, where they are billed as the “giraffe-necked Burmese ladies”. 25th August 1936. (Photo by A. J. O'Brien)

A policeman in London directing three giraffe necked women from Burma along Elgin Avenue, London, 1935. (Photo by General Photographic Agency).

A Padaung, or Kayan woman. Originally a Mongolian tribe, the Padaung have been assimilated into the Karen group native to Mayanmar (Burma), circa 1950. (Photo by Three Lions)

Three Burmese women members of a circus play cards as they wear the brass neck and leg rings traditionally worn by Padaung women since childhood and which cannot be removed, London, January 4, 1935. (Photo by Keystone)

A Padaung, or Kayan woman. Originally a Mongolian tribe, the Padaung have been assimilated into the Karen group native to Mayanmar (Burma), circa 1950. The most stiking feature of these people are the brass rings fitted to the necks and limbs of women born on Wednesdays. The first neck ring is fitted when they are five or six, with successive rings fitted every two years, denoting the status of their family. (Photo by Three Lions)