There are many different accounts of why the Padaung practice this bizzare custom. Their own mythology explains that it is done to prevent tigers from biting them! Others have reported that it is done to make the women unattractive so they are less likely to be captured by slave traders. The most common explanation, though, is the opposite of this - that an extra-long neck is considered a sign of great beauty and wealth and that it will attract a better husband. Adultery, though, is said to be punished by removal of the rings. In this case, since the neck muscles will have been severely weakened by years of not supporting the neck, a woman must spend the rest of her life lying down.
Whatever the origin of the custom, one of the more common reasons it continues today, particularly in Thailand, is tourism. Although the Padaung have migrated to Thailand in only the last ten years (other Karen groups first settled there about a hundred and fifty years ago), they have become the most popular "attraction" for hill-tribe trekking tourists.
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If you look at some of the photos, you see as the spiral-rings are loose, if they raise the chin. So they can hold the head without support.
Some Karen people had living on the same territory in centuries, but the borders of Thailand and Burma had grow up in to the hill, and divided all hill tribes. Several groups of Padaung have some long-necked ladies but the largest number lived in Burma, close to Thailand, and they been discovered in 1905. I 1948 The Burmese army attack the Red Karen state, and in 1980s all Red Karen was drive out of Red Karen state, and Burmese and Karen fight inside Thailand (The border is clear red on the map, but is invisible in the hill). To day the war continue, but in Red Karen state and in Burma.
The tradition by the spiral-rings have the origin in a female dynasty who rule Burma in the Bronze Age, and been bring down of a male dynasty. In that era was the spiral-rings of gold.
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