Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
--
1 I9
of old across the better part of two continents to the far off Isles of Britain.
The home of the Maingthas lies for the most part outside the limits of Burma near
Hkamti-Long, but they come southwards in large numbers during the cold weather.
There were 749 in Burma within the Census area on the 1st March 1901. In
1891 there were 1,393 only, 26 of whom were females.
175. It is not often that the search for the ancestral home of a widely diffused
race finds its consummation in so minutely precise
TheS1
a
statement as that made by Professor Terrien de La
Couperie in regard to the origin of the Shans or Tai. A nation is by no means easily
tracked to its primaeval fountain-head even under the most favourable circumstances,
so that when we find it stated in set terms in the introduction to Mr.
Colquhoun's Amongst the Shans "that the cradle of the Shah race was in the
Kiulung mountains north of Sz-ch'wan and south of Shensi in China proper, "
we may well agree with Sir George Scott in thinking it conceivable that posterity
may some day be led to modify the Professor's judgment. In fact we are in 1902
practically where we were ten years ago in respect of our acquaintance with the
early beginnings of the Tai. The greater part of what we know is what Dr. Cushing
has already told us, namely, that South-Western China was the original home of the
Shan people, or, rather, was the region where they attained to a marked separate
development as a people ;
that it is probable that their first habitat in Burma proper
was the Shweli valley, and that from this centre they radiated at a comparatively
recent date northwards, westwards and south-eastwards through the Shan States
and across Upper Burma into Assam. We have learnt little in the interval save
that the classification of the Tai races is a task of far greater magnitude than
appeared when the last census was taken. The opening paragraphs of Chapter
VI of Volume I of the first part of the Upper Burma Gazetteer will give the reader
a graphic idea of the difficulties that stand in the way of a comprehensive view of
the past and present of the Shan people, of the perplexing variety of names under
which the Tai have been and are still known throughout the far East, and of the misleading
character of certain salient points in their history as handed down to the
present generation. No doubt, when all obstacles have been overcome, it will be
found that the Tai race boasts of representatives across the whole breadth of Indo-
China, from the Brahmaputra as far as the Gulfs of Siam and Tongking ; that it
numbers among its members not only the Shans proper, the Laos and the Siamese,
but also the Muongs of French Indo-China, the Hakas of Southern China and the
Li, the inhabitants of the interior of the far Eastern island of Hainan in the China
seas. No exhaustive survey of the Tai will, however, be possible till the results
of British and French research have been combined.
176. All that is necessary here is to consider that portion of the race that
has come within the scope of the recent census operations. The late Mr. Pilcher
divided the Tai into the North-western, the North-eastern, the Eastern and the
Southern, and Sir George Scott has, with a few minor qualifications, adopted this
division.. The Siamese and the Laos are the principal representatives of the
Southern division. Siamese are found in considerable numbers in the districts of
Amherst, Tavoy and Mergui in the Tenasserim division. The total at the time
of the census was 31,890, while that of the Laos was 1,047. The habitat of the
Eastern Shans lies between the Rangoon-Mandalay Railway and the Mekong, and
is bounded roughly on the north and south by the 22nd and 20th parallels of latitude.
It includes the Southern Shan States, and comprises the country of the Lti and the
Hkiin of the States of Kengturig and Kenghung. Linguistically the connection
between the latter two races and the Laos is very close, but apparently the racial
affinity is not sufficiently near to justify the classification of the Hkiin and the Lii with
the Southern Tai. The North-Western Shan region is the area extending from
Bhamo to Assam between the 23rd and 28th parallels of latitude. It corresponds
more or less with those portions cf the Katha, Myitkyina, Bhamo and Upper
Chindwin districts which at one time or the other during the palmy days of the
Shan dominion acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sawbwa of Mogaung. Of the
many minor States that went to make up this dominant principality, only two,
Thaungthut and Zingalein-Hkamti, have retained any relic of their former autonomy.
The racial difference between this people to the west of the Irrawaddy