Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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1 2 4 REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.'
5. " The Siyin fable about the origin of the various tribes and clans in the Hills is
peculiar, in that it corresponds to our fable of the Tower of Babel.
" The Siyin fables runs : Many centuries ago all the Chins lived in one large village,
somewhere south of Haka. They all spoke the, same language and had the same customs.
One day, at a big council, it was decided that the moon should be captured and made to
shine permanently. By this means a great deal of unnecessary expense and bother would
be saved in lighting. In consequence the construction of a high house (tower) was begun
which should reach up to the moon. After years of labour the house had got so high that
it meant many days of hard marching for the people working on the top to come down to
the village to get provisions. It was therefore decided that as stage upon stage was built
it should be inhabited, food, &c, being passed up from stage to stage, from below. In
this way the people inhabiting the different stages gradually got out of touch with one
another. From the very little intercourse the Chins of each stage had with one another,
they acquired different manners, languages and customs. In the end when the structure
had all but been completed, the nat in the moon was so enraged at the daring of the Chins,
that he visited them with a fearful storm of rain, wind, thunder and lightning. During
this storm the tower collapsed. It fell from south to north. The people inhabiting the
different stages were consequently strewn over the land and built villages where they fell.
Hence the different tribes and clans varying in customs and manners. The stones and
building materials which formed this huge tower now form the Chin Hills."
181. The Pakokku Chin Hills tract was treated as an " estimated " area and
tl r . 1 j c .u /-«.- particulars regarding the strength of the different
The Central and Southern Chins. r .. .
&
1 /-^i
tribes and races or such 01 the Central Chins •
as
reside within its limits are not procurable. They are the Chinboks, the Yindus,
the Chinbons and the Welaung Chins, who are subdivided into a number of
clans. A description of their main characteristics will be found in Chapter VIII
of Volume I of the Upper Burma Gazetteer. The Taungthas of the Pakokku
district who numbered 5,704 at the Census are neighbours of the above. The
following are the principal of the Central Chins of the Arakan Hill Tracts and
the Akyab district, with the total of the persons who on the 1st March 1901
returned themselves as representatives of the various tribes,—Kami 24,937, Mro
12,622, Thet 232, Anu 588, Kyaw 215. Our knowledge of these tribes is very much
what it was when Colonel Spearman wrote his 1880 Gazetteer. Major Hughes, in
his Hill Tracts of Arakan, talks of the Kyaws (who are believed to have originally
been pagoda slaves, offered to a local shrine by a queen of Arakan some three
centuries ago) as being an off-shoot of the great Aryan family. Dr. Grierson has
shown us that this view is erroneous and that the original home of the Kyaws was
Lushai land. It may be noted that, if the returns are correct, there are no representatives
of one of the races mentioned in the 1891 Census Report—the Kuns
—left in the province. They have probably been absorbed by the Kami. The
Daingnets (3,412) have hitherto been looked upon as allied to the Chins. The
connection seems to me, however doubtful. It is my belief that one of the
most useful services that the ethnographical survey can do will be to trace the
affinities of the Northern Arakan Chins with the tribes of the Pakokku Chin Hills,
the Lushai Hills and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. I should be inclined to classify
with the Central Chins the Chins of the Poko tract in the Kyaukpyu district and
those of the Minbya township of the Akyab district. These tribes were, in consequence
of their backwardness, enumerated non-synchronously. Of the Poko
Chins the Deputy Commissioner, Kyaukpyu, writes as follows:
" Maung Tun Hla U, the Township Officer of An, has given the following account of the
Poko Chins. He states that nothing definite can be learnt from the Taungmins as to the
origin, manners and customs of the tribe who, however, give the following traditionary
account.
" It appears that the prefix ' Po ' is a corruption of ' Ko,' being the Burmese numerical
9. The term ' Poko Ywa ' means ' nine villages under the chief of a tribe called Po.
The tribe appears to have lived by stealing cattle, &c, in the Burmese time. It is said
that they settled at the source of the Dalet chaung about two centuries ago.
" The Poko tract is inhabited by another tribe called MonyinGyi, Monyin Gale (oaSstcBs
^Sscogcos), who speak a different dialect from the ' Po ' Chins, but are under their dominion.
" The number of villages in the tract has increased from nine to seventeen.