Kachin people

“ In recent times they have spread a long way to the South, there being many isolated Kachin villages in the Southern Shan States and even beyond the Salween river. The Kachins are broken up into small communities, each with its own chief, but have no common authority, and, owing to blood feuds often lasting several generations, there is a rigid exclusiveness between different tribes. ”

“ Beyond these tracts there are many Kachins in Katha, Möng-Mit, and the northern Shan States, but though they are often the preponderating, they are not the exclusive population. The country within the forty tracts may be considered the Kachin hills proper, and it lies between 23° 30′ and 26° 30′ N. lat. ”

“ Now the Kachins are on both sides of the border of Upper Burma, and are a force to be reckoned with by frontier administrators. According to the Kachin Hill Tribes Regulation of 1895, administrative responsibility is accepted by the British government on the left bank of the Irrawaddy for the country south of the Nmaikha, and on the right bank for the country south of a line drawn from the confluence of the Malikha and Nmaikha through the northern limit of the Laban district and including the jade mines. ”

“ The Kachin, from habit, is watchful and suspicious of strangers,—until his confidence is gained. Their villages are usually high up in the hills, as secluded and inaccessible as possible. [Pg 106] But the isolated situation of the village probably is due to the fear of nats, spirits,—quite as much as from fear of human enemies. ”

“ The continued misconduct of the Sana Kachins from beyond the administrative border rendered punitive measures necessary. They had remained unpunished since the attack on Myitkyina in December 1892. Two columns were sent up, one of 250 rifles from Myitkyina, the other of 200 rifles from Mogaung, marching in December 1895. The resistance was insignificant, and the operations were completely successful. A strong force of military police is stationed at Myitkyina, with several outposts in the Kachin hills, and the country is never wholly free from crimes of violence committed by the Kachins. ”

“ It seems incredible that so many families of one race, occupying the same territory, and with practically the same habits, customs, and superstitions,—should each perpetuate for centuries its own peculiar dialect and clannish exclusiveness. The missionary or official, to do effective work among such a people, needs a small army of interpreters at his heels.
THE KACHINS
The Kachins inhabit the extreme northern part of Burma, extending as far south as the Bhamo and Namkham districts, and east into China. ”

“ Even the Karens and Kachins, who have no other form of belief, do not regard them otherwise than as malevolent beings who must be looked up to with fear, and propitiated by regular offerings. They do not want to have anything to do with the nats; all they seek is to be let alone. The bamboo pipes of spirit, the bones of sacrificial animals, the hatchets, swords, spears, bows and arrows that line the way to a Kachin village, are placed there not with the idea of attracting the spirits, but of preventing them from coming right among the houses in search of their requirements. ”

“ Native women, returning from the town, were wending their way across the plain—lank overgrown girls with long thin legs and overhanging mops of hair like deck-swabs. They were a favourite butt of my men, who chaffed them in the humorous Eastern manner, with remarks that were, I am afraid, more coarse than witty. Kachins are not virtuous. Their customs preclude such a possibility. No Japanese maiden is more innocent of virtue than a Kachin girl. [Pg 260]
CHAPTER XXI. The Shan Town of Santa, and Manyuen, the Scene of Consul Margary's Murder. ”

“ The old ladies in tall blue serge turbans and tunics and putties of the same colour rather struck me—they are Shans from the East—with little shrewd twinkling black eyes, short noses and a gentle expression, and that break in the eyebrow, which I think characteristic of a certain dark Celtic type.
The above sketch represents a corner of the market; in the centre a Kachin fairly characteristic but too tall, beside him his sturdy kilted wife, with the usual basket on her back; other figures, a Burmese girl, a Chinese woman, Sikhs, and distant Shan woman. ”

“ It may seem fanciful to suggest ways and means of removing the difficulties of the route for a future trade; but the passage of a mission, or of future explorers of the interesting country beyond the Kakhyen hills, will be only thus made possible. The arrangements must be made with the Burmese and the Chinese; the Kakhyens, being only regarded [Pg 154] as outlying people, paid their dues, not from fear, but from generous justice; while they are sternly repressed, and taught their own insignificance and almost inutility. ”

“ If he is hungry there is the bullock's skull nailed to a tree, to indicate where food may be found; if he is thirsty a joint of bamboo points out where a libation of rice spirit has been made." These spirit-worshippers are more easily gained than the Buddhist Burmans and Shans, but they have not the traditions of the Karens to prejudice them in favour of Christianity. Morally, they rank very low,—and yet their morality must be viewed in the light of Kachin, rather than English [Pg 107] custom. As with the non-Christian Karens, there are certain unwritten tribal laws governing family life. ”

“ But I remember that I am coming into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom, the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything is all at cross purposes.
However, although I lost my way from Manyüen to Man Hsien, I got my photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have no one to care for them body or soul. ”

“ This ancestor had many sons and from the eldest are descended the true Kachins who migrated from the Khakhu or headwaters; from the remaining sons are derived the various tribes. There is no doubt of the Tartar origin of the Kachins, although the isolating character of the hill country in which they live, their combative nature, and blood feuds have caused the race to be divided and sub-divided to a great extent. The tribes, sub-tribes and clans have decided differences in dress and sometimes even in physical appearance. ”

“ They were ousting the Palaungs, and trampled on the more peaceful villagers of the plains. But even the Kachins had no cohesion and obeyed no central authority. Each chief did what seemed best in his own eyes; he raided and blackmailed every village that lay within reach of his hills. The formation of the country, a jumble of hills covered with dense jungle, through which the drainage of the higher ranges forces its way naturally, produced an unruly race. The only open tract of any extent is the valley of the Lower Shwèli from Myitson to the Irrawaddy at Pyinlebin. ”

“ From the same clay, a number of Shan-Chinese from Hotha and Latha make sun-dried bricks outside the town, and a colony of the same people sojourn every winter at Bhamô, making dahs, or long knives, which are in great demand. A number of Kakhyens are often to be seen near the town, bringing rice, opium, silver, and pigs for sale. Their chief object is to procure salt, for which necessary they are dependent on Burma. They are not allowed to encamp within the town, but are compelled to shelter themselves outside the gates, in miserable wigwams. ”

“ High among the hills which may be seen stretching before us lies a village in which many of the Kachyens dwell, their occupation being sometimes that of tillers of the land, but more often consisting in planning and carrying out raids upon other hill-men, or of descending at times to the plains, and there looting the towns wherein dwell more peaceable tribes. In all their forays they had been successful, for whenever their trusty dahs or swords were drawn, those who opposed them invariably obtained the worst of the encounter. ”

“ He further remarked that the Kakhyens were glad to see the Englishmen at Bhamô; but “what will become of the trade and occupation of our people if they make a railway from Bhamô to Momien?” This feeling, both among the Chinese merchants and the Kakhyens, especially those under Burmese and Chinese influence, that our gain in the way of [Pg 447] open trade would prove their loss, must be largely taken into account in estimating the difficulties of progress.
The opinion that the king of Burma was hostile to the mission owed its origin to a forged royal letter, directing the Kakhyens to oppose us. ”

“ These Kachinas are colorfully represented in the painted and befeathered dolls, in masks and ceremonies, and in the main are considered beneficent and are accordingly popular. They intercede with the spirits of the other world in behalf of their Hopi earth-relatives.
Masked individuals represent their return to the land of the living from time to time in Kachina dances, beginning with the Soyaluna ceremony in December and ending with the Niman or Kachina Farewell ceremony in July. ”

“ For years it has been an interesting object-lesson for observers to note how, during the past generation, one of the most conspicuous of the tribes of Burma, the Kachins, have been pressing down from the north, displacing in their search for fresh ground the less virile tribes with whom they have come in contact. ”

“ A link that may be looked upon as connecting the Chins with the communities to the east is provided by the Kadus of the Katha District of Upper Burma. The Chin element in the Kadus is very faint. They are for the most part, like the Danus, a Burmese-Shan compound, but they have also an appreciable mixture of Kachin besides the trace of Chin. ”

“ The Katcinas are said to be the offspring of an Earth 313goddess, [134] who figures under many names. Their father’s name on comparative grounds is supposed to be Táwa, the sun, or Túñwup, their elder brother.
A study of the group of Katcina ceremonials as compared with the Kóko brings out in prominence the conclusion that while some of them may be identical, as a rule there is considerable difference in the ritual of the Tusayan people and their nearest neighbor, the Zuñi. ”

“ Amongst the barbarous and unlettered tribes on the mountains in the north there has been a continuance of the kind of lawlessness prevalent in the days before our rule in Upper Burma. The tribes of wild Kachins there have given considerable trouble from time to time. They are warlike and predatory, and in their mountains and jungles able to offer considerable resistance.
Occasionally, too, in the north, large numbers of disbanded Chinese soldiers have turned dacoits, and crossed the frontier into the Bhamo district to plunder. ”

“ The long-feared and long-expected Khitay were drawing nigh to the capital, in irresistible strength; and the apprehensions of a cowed people made them know, too surely, that their end was at hand. The dissensions among the people themselves, the discord in the ruling house, and the dissentient elements in every effort towards unity, had all operated in favour of the invader. While the Chinese had plotted and prepared in the deliberate manner of a great nation, the people of Kashgar had entered into cabals and schemes of party tactics that were well nigh ludicrous. ”

“ When they are not sleeping, the lads must sit in a crouching posture without moving a muscle. As they sit in a row cross-legged, with their hands stretched out, the chief takes his trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the hands of each lad, speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of the spirits. He warns the lads, under pain of death, to observe the rules of the Kakian society, and never to reveal what has passed in the Kakian house. The novices are also told by the priests to behave well to their blood relations, and are taught the traditions and secrets of the tribe. ”

“ Most of them marched bare-footed, carrying the precious but weary burden slung on their shoulders. In a village they put them on and swaggered about for the admiration of the girls. Hardy and brave, these mountaineers are likely to prove excellent material [Pg 274] for military police, perhaps even for the regular army. This season they were blooded in a small affair which Mr. H. F. Hertz had with an intrusive body of Chinese. They were among the first to scale the enemy’s stockade. There are now several companies of Kachins in the battalions at Bhamo and Myitkyina. ”

“ Old Kakari makes a last effort: “The Earth People, the Poma, belong in the North. They do not belong here. Some of them speak our tongue, but they are not our people. At first we made war upon them, but Coyote was too clever for Chakalli. Yet though we are now at peace, we never marry their women, nor they ours. We are neighbors, not friends. To-morrow we shall go to see the proof of what I have told you. Katka (Be full of crickets) .” And with this formula of conclusion the Peace Chief ceased. ”

“ But as Calicut is greatly more resorted to by merchants, it is therefore much richer than Cochin. The king is an idolater, of the same manners and customs with him of Calicut; but his country being small he is very poor, and has not even the right to coin money, being in many respects subordinate to the zamorin; who, on his accession to the throne always goes to Cochin, and takes possession of that kingdom, either retaining it in his own hands, or restoring the rajah as he may think proper. ”