Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/799

 

 SHANNON. See, vol. xiii. p. 216.

 SHANS. This name is applied to a number of for the most part semi-independent communities occupying a region bounded on the W. by Burmah and Assam, N. and N.E. by the Chinese province of Yun-nan, E. by Tong- king, and S. by Siam (see Plate IX.). Ethnologically the race has a much wider extension, including the Siamese (see SIAM), and also, according to Gamier and Colquhoun, the hill tribes around the Tong-king delta and various tribes of Kwang-tung and Kwang-se, and extending across the north of Burmah into Assam. It is also widely diffused through south-western Yun-nan. Terrien de Lacouperie considers it allied to the Mon, the Mung, and the Pa, and places its early home in the mountains north of Sze-chuen, whence, not having amal- gamated with the growing Chinese empire, it was gradually forced southwards. Although the level of civilization and the purity of their Buddhism vary considerably among the different branches of the race, there is everywhere a remarkable resemblance in appearance, manners, customs, and polity. The traditions current of their origin, too, though localized by each in its own habitat, are closely similar. This great homogeneity seems the more remark- able in that the race is found not only living under many different political systems, i.e., either independent, or subject to Burmah, China, or Siam, but often in com- munities isolated by mountain ranges, inhabited by tribes of different race and character. All this seems to point to a political unity in earlier times. The Shans probably appeared on the upper Irawadi nearly two thousand years ago, but Burmese and Shan traditions agree that they were established some centuries earlier on the upper waters of the Shweli and on the Sal win and adjacent valleys on the south-west frontiers of Yun-nan. Here, at all events, in the 7th and 8th cen- turies, we hear of the growth of that power which, temporarily broken by Burmah in the llth century, reached its highest development in the 13th. This Shan empire, known by the classical Indian name of Kausambi, corrupted after the punning Chinese fashion into Ko- shan-pyi, i.e., nine Shan states, was a confederacy of about ten states, known among themselves by the name of the most powerful member, Mau, or Muang Mau. A great leader, Sam Lung Pha, brother of the king of Mau, overran and conquered Upper Assam from the Satiyas in 1229, the dynasty lasting until the British annexation. These Ahoms still inhabit the Assam districts of Sibsagar and south and east Lakhimpur, though pressed on from the south-west by the Bengalis, whom they despise as a black and inferior race, preferring to associate with the Chinese, whom they regard as congeners, and as the greatest race in the world. This 13th and the following century also saw Tali to the east and Arakan to the west invaded, Burmah being then weakened by the Mongol invasion ; Chieng Mai and other southern Shan states were also annexed, and " Ayuthia " (i.e., Siam), Cambodia, and Tavoy are claimed by the Shan historians as among their conquests, the Shan influence being felt even in Java. From the 14th to the 16th century wars with both Burmah and China were frequent, and Shan dynasties ruled at times in Burmah ; but in 1556-62 the Burmese conquered Mogaung, the chief province of Mau, when Buddhism is recorded to have been introduced : probably only a reform of religion is meant. In 1604 the districts now known as the Chinese Shan States, i.e., the heart of the Mau empire, lying chiefly in the Ta-peng basin, east of Bamo, a town whose population also is mainly Shan, were finally conquered by China, Mogaung remaining independent on sufferance till absorbed by Burmah in 1796. Zimme' or Chieng Mai (including Kiang Hai, Kiang Sen, Lagong, and Lapong), whose capital is now an important and well-built town, and Vien Chang on the east of the Me-kong, were both great Shan centres, warring, with various fortunes, with Burmah and Cambodia and with each other, till subjected by the growing power of Siam late in the last century. The Burmese Shan States, especially those more remote from Mandalay, have latterly become practically inde- pendent; and, the tyranny which led to extensive south- ward migration having thus ceased, the stream is partly returning northwards. Descendants, too, of the popula- tion deported by Siam from Kiang Sen about a hundred years ago are now by the king's permission returning to people that fertile territory. The Burmese plan with the Shans was to govern by fostering internal dissensions, and they are bitterly hated, while the Chinese are in an equal degree liked and respected. The great Shan state of Kiang Hung has now accepted the dictation of China, to whom in fact, like some of its lesser neighbours, it has always paid certain taxes, while acknowledging the supre- macy of Burmah. Kiang Tung to the south, which has been Burmese for over a century, has lately made over- tures to Siam, though not forgetting the injuries inflicted by that power in 1854. The numerous ruins of great cities over the whole region from Chieng Mai to Kiang Tung testify to former wealth and prosperity, though they may not have all existed contemporaneously. In Luang Pra- bang in the north-east, on the other hand, tribes of a partly Chinese race are pressing southwards. It is remarkable how many of the conquering irruptions of south-east Asia were due mainly to the eviction of such conquerors by some stronger power. Incessant wars and vast deporta- tions have tended to assimilate the various populations of all this region. 