Page:The Tribes Of Burma - 7.png

(  7    ) down to the west of it to justify our adopting (for the purposes of provincial consideration only) a two-fold classification into Western (Malikha-Chindwin) and Eastern (Mekong-Salween-N'maikha) Tibeto-Burmans. To the former class belong the Chins and the Kachins of Upper Burma ; to the latter the Burmans of the Irrawaddy valley, the Marus and Lashis of the N'maikha, the Lisaws of the Salween and the Lahus and Akhas of the Mekong.

Of the Western Tibeto-Burmans the Chins or Kukis were probably the first arrivals in Burma. In the far off past they must have appeared on the Irrawaddy-Brahmaputra watershed and thence, continuing their southerly journey along the western edge of the Province, have worked their way to the southernmost limits of the hilly country on the sea-board of the Bay of Bengal. As Chins, Kamis, Mros, Chinboks, Chinbons, Yindus, etc., they have been for centuries in occupation of the western uplands, which extend from the north of the Upper Chindwin District (where the Chin merges into the Naga country) along the edge of the Assam uplands— the home of their blood-relatives the Lushais— down to the foot-hills on the fringe of the Irrawaddy delta, and have had time, by union with the plain dwellers, to form hybrid communities— like the Taungthas of Pakôkku and the Chaungthas of Arakan— whose connection with their Chin neighbours is no longer obvious. Save for a few villages in the Pegu Yoma and near the Sittang, the home of the Chins lies wholly to the west of the Irrawaddy.

At a much later date the Kachins appeared from the mountains in the far north. They had at the parting of the ways borne south-westwards along much the same course as that previously taken by the Chins, i.e., that bordering on the Brahmaputra region, but, at about the 28th parallel of latitude, finding the hills immediately to their south already