Book Review and Discussion: by Dr.
Vum Son
Lian Hmung Sakhong, 2000
"Religion and Politics among the Chin People in Burma (1996
–1949)," Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia LXXX, Uppsala University
Table of Contents
1. Conversion to Christianity
2. The origin of the name
"Chin"
2.a
2.a.i Previous studies on the
origin of the name "Chin"
2.a.ii Colonial studies proving
that "Chin" is not a native name
2.b.ii The foreign origin
of the name "Chin"
2.a.ii.a Foreigners on the source
of "Chin"
2.a.ii.b Natives on the source
of "Chin"
2.b Misrepresentations of
others' work
2.c Errors in tribal
groupings and namings
3. Historical mistakes
3.a Hakha as the capital of
Eastern Chinram
3.b Omissions
I first came to know Dr. Lian
Hmung Sakhong personally from political seminars related to the restoration
of democracy in Burma , and since the inception of the Chin Forum in 1998 (?)
we have been working together very closely under the Forum.
When Dr. Sakhong generously
sent me a copy of his dissertation, "*Religion and Politics among the
Chin People in Burma (1996 -1949)*," I felt honored and thankful to him
that he valued my opinion.
According to his references
Dr. Sakhong graduated with a degree in theology, and had done his masters
degree in history at the Rangoon Arts and Science University . The
"Chin" people had no writing before the Christian missionaries
came, so that researchers and layman have had to refer to books and notes
from the colonial administrators when we wanted to know about our own
history, social structure, religion, etc. Being the author of "Zo
History" (1986), I welcomed the idea that a native academician like Dr.
Sakhong would investigate the religion and politics of our people. I
was also looking forward to it after having read some of the comments made in
the internet (Chinlandnet) in which one made a comment on the book said
"...one of the most analytical and encompassing academic works ever
under taken by either a native Chin or a foreigner especially on the Chin's
traditional religion".
Because foreigners (i.e.,
non-native speakers) gathered the historical stories on which most previous
work had been done, they have had the added disadvantage that the writer was
an extra degree of separation from his source. The stories were often
recorded through interpreters, who could embellish or omit parts at will, by
choice or simply out of sheer ignorance. In some cases where qualified
professional interpreters were a rarity, the researchers had to content themselves
with local interpreters with limited knowledge of the lingua franca used to
communicate between them, causing some of the recorded stories to be
miserably distorted.
On the other hand, the
history of the "Chin" people that has been written by non-professional
natives is mostly based on myth and legends. Because these myths and legends
were handed down through generations, seldom were there specific times and
places attached to them. Although interesting, these narratives have never
been systematically studied and documented, and therefore, are often vague,
unsubstantiated and unverifiable.
Nevertheless Dr. Sakhong's
work is naturally not immune to mistakes and shortcomings, which prompted me
to thoroughly review the book and constructively contribute comments as
necessary. This Book Review and Discussion is my attempt to keep the record
straight on a few of the issues I have carefully selected since it would be
too time consuming to cover every flaw in his paper.
Moreover I opted to avoid heavily
commenting on those parts related to religion as this is not my field of
expertise and it is best left to the religious people or scholars for further
investigation and scholarly debates. But I would briefly comment on one
important part before going over to the main content.
For example Dr Sakhong
stated that (page 21) "the theological similarity between Christianity
and traditional Chin religion, which meant that conversion was not a radical
change but a religious transformation from /Khuahrum/ oriented ritual
practices to a /Khuazing/ oriented worship within the same pattern of belief
system." Apart from such rather vague assertion there was no
comprehensive explanation of the "theological similarity"
throughout the book.
Comment:
"Serious scholars
would question such an assertion and agree that the underlying philosophy of
Christianity and the animist religious beliefs held by the ancient Chins
could not have been more different. The Khuazing, according to Henry Siang
Kung is distinctly henotheistic in comparison to the Christianity's only
God or Pathian which means the Holy or Devine Father. Christianity is
definitely monotheistic and the Chin traditional religion is poly- or
pantheistic. One must question why it took five years for the first conversion
to Christianity. The few first converts were in the Sizang- Ngawn-Lumbang
area and it took many years for the first convert in the Zophei-Haka area.
Dr. Sakhong did not elaborate why this was so. "
"The belief of animism is
probably one of man's oldest beliefs" according to Alan G. Hefner and
Virgilio Guimaraes (See APPENDIX I). One could see animism in almost every
belief system of the ancient societies, be it Egyptians, Persians, Romans,
Chinese, Japanese, Indians or Burmans etc. In short, animism is universal and
attributing the Chin's belief in animism and their conversion to Christianity
as a mere /transformation/ rather than /conversion/ maybe too simplistic to
be an academic approach.
Moreover, the author seems
reluctant to make any mention about the Chins in southern Chin State and
among the Chin who live to the South of the present Chin State, known in
literature as "Plains Chin" or who call the whole Chin people Asho.
Similarly there was no mention of the Laipian Religion, Roman Catholics, or
Buddhism, each of which has some effect on the people as they were converted
into these religion in the time frame that Dr. Sakhong covered in his
thesis.
However I would refrain from
commenting further as this will require deeper knowledge of the subject of
religion, on the traditional Chin animism, Buddhism and Christianity.
In his book the author has
chosen the Chin religious terms in his own Haka, Zophei dialect, such as
/Khuazing/ for God. But, religious terms differ greatly among the Chins depending
on the dialectal areas. For example the term God is /Khanpu-ghi/ in
Mindat/Kanpalet areas, /Pathian/ in Mizo/ Hmar areas, /Pathen/ in Thado
areas, /Pasian/ in Tedim/Tonzang areas, etc. The thesis dealt the explanation
of traditional Chin religion on Khuazing, and among the Chin who call their
God Khuazing is in the minority. Thus the thesis covers the religion of a
local community and not broadly based as the author suggested.
"The people of
the Chin State has no common language. The terms used such as
Miphun, Ram, and Phunglam are of the Lai dialect, concentrated in the Haka
district and perhaps to some extent in the Falam and Matupi districts. Thus
the author is stressing the Lai or his dialect to compromise other dialects
into his as he is from the Haka district..."
The author then describes the
traditional rituals, but never delves deeper
into the issues relating to the
conversions. For example, the author did not
mention the change that
Christianity brought to the people, or the underlying
reasons for why people converted
to Christianity. He also should have
investigated the political
situation surrounding the churches, such as the agreement
between the Baptist missionaries
and the colonial administration. Furthermore,
as implied by the title of the
book, the fact that missionaries set foot first
in the Asho region of Burma should
have been covered. Buddhism also spread
among the "Chin" people
in the Southern part in the Asho and Sho (Cho) region but no mention of this
fact is made. In other words, the treatise on the Christian conversion
is incomplete.
The author, in short,
presents a simplistic view of the conversion to Christianity with unfounded
assumptions and generalities. He completely omits other religions
present in the area, and the causes and effects of the conversions.
2. The origin of the name
"Chin"
The theme of Dr. Sakhong's work is
to manifest the name "Chin" as the
original, national, and common
name of the people who call themselves Asho, Laimi, Masho (Khumi), Mizo, Sho
(Cho), Zomi. He tries to prove this theory over 26 pages, based solely on the
myth that the "Chin" originated from the Sinlung or Chhinlung myth.
On page 58, he writes:
"The common proper name of
the "Chin" is inseparably intertwined with the "
myth of common descent" and
the "myth of the origin" of the Chin. According to the myth of the
origin, the Chin people emerged into this world from the
bowels of the earth or a cave or a
rock called Chhinlung… The tradition of "
Chhinlung" as the origin of
the Chin has been kept by all tribes of Chin in various ways, such as folk
songs, folklore, and legends known in Chin as Tuanbia.
Although he stated that (page 58)
"all tribes of 'Chin' …the
songs were sung repeatedly during all kinds of feasts and
festivals…"
Dr. Sakhong could not
reproduce such kind of songs from his own tribe because the myth of Sinlung
came from the Hmar and Mizo who dwelled in the North and West of the Dr.
Sakhong's "Chinram". He produced a Hmar song with the word Sinlung.
He could not quote from his father or any other person from the Eastern part.
The second song he documents, which he claimed as the national anthem of both
sides of the border, was composed by Captain T. L. Sailo of Manipur.
The people indeed settled in caves
at their arrival from the plains in "Chinram" at Ciimnuai, Lailun,
Locom, or Bochung. In fact the Lailun cave was quite large extending to over
two hundred feet. But the settlement at Lailun is not a myth but a real story
similarly the settlement at the cave at Ciimnuai.
Dr. Sakhong brought forward a
completely new theory of how the name "Chin" happened to be used as
the nomenclature for the people who call themselves Asho, Laimi, Masho, Mizo,
Sho (Cho), Zomi. He interpreted that the myth of Ralte, Gangte, and Hmar, who
dwelled in Manipur and North of Mizoram that they came out of the bowels of
the Earth as a reality. As the rock or cave was known as Sinlung or Chhinlung
or similar names that the name "Chin" was taken from it and that is
why it is the national name of the "Chin". I must've been
responsible for his idea because in my book "Zo History" I
mentioned what Pu Hrang Nawl told me. I wrote:
"Hrang Nawl, a former
parliamentarian from Haka, believed the word Chin, Ciin or Tsin was the
original name of the Zo people, and he suggested that it originated in China
. His suggestion is based on the fact that there are many places in Zo
country which have "Ciin", "Tsin" or "Chin" as
names –such as Ciinmual, Chintlang, or Tsinkhua. Hrang Nawl also suggested
that "Chin" could have come from Ciinlung, Chhinlung or Tsinlung,
the cave or rock from whence according to legend the Zo people emerged into
this world as humans."
Dr. Sakhong further states:
"Modern scholars generally agree with the traditional account of the origin
of the name "Chin" and that the word comes from 'Chinlung', Hrang
Nawl, one of the most prominent scholars and politicians among the Chin
confirms that the term "Chin…" He quotes from my book "Zo
History". Pu Hrang Nawl dropped out of High School to enter
politics and was once elected to Parliament ( Burma ) from his native Haka
district at the age of twenty-four. He was a rebel leader fighting for
democracy after Ne Win took over the power in Burma . He was granted
asylum in India and lived in Mizoram from where he learned about the Sinlung
myth. For the "Laimi Tribe" and the "Zomi tribe" their
settlement in the caves at Lailun and Ciimnuai were facts but for those who
wandered away became legends. They could not remember where the cave was and
speculated that it might be in China as they were not sure where they
originated.
Dr. Sakhong mentions on page
59: T.S. Gangte, a Kuki, K. Zawla, a Mizo, and
Mangkhoset Kipgen, a Thado from
Lamka district, Manipur: "They all reiterate
that the "Chin" came out
of the bowels of the Earth or a cave called Chinlung
or Sinlung."
I have also mentioned that
there is a tradition that the people believed, they came out of a cave
Sinlung, the story of which was from K. Zawla's book. I looked at Pu
Zawla's book but he did not mention the name "Chin". I could
not find T.S. Gangte's book. Mangkosat Kipgen indeed mentioned
"Chin". He said that there was a student who believed that the name
"Chin" came from "Chhinlung". The student must have
been Dr. Sakhong as he was in the same school with the Mr. Kipgen at the same
time.
Dr.Sakhong tried to convince the
reader that the name "Chin" had been used by
other people such as Kachin and
Shan. On page 74-75, Dr. Sakhong writes: "But
this is very unlikely, because the
word Chin had already been very
well-recognized not only by the
Burman but also by other people such as
Kachin and Shan,even the Chin made
their settlement in the Chindwin Valley .
The Kachin for instance, who never
came down the Chindwin Valley but remained
in the Hukong Valley and
present Kachin Hills, called the Chin Khiang or
Chiang. So did the
Shan."
But in another article and
publication, where Dr. Sakhong was the Co-Editor and member of the Chin
Forum, Working Group I, as author of the article, it said:
"Their distinct single
national identity is recognized by their surrounding
neighbors: the Kachin and Shans 9,
for example refer to them as 'Khang,'..."
In Kachin Khang means footprint.
He writes in his book Khiang or Chiang instead of Khang to fool the reader
that the Shan and Kachin had been using the name similar to
"Chin".(page 38)
In the same article it is written:
"The term 'Chin' is believed
to have been derived from the term Khrang, or
Khlang, which in Southern Chin
dialect still means simply "people," and which
has come to be pronounced
"Chin" as a result of systematic phonetic changes
in the language, from which the
term was borrowed into English." page 38
I am puzzled what Dr. Sakhong
really thinks as the origin of the name "Chin".
2.a Previous studies on the origin
of the name "Chin"
In fact, the origin of the name
"Chin" has been highly controversial and
debated by scholars as well as by
British colonial administrators in the last 150 years. Many of these
sources state that these people did not call themselves by the name
"Chin" at all.
2.a.i Colonial studies proving
that "Chin" is not a native name
Dr. Sakhong refers a quote from
one of these colonial officers, Thomas Lewin,
"the first scholar in the
field" on page 22. But he did not elaborate what
Thomas Lewin wrote. Thomas Lewin
wrote:
"The Dzo tribes inhabit the
hill country to the east of the Chittagong in
lower Bengal " …The term Kuki
is a generic name applied by the inhabitants of the plains, Bengalis and
others, to all hill-dwellers who cultivated by Jum. The word Kuki is foreign
to the different dialects of the hill tribes, the nearest approach to it
being the 'Dzo'…"[Lewin, 1874]:
Another Burma-side colonial
officer, Captain F. M. Rundall [1891], wrote:
"I do not know the origin of
the name Chin is Burmese. I fancy, anyhow, the
Chins do not have the word and
call themselves 'Zo'..."
Sir J.G. Scott [1977] wrote,
"The Chins (who call themselves Zho, Shu, or
Lai) show the most clearly marked
footprints of the immigrant Burmese"…The names like Kuki and Chin
are not national, and have been given to them by their neighbors. Like
others, the people do not accept the name given by the Burmese and ourselves;
they do not call themselves Chins, and they also flout the name of Kuki which
their Assamese neighbors use. They call themselves Zou or Shu and in
other parts Yo or Lai."
Dr. Sakhong also quotes B. S.
Carey and H. N. Tuck [1932], British political
officers in the Chin Hills :
"Those of the Kuki tribes of people which we
designated as 'Chins' do not
recognize that name. …they call themselves Yo… and Yo is the general name by
which the Chins call their race."
Dr. Sakhong cites Father Sangermo:
"To the east of the Chien Mountains ,
between 20.30 and 21.30 north
latitude, is a pretty nation called Jo (Yaw). They are supposed to have been
Chien … " These Jo generally pass for necromancers and sorcerers,
and are for this reason feared by the Burmese, who dare no ill-treatment for
fear of their revenging themselves by some enchantment," but Sakhong
disputes the fact that the Jo were not the "Chin" but the Yaw. He
writes in the footnote on page 62: "… 'Jo' is not the 'Jo' of group of
Zomi tribe of Chin, but the 'Yaw' people who occupied the Gankaw Valley of
Upper Chindwin." This particular point has been misinterpreted by many
scholars, especially Zomi scholars including Vum Kho Hau and Sing Kho Khai,
sometimes quite knowingly."
2.a.ii The foreign origin of
the name "Chin"
The name "Chin" became
the official designation for the people residing in
the Chin Hills since Burma became
a British colony. Because the British
employed the divide-and-rule
policy, they adopted the names Kuki, Lushai, and Chin for the same people.
Lushai, pronounced Lusei, was the only name that actually had something to do
with the people. Even the simple use of Lushai by the British caused
confusion among the people because the British phonetically spelled Lushai to
be pronounced as Lusei. However, when the British taught the native
people to read the Roman alphabet, the native Lusei, seeing Lusei written as
Lushai, the people thought it had a different meaning altogether.
When the British came in contact
with the same people in Manipur they called
these people Kuki because the
Bengalis called the people with this name. When
the British came in contact with
the Burmese they adopted the name "Chin" for
the same people because the
Burmese called them by that name. Therefore a
people counting barely one million
in the nineteenth century were designated by three names by the
British. Of course the people must be given some
responsibility for this confusion.
Although they have a common identity they did not necessarily recognize or
acknowledge it and therefore did not protest when they were called by
different names. Instead, they readily accepted the
designations. Except in the case
of the Lusei, nobody changed the British designation to their own.
2.a.ii.a Foreigners on the source
of "Chin"
The foreign genesis of the name
"Chin" is supported by several scholarly
sources, such as F.K. Lehman
[1980]: "The term 'Chin' is imprecise. It is a
Burmese word (khyang), not a Chin
word. It is homologous with the contemporary Burmese word meaning 'basket',
but… No single Chin word has explicit reference to all the peoples we
customarily call Chin, but all-or nearly all- of the peoples have a special
word for themselves and those of their congeners with whom they are in
regular contact. This word is always a variant form of a single root, which
appears as zo, yo, kseu, seu, and the like. The word means roughly
'unsophisticated'. A few groups in the Southern Chin Hills have adopted a
variant of the term 'Chin' for themselves." Another source is G.H. Luce,
quotes from Fan Ch'o, a Chinese traveler to the Chindwin during the eight
Century AD, who wrote, "They (Chin) call their princes and chiefs shou.
(Is this the Chin word for themselves?) …Notes: "'Chins': Xongsai [zeu],
Tiddim [zeu], Lushai[zo,zou], Hwalno [zau], K'ualsi:m [zeu], Hakha [zeu],
Asho [aseu], Wemetu [chou]"
There have also been
"Chin" scholars who have had written about the name "
Chin." For example, Vum Kho
Hau [1963] quotes from Father Sangermo that, "From time immemorial we
call ourselves Zo (Jo, Yaw)," from the year 1783 when he made his
headquarters at Ava then considered by the Burmese as the center of the
universe. A few writers also recorded the fact that we are Zo (Jo, Yaw)
people inhabiting areas between Assam and the Irrawadi river, such as Dr.
Forchhammer, Maung Thet Pyo's book "Customary Law of the Chin
tribe," Arthur Phayre, etc."
2.a.ii.b Natives on the source
of "Chin"
L. Keivom [2004], a Hmar native
writes, "Consequently, the name of the Lushai
Hill was changed into Mizo Hills
and when it attained the status of Union
Territory and after Statehood it
became 'Mizoram', a land of Mizos . This was the first time in Zo history
that their land or territory had been named after their own given name. It
may be pertinent to mention that the nomenclature like 'Chin' and 'Kuki' are
derogatory terms given by outsiders to the Zo people whereas 'Mizo' is a self
given name which is dignified, honourable and all-embracing. It now virtually
stands as the collective name of the Zo descent."
Sing Ko Khai [1984] quotes T. Hau
Go Sukte,M.R.E., the General Secretary of
the Zomi Baptist Convention
recollection, on this scene from the formation of
the Zomi Baptist Convention:
…I proposed that the name of our
organization should bear our own national
name. I said, "Outsiders call
us Chin, but we never call ourselves by that name. So I believe you all agree
to reject Chin to be the name of our organization, " and all the members
of the Committee agreed by acclamation.(2) Then I proposed that we should
take Zomi as our name as this is our correct historical name. And we should
call our organization ZOMI BAPTIST CONVENTION.(3) A man sprung up to his feet
and rejected the name ZOMI outright saying, "Saya, in Hakha we apply
this word Zo to the most backward and most despicable people.
So we do not want this name for
our big Christian organization."(4) "In that case what name do you
like?" I asked and he replied, "Laimi". (5) Then I explained,
"I propose Zomi because I believe it is the correct original historical
name of our people, from the Naga Hills to the Bay of Bengal . To the north
of Tedim, the Thados and other tribes all themselves YO, in Falam,
LAIZO. The Tedim people call themselves ZO, the Lushais, MIZO, in
Hakha, ZOTUNG, ZOPHEI, ZOKHUA. In Gangaw area ZO is pronounced YAW, in
Mindat, JO or CHO, and in Paletwa KHOMI. In Prome, Sandoway, and Bassein
areas they call themselves A-SHO. So I am convinced that in spite of slight
variations this ZO is our original historical name."(6) After this
explanation Rev. Sang Ling who was the most senior and revered pastor from Hakha
stood up and said, "What Rev. Hau Go has just said is correct. In
our younger days we were told that we were born at YOTLANG. And ZO is our
true original name. The word LAI is not our national name. LAI was
first used by denizens of Hakha. It means our village people, our own local
people, as distinct from outsiders. It is not our national name. "
Saying this he waved to Rev. Sang Fen who was also the second eldest and most
respected pastor and asked, "What is your opinion on this Saya?"(7)
Then Saya Sang Fen stood up and briefly said: "I believe ZO is our
national name and I myself am the pastor of ZOKHUA". (8) After the two
most senior and revered pastors of the Haka area arose and spoke in support
of my proposal, not a single dissent was heard and the name ZOMI BAPTIST
CONVENTION was unanimously approved.
In another article T. Hau Go
Sukte[1971-72] wrote about the name "Chin": "
Whatever it meant or means,
however[where?] it originated and why, the obvious fact is the appellation of
'Chin' is altogether foreign to us, it has been externally applied to us. We
respond to it out of necessity but we never
appropriate it and never accept it
and never use it to refer to ourselves. It is not only foreign but also
derogatory, for it has become more or less synonymous with being uncivilized,
uncultured, backward, even foolish and silly. And when we consider such name
calling applied to our people as 'Chinboke' (stinking Chin) we cannot but
interpret it as a direct and flagrant insult, and the fact that we have some
'rotten friends' is no consolation."
In the article, "In Search of
the Origin of the Names: Kuki-Chin," Kenneth
Van Bik, a native of Hakha and a
linguistic scholar at the prestigious
University of California at
Berkeley writes:
(start quote)
According to Carey and Tuck, the
name Chins "is said to be a Burmese
corruption of the Chinese 'Jin' or
'Yen' meaning 'man.'"
This pattern of speculation is
further pursued by native scholars such Lian
Sakhong and H. Kamkhenthang.
The speculation is that the word Chin is cognate to Chinese "Jin"
or "Yen" which is no longer recognized by the Kuki-Chin people as
their collective name in modern time. Prof. B.
Kalgren, however, the Old Chinese
form for "Jin" or "Y" which could mean is
nian. Therefore, it is quite
a stretch to speculate that the Kuki-Chin
people would call themselves
"Chin" at some point in their history.
It appears that the origin
of the term actually lies in the language of the
Asho Chin (aka Plains Chin) - the
Chin group which the Burmans first come
into contact. In Asho Chin, a
person is called hklaung (Joorman 1906; 12).
Therefore, they called themselves,
Asho hklaung 'Asho person'. This kind of naming
is very common among the Kuki-Chin
groups, as in Lai-mi = Lai-person/people,
Zo-mi = Zo person/people. When the
Burmans met the Asho Chin, they (Burmans)
took the latter part of their
(Asho Chin) name as a designation to them. But,
the Burmese had already lost the
kl- affricate.
Therefore, the closest
affricate that they can use was khy-, and as a
consequence, the term Khyang
appeared to designate any Chin group. In fact in old
pagan inscriptions (Luce 1959:25)
the writer(s) attempted to write the names
of these people as closely as
possible to its Asho Chin pronunciation. Both
spellings, khyang and khlang are
recorded for the same people.
Comparison between written Burmese
(WB) and modern Burmese (MB) (Benedict
Matisoff 1943, LTBA 3:1:iii-x,
Wheatly (1982:18-19) also urged convincingly that three phonetic shifts from
WB to MB form a "drag chain" beginning with the (phonetically
dental fricative). 1. Th 2. C, ch 3.ky, kr c khy, khr ch .
The claim of the author is that
the term Chin originated in the Asho Chin
word khlang or (hklaung) was
pronounced khyang by the Burmans, until the
Burmese language changed its
initial khy- to ch-, dragging the name along with it.
(end quote)
2.b Misrepresentations of others'
work
In order to draw attention to his
point that "Chin" was the original name of
the people Dr. Sakhong states:
"As far as historical evidence is concerned,
the Chin were known by no other
name than CHIN, until they made their
settlement in Chin Nwe."
Actually, there was no
"Chin" settlement at "Chin Nwe," nor a historical
location name "Chin
Nwe." But there is a location called "Ciimnuai" near
Saizang, in Tiddim Township ,
where there is also a cave. The people whom Dr.
Sakhong termed as the "Zomi
tribe" settled at this place when they moved from the plains in the
Kale-Kabaw-Gangaw-Zo Country (Yaw Pyi).
Dr. Sakhong cites from my book "Zo
History" [1986, p.26] in which I also
quoted from the myth or legends of
the Hmar, Ralte, and Gangte that there is a Zo legend, which says that our
people came from a cave called Sinlung or
Chhinlung. However, Dr. Sakhong
quotes me incorrectly when he writes in the footnote on page 59, "He
proposed the word 'Zo' (meaning; hill people or highlander) to be used for
the national name of the Chin." In "Zo History," I
emphasized translating Zo as "highlander," "is simply
absurd." Dr. Sakhong's quote is out of context. I did propose Zo
to be the national name not because it means highlander but because it is the
most common name used by the people.
To further advance his cause that
"Chin" be recognized as the native name he
said,page 62 "Evidently, the
word 'Chin'had been used from the beginning not only by the Chin themselves
but also by their neighboring peoples, such as Kachin, Shan, and Burman, to
denote the people who occupied the Valley of the Chindwin River . While the
Kachin and Shan still called the Chin "Khyan", "Khiang",
or "Chiang", the Burmese usage seems to have changed dramatically
from "Khyan" to "Chin" to Chin. In a couple of
stone inscriptions, erected by King Kyanzuttha (1084 - 1113), the name Chin
is spelled "Khyan".
On (page 74-75)Dr.Sakhong
repeated: "because the word Chin had already been well-recognized
not only by the Burman but also by other peoples such as Kachin and Shan,
even before the Chin made their settlement in the Chindwin Valley. The
Kachin, …called the Chin Khiang or Chiang. So did the Shan."
But in another article, where he
functioned as the Co-Editor of the Peaceful
Co-Existence, Series No. 6, and
also as one of the co-authors of the article
as a member of the Chin Forum,
Working Group I: Political History and Social
Background of the Chin People, he
writes (page 38): "Their distinct single
national identity is recognized by
their surrounding neighbors: the Kachin and Shans, for example, refer to them
as 'Khang.'"
In Kachin, "Khang" means
"footprints," a completely different meaning for Khyang or Chiang.
Also, Dr. Sakhong writes
(page 75) that "Kale" came from the Lai word "Khatlei."
"Kale" is a Shan
word and has nothing to do with a Lai word "Khatlei."
2.c Errors in tribal groupings and
names
On page 81 DR. Sakhong writes,
"The term 'tribal group' in
Chin concept is a 'social
group' comprising numerous
families, clans, or generations together with
slaves, dependents, or adopted
strangers… The term 'tribe' as a Chin concept does not refer to common
ancestors or common family ties but to a social group … As the name imply,
the tribal groups among the Chin rather denote geographical areas… for
example Asho means the plain dwellers, Cho means southerners, Khuami may be
translated as 'the native people', Laimi means the descendent of the Lai-lung
or the 'central people' as Stevenson defines it, Zomi or Mizo means the
northern people, and so on"
The author argued against himself
on page 79, when he writes: "Prior to these settlements, there is no
historical evidence that differentiates the Chin into the Laimi, Mizo, and
Zomi tribes, etc. Only the national name of "Chin" is represented
in the records."
I am puzzled what record he meant,
he did not specified it. Because there is no such record.
When I wrote "Zo History,"
I divided the people into tribal groups, not
because they really are tribal
groups, but because it was very convenient to write about them from taking
their stories from colonial officers' records. Although I have used
similar division and nomenclature it is completely wrong. These are not
tribal groups but clan and family groups. When Dr. Sakhong says the division
denotes geographical areas, it is also inaccurate. For example, the Bawmzo
people in the Chittagong Hills fall into the
Laimi group because of their
dialect and clan affinity. They are not
geographically contiguous. In
Mizoram the people call themselves Mizo, and for that reason Dr. Sakhong
calls them he Mizo tribal group. In reality the population of Mizoram
is a melting pot, where every clan
of his five tribal groups has its
members. Zomi and Mizo mean Zo people or
person. The Asho, Masho, and
Sho(Cho) are separated from the Zomi and Mizo only by a slight difference in
the sound of their name. They are therefore one group Sho(Cho) or Zo.
Out of the six groupings his
"Laimi tribe" is the odd tribe, having in name
no common similarity without Sho
or Zo. T. Hau Go Sukte's description (section 2.a.ii.b of this review) of the
verbal exchange during the meeting for naming the Zomi Baptist organization
gives us a clue as to why the tribe (Laimi) has its name from among the other
tribes. The Zomi Baptist Convention (ZBC) was formed in 1953. Although the
ages of the older pastors were not mentioned, they must have been born
in the early nineteenth century - perhaps in the 1910s or 20s. These
people remember the older days when the story of the people was better
remembered than by today's generation. In this connection Dr. Sakhong pointed
out that from Lailung, the people moved to Zotlang. Rev. Sang Ling supports
this by saying, "In our younger days we were told that we were born at
YOTLANG and ZO is our true original name. The word LAI is not our national
name. LAI was first used by denizens of Hakha. It means our village people,
our own local people, as distinct from other outsiders. It is not our
national name." Dr. Sakhong supports this account by mentioning
that the Laimi tribe moved to Zotlang (page 101).
In the same discussion we learn
how animosity among the "Laimi tribe" clan
or group caused the name
"Laimi" to come about: "A member of the meeting's
comment confirms the feeling
towards each other among the Laimi tribe when he
said: 'In Hakha we apply this word
ZO to the most backward and the most
despicable people.' I have heard
that the Hakha people call the Zotung,
Zophei, Zokhua, Sentlang, Lautu,
Mara etc people 'Zochia' meaning 'rotten
Zo'." This is the first
time I have seen this sentiment in writing. In this
circumstance as a member of the
"Zochia" group it is with much sympathy I can
understand why Dr. Sakhong tried
to eliminate the term "Zo or Sho" and
introduced "Chin" as the
genuine nomenclature for the whole people at whatever the cost. Thus the
"Laimi tribe" has basically the same name as the other five tribal
groups - that is, there is only one tribal group: the Zo or Sho
(Cho).
Looking into Dr. Sakhong's six
"Chin" tribal groups, (The diagram on page 83) each and every one
of them is groupings of clans of similar ancestry and dialects. For example,
in the Zomi (Kuki) group share a a common dialect, not only that they trace
their common ancestry to a man named Songtu or Chawngthu. They even trace the
common ancestry to a man named Zo or Chhuakzoa or Suak Zo.
Dr. Sakhong must have appreciated
the Burmese military leaders motto of divide and rule, where they documented
that there are fifty four different races in the Chin State . The group has
13 members according to Dr. Sakhong and the Burmese military. Looking into
the Asho, almost all of the sub-clans have the same name Zo. The sub grouping
is done because of tiny
differences in dialects and clan
names. Unquestionably, all of the tribes should be placed together as one
clan or one tribe.
The translation of Asho as plain
dwellers and Cho as southerners (page 81,
see also above) is unsubstantiated.
As already mentioned above, these names
have only slight differences from
each other. Thus basically the names are the same. Thus if Asho is plain
dwellers, Cho cannot mean southerners just because Cho area situated to the
south of the Lai, which could be translated as center. Similarly
because the Zomi and Mizo could not be northern people or highlander because
they live to the north of the Lai. The names Asho, Sho (Cho), Masho,
Zomi, Mizo, each stands for the whole people. Some writers called the
Asho "Plains Chin." This is not substantiated, as Asho are not
completely plain dwellers; they also live in the Pegu Yomas (mountains),
Popa, and Arakan Yomas. Thus the translation of the names by Dr. Sakhong is
the stipulation that the Lai group are situated in the center of the universe
and looking from the position of the Lai or Laimi group, one is southerner,
plain dweller or northerner is simply ridiculous.
The diagram (page 83) starts
with Mongolia as the origins of the Mon-Khmer,
Tibeto-Burman, and the
Tai-Chinese. Perhaps it should read "Mongoloid," the
racial name for most of East Asian
people. I believe this is a mistake.
Also he interpreted Vai simply as
Indian. Vai is not necessarily Indian. In
Mizoram when they say Vai they
mean Indian but it could mean any enemy or
foreigner even from other Zo clan,
who they are in war with. The British were known as Mirang (white people) or
Sap (master) but also Vai for example in songs foreign things including
English language are called "Vaimangthiamthil" in my native
dialect. Even the Burmese whom our people call "Kawl" become Vai in
songs and poetry.
3 Historical mistakes
3.a Haka as the capital of Eastern
Chinram
The author writes on page 95,
"Since the arrival of the British, Haka became
the capital of Eastern Chinram
." To my recollection Haka had never been the
capital of Eastern Chinram until
1964. Let me give an account of the Eastern
Chinram capital.
When the British annexed the Chin
Hills , they first established their camp at
Thangmual, calling it Fort White
after General White, who was the commander
of the army that subdued the
Sizang. Fort White was in the Sizang area. In
1892, the Sizang chiefs carried
out the assassination of the
Township Officer. They were under
the leadership of Thuam Thawng of Kaptel,
his son Pau Dal, Khan Dal, chief
of Heilei, and were also led by Khai Kam of
Khuasak. They [also]
informed, got the approval and promise of support of the Lusei, Haka, Tlasun,
and Zahau chiefs before the act.
Due to the assassination, the
British moved their headquarters then to Falam,
and Falam became the capital of
the Chin Hills District. At that time the
Chin Hills District covered the
Tedim, Falam and Hakha districts. The Chin Hills Battalion was stationed in
Falam. Its soldiers were a mix of Indian sepoys (soldiers?) and local
recruits. The higher-ranking officers were British until local recruits
were promoted as officers. The deputy commissioner was the highest authority.
They created a post and telegraph office, and a police force was
stationed in Falam.
At independence, Matupi, Mindat
(Kanpetlet) formerly of Pakokku district and
Paletwa district, formerly of
Arakan, were added to the Chin Hills District. Together this region was
called the Chin Special Division, with the capital in Falam. The Minister of
the Chin Affairs Pu Vumthu Maung, a Cho from Mindat, however did not sit in
Falam, but sat in Rangoon together with the cabinet members of the Union
Government. The Commissioner of the Chin Special Division did sit in
Falam and most of the administration was under his jurisdiction. Thereafter,
Pu Sing Htang, Pu Za Hre Lian were Ministers for the Chin Affairs under the
AFPFL(Anti-Fascist, People's Freedom League) governments. They sat in
Rangoon in the Union Cabinet as some what guests of the Union Government.
In 1958 the ruling AFPFL party
split into two factions (Clean and Stable) and
the Stable AFPFL had the majority.
Thus Pu Ral Hmung, a native of Haka
district, became the Chin affairs
minister. He ordered the transfer of the Chin Capital to Haka immediately
after becoming minister. But before it was implemented, General Ne Win, who
was the Prime Minister of the Caretaker Government at that time, gave Ral
Hmung an ultimatum, to resign or be fired because of the order to move the
capital from Falam to Haka. Ral Hmung resigned and the transfer was not
implemented. ( I received this information from a reliable source. My source
worked in the Chin Council.)
When General Ne Win took over
power the second time in 1962(the first time
was in 1958) he handpicked the
members of the Chin Council and appointed Major Son Kho Lian as the Chairman.
Son Kho Lian set up his administration at
Kalemyo, in order to facilitate
communications with Rangoon , the Union Capital and also with its airport in
Kalemyo it is more accessible to other areas of the Chin State than from any
where else. The fertile Kale-Kabaw-Myttha and Gangaw valleys fed the office
workers in the Chin State .
However, some Burman from the
Stable AFPFL complained to Ne Win that the Chin administration had no place
in Kalemyo because Kalemyo had been a Shan-Burman town and did not belong to
the Chins. Also there had been protests by Burmese Youth groups about the the
situation of Kalemyo being the Capital of the Chin State .
. At a meeting in early 1964
in Kalemyo between Ne Win, Son Kho Lian and several Council members, Northern
Burma Army Commander Colonel Lun Tin, his deputy Colonel Van Kulh, Pu
Tuang Hmung, the Chin Council Secretary, and his deputy Pu Ngun To, Ne
Win told Son Kho Lian that he wanted him to transfer his administration
somewhere else. Ne Win said that it was an annoyance and he did not care
where the administration would be moved. Son Kho Lian and his council members
contemplated where it would best be moved, and some suggested to Webula just
north of Kalemyo or the other to Gangaw area at Chin Special Division and
Burma border.
.
After the meeting Lun Tin told Son
Kho Lian that he should take it easy and the "old man" (Ne Win)
would change his mind. Some time after returning to his headquarters in
Mandalay , Lun Tin had to go away for a few days. In the mean time, Colonel
Van Kulh had been coordinating with Ngun To when to move the capital to Haka.
Both Van Kulh and Ngun To were natives of the Haka district. When the absence
of Tuang Hmung and Lun Tin from their respective offices coincided, Van Kulh
sent a telegram to the Secretary of the Chin Council to move the
administration office to Haka. On receiving the telegram, Ngun To implemented
the transfer of the Chin administration office to Haka by day and night
although it was during the rainy season and travel most difficult in the Chin
Hills ..
When Colonel Lun Tin learned about
the transfer order, he sent another telegram to Kalemyo, but Ngun To hid it
until the transfer was completed. With this maneuver, Haka got the capital
and the Chin lost their access to the fertile land of their forefathers,
which they shared with the Shan. Most importantly, the transfer to Haka
did not happen until that time in 1964, and not "Since the arrival of
the British" as the Dr. Sakhong claims.
(Colonel Lun Tin launched an
enquiry how such an even could happened during his watch. However, before his
enquiry was completed he was fired from the Burmese Army as he was involved
in a scandal in the Agricultural Department where he was posted before.)
3.b Omissions
Although the title of the
dissertation is "Religion and Politics among the
Chin People in Burma (1896
–1949)," the author only discusses the Christian
Baptists and the traditional
religion of the "Laimi tribe," ignoring any other religions or even
other Christian denominations. If the religion or politics did not
involve the "Laimi tribe," he did not mention it. For example, he
completely omits pivotal political events, such as the assassination of the
township officer, which might be considered as important an event as the
Anglo-Chin War. Also, in the political analysis also the
author claimed his
"Laimi tribe" were the only one who opposed the British
occupation 1917-1919. He did not
mention the Thado's (Kuki) war against the
British at the same time and for
the same reasons, which he might have
discounted because it was on the
Indian side. But then author could not say on page 245, "…the last and final
war was fought only by the Laimi tribe" when he writes about the first
invasion by the British in 1871 which was fought between the Lusei (Mizo) and
the British and was also in India (p. 167). Sadly the author ignores
other resistance movements against the British by clans other than the
"Laimi tribe."
Similarly, he completely ignores
the Laipian religion and writing system
created by Pau Cin Hau in 1905,
who taught it to the descendents of the Ciimnuai group (Zomi tribe) and also
to the northern "Laimi tribe" the Ngawn, Zanniat, and to other
areas. (I do not have a detailed information on this topic. Such detail
should be included in an academic analysis as this thesis, which is supposed
to cover religion during this time frame for the people in the area
targeted.) He ignored also the work of the missionaries among the Asho: the
conversion of Buddhism of the Sho (Cho); and the coming of the Catholic
missionaries and the conversion of the Sho to Catholism. It is especially
important to mention the conversion to Buddhism by the Sho because the first
Minister of the Chin Council was a Buddhist. The Sho were not under the Chin
Hills District before independence and was not effected by the Baptist
missionaries' and colonial authorities' contract or agreement.
It is short sighted on the part of
Dr. Sakhong to consider the Baptist as the only Christian religion. In my
opinion Catholics are also Christians so are the Seventh Day Adventists and
the Methodists which also came soon after independence.
The author also complains about
Rev. Cope's decision to teach three dialects
in the schools. Here again he
recognized the "Chinram" represented by "Zomi
and Laimi tribes." He
writes (p. 262): "Thus in terms of disunity, the Chin
people suffered from Zomi tribalism
defined by the disparity between the Kamhau dialect and two localisms, namely
Haka and Falam, which were based on two different standard dialects which the
missionaries created for just one and exactly the same tribe of Laimi."
One must understand that a man from the "Laimi tribe" was the
Minister for the Chin Affairs in the Burmese Government during the
Parliamentary Democracy in the fifties. This minister did nothing to
promote a common language.
I shall not go through all the
misquotes or the use of wrong names or
unsubstantiated claims as there
are too many. Here are just some examples: "…today'
s Chin Baptist Convention"(p.
226); " the rulers of the Chin State …came
from army officers of the First
Chin Hills Battalion, the Zomi tribe in general and Sizang in particular.
They controlled the Chin Baptist Church as well, especially the Zomi Baptist
Convention."(p. 254); "…Lt. Tial Khuai served in the Chin
Hills Battalion of the British-turned-Burmese army".(p. 347); "Vum
Kho Hau, who belonged to the Zomi tribe and spoke the Zo dialect, became the
interpreter for the whole team although he could not speak the Lai dialect
fluently, especially not the Haka local dialect."(p. 314); "
On that occasion, Vum Kho Hau misinterpreted what chief Hlur Hmung and Chief
Kio Mang had said." (p. 316). ( Chief Hlur Hmung spoke Burmese.)
Conclusion:
The author presents a simplistic
view of the conversion to Christianity with unfounded assumptions and
generalities. He completely omits other religions present in the area,
and the causes and effects of the conversions. The "analysis"
of religion is incomplete and hackneyed.
Dr. Sakhong unreliably and
simplistically cites myth as the origin of the name "Chin," instead
of doing any kind of serious investigation or scholarly analysis. He
further misquotes Mizo sources as referring to the name "Chin,"
when the original quote does not contain that word. Therefore, his
conclusion of the origin of the name "Chin" is based on myth,
misquotes and misrepresentation.
The thesis is full of
unsubstantiated claims with outright lies and purposeful wrong
interpretations to make a claim legitimate. He simply adopted stories from
past publications as facts without analyzing possible misconceptions. He
manipulates nomenclatures, terminology, and translations to support his
political and religious inclinations. It is difficult to understand
some facts that are wrongly stated, whether it be because he purposely tells
the wrong story or because he did not truly understand them.
Dr. Sakhong uses his dissertation
as a pulpit from which to preach his Baptist ideas. He is doing a
disservice to the people by subverting facts to promote his own ideas of
Christianity and the use of the name "Chin." His thesis is an
incomplete analysis of the politics and religion far short of the topics the
title of his thesis promises. Most of all, he is misrepresenting the truth
and often writing outright lies. His dissertation should not be seen as
fact or as a scholarly treatment of an academic subject. It is simply a
manifest for his ideas.
References
Capt. Thomas Lewin, 1874. "To
Progressive Colloquial Exercises in the Lushai
Dialect of the 'Dzo' or Kuki
Language, with vocabularies and Popular Tales
(Annotated)," Calcutta .
Capt. F.M. Rundall, 1891.
"Manual of the Siyin Dialect spoken in the Northern
Chin Hills ," pg. 20.
Sir James G. Scott, K.C.I.E.,
1977. " Burma : A Handbook of Practical
Information," pg.20.
B.S. Carey and H.N. Tuck, 1932.
"The Chin Hills : A History of the People, Our
Dealing with them, and their
Customs and Manners, and a Gazetteer of their
Country." Delhi , India :
Cultural Pub. House.
Father Sangermo edited by John
Jardine, 1884. "The Burmese Empire," pg. 43.
F.K. Lehman, 1980. "The
Structure of Chin Society," 2ndEdition, pg. 3.
G. H. Luce, 1985. "Phases of
Pre-Pagan Burma," London, pp. 78-86.
Vum Kho Hau. "Profile of
Burma Frontier Man," pg. 238.
Sing Kho Khai, 19??. "Zo
People and Their Culture," pp 69-71.
Hau Go, 1971-72. "Some Random
Thoughts about our People, our Language, our
Culture," Chin Literature and
Culture Subcommittee Magazine.
L. Keivom, 2003. Zo Re-Unification
Process, see www.zohope.org.
Sakhong, 2003. Peaceful
Co-Existence, Series 6, page 38.
In the following I reproduce some pages of Dr.
Sakhong's book, because some of my readers had not seen Dr. Sakhong's
book. It will be easier for them to understand better by seeing what
Dr. Sakhong had written. My comments are in italics.
On page 58 Dr. Sakhong suggested: 'The common proper
name of the "Chin" is inseparably intertwined with "the myth
of common descent" and the "myth of the origin" of the Chin.
According to the myth of the origin, the Chin people emerged into this world
from the bowels of the earth or a cave or a rock called
"Chinlung".2 which, as we will see below, is spelled slightly
differently by different scholars based on various Chin dialects and local
traditions, such as "Chhinlung", "Chinn-lung",
"Chie'nlung", "Chinglung", "Ciinlung". "Jinlung",
"Sinlung", "Shinlung", "Tsinlung", and so on.
Born and growing up in the Chin
Hills District in nineteen forties and fifties we never addressed ourselves
as Chin. I never heard the name " Chhinlung" or other names
Dr. Sakhong mentioned above until I visited Aizawl, Mizoram in 1981 and
read Pu K. Zawla's "Mizo Pi Pute leh an thlahte chanchin. I also
found the Memorandum written by the Paite National Council, which mentioned
the name "Chhinlung". I honestly did not find literatures
from the Chin Hills District which mentioned the above names before
1981.. The myth "Chhinlung or Sinlung" originated in Manipur and
Mizoram. I am sure that literatures mentioned by the author as his sources
from the Chin Hills District never mentioned the Sinlung or Chhinlung
myth.
I doubt the existence
of many "Chin" scholars as suggested by Dr. Sakhong, and I
have not seen the nomenclatures mentioned above in literatures written by
Chin people from the Chin Hills District although I combed where-ever
possible for references on the Chin people while writing Zo History in the
late 1970 and early 1980s. I had to depend almost wholly on foreign
literature written by British colonial officers on the Zo or Chin people. I
learned in the school that we are called Chin. We never called
ourselves "Chin" in early times. It is a Burmese word and with time
it gained popularity as the Burman dominated the political, social, and
economic life of the Union of Burma. When I went to the University of
Rangoon, Burmese students called me "basket" because "chin"
in Burmese is basket.
As a matter of fact the Burmese Military Regime (Burmese
Way to Socialism) in 1967 sent out a research team to the Chin Special
Division to investigate the Chin culture, religion, and history. They
invited individuals to submit their history, culture, and so on. Some
including my father submitted their knowledge about their history, culture
and religion to the research team. Based on the findings of the
research team the Burma Research Society produced a book In that book "
Culture and Custom of the Chin" was no mentioning of the name
"Chhinlung" or other names mentioned by Dr. Sakhong above.
On the same
page Dr. Sakhong suggested: "The tradition of "Chinlung" as
the origin of the Chin has been kept by all tribes of the Chin in various
ways, such as folksongs, folklore, and legends known in Chin as Tuanbia. For the people who had no writing system of their own, a
rich oral tradition consisting of folksong and folklore was the most reliable
means of transmitting past events and collective memories through time. The
songs were sung repeatedly during all kinds of feasts and festivals, and the
tales that made up Chin folklore were told and retold over the generations.
In this way, such collective memories as the origin myth and the myth of
common ancestors were handed down from one generation to the next. Different
tribes and groups of Chin kept the tradition of ' Chinlung' in several
versions; the Hmar group of the Mizo tribe, who now live in the Mizoram State
of India, have a traditional folk song, the lyrics of which follow:
"Kan
Seingna Sinlurrg (C2inlung) ram hmin,gthang Ka nu ram ka pa ram ngai
Chawng,il ang Kokir thei ehangsiert Ka
nu ram ka pa ngai."
In English it translates as: "Famous Sinlung
(Chinlung) is my motherland and the home of my ancestors. It could be
remembered like chawngzil [the
navel of my own being], the home of my ancestors."'
This folksong
also describes that the Chins were driven out of their original homeland,
called 'Chinglung'. Another folksong, which was
= See...
Shakespear 1912, 93-94; Carey and Tuck 1896; reprinted in 1983,
142; Parry 1932; reprinted in
1976, 4
The Mizoram
Encyclopaedia 19-, 328
59
traditionally sung at the Khuahrum sacrificial ceremony and other
important occasions, reads as follows in English translation:
"My Chinland of old,
My
grandfather's land Himalei, My grandfather's way excels, Chinlung's way
excels."4
Comment:
I agree with Dr. Sakhong that the Hmar and the Zo
people living in the vicinity of Manipur has the "Chhinlung"
tradition but I disagree with his suggestion that the "Chhinglung"
tradition was widespread and restricted to the western localities of the land
occupied by the people.
There is no mentioning of Chinland in the song.(The
song says the land where I grew up) It mentioned Chinlung. This is another
mis-translation of the song . The song remains with the Hmar and not
penetrated to other clan groups especially to the Chin State.
This statement "the tradition
of "Chinlung" is further a fabricated statement, nothing to do with
reality, as I have mentioned above the myth "Chhinlung" was not
known in the Chin State.
Modern scholars generally agree with the traditional
account of the origin of the name "Chin" and that the word comes
from ' Chinlung' . Hrang Nawl, one of the most prominent scholars and
politicians among the Chin, confirms that the term "Chin ... come(s)
from Ciinlung, Chhinlung or Tsinlung, the cave or the rock where, according
to legend, the Chin people emerged into this world as
humans."' The 'Chinlung' tradition of the origin of the Chin was
corroborated also by such Chin scholars from the Indian side of Chinram, as
T. S. Gangte, K. Zawla and Mangkhosat Kipgen. They all reiterate that the
Chin "came out of the bowels of the earth or a cave called Chinlung or
Sinlung."6 Even Vumson could not dispute the tradition
that the Chin "were originally from a cave called Chinnlung, which is
given different locations by different clans."7
Comment:
In the real sense Pu Hrang Nawl
could not qualify as as one of the most prominent scholars because Pu
Hrang Nawl dropped out of High School to enter politics and was once elected
to Parliament (Burma) from his native Haka district at the age of
twenty-four. He was a rebel leader fighting for democracy after Ne Win
took over the power in Burma. He was granted asylum in India and lived
in Mizoram from where he learned about the Sinlung myth. I do notthink it is
proper to call someone a scholar when he has the same kind of opinion.
I have also mentioned that there
is a tradition that the people believed, they came out of a cave
Sinlung, the story of which was from K. Zawla's book. I looked at Pu
Zawla's book but he did not mention the name "Chin". I could
not find T.S. Gangte's book. MangkosatKipgen indeed mentioned
"Chin". He said that there was a student who believed that the name
"Chin" came from "Chhinlung". The student must have
been Dr. Sakhong as he was in the same school with the Mr. Kipgen at the same
time.
In addition
to individual scholars and researchers, many of the political and other
organizations of the Chin accepted the Chinlung tradition not only as a myth
but also as historical fact. The Paite National Council, which was formed by
the Chin people of the Manipur and Mizoram States, claimed Chinlung as the origin
of the Chin people in the memorandum they submitted to the Prime Minister of
India. The memorandum stated, "The traditional memory claimed that their
remote original place was a cave in China where, for fear of enemies, they
hid themselves, which is interpreted in different dialects as ' Sinlung' in
Hmar and Khul in Paite and others."' In this memo
Cited in Kipgen 1996, 36 5 Cited by Vumson 1986, 3
6 Gangte 1993, 14; See also Zawla 1976, 2, and Kipgen 1996,
31-35.
7
Vumson 1986, 26; Vumson cannot accept the traditional account of the legend
"as fact, because," for him, "it is contradictory to known
facts of how man originated" (p. 26). He therefore proposed the word
'Zo' (meaning; 'hill people or highlander') to be used for the national name
of the Chin.
8 Re-
Unification of the Chin People: Memorandum Submitted by the Paite National
Council to Prime Minister of India for Re-unification of Chin People of
India and Burma under One Country in
1960. The memorandum was signed by T. Goukhenpa, President, and S. Vungkhom,
Chief Secretary, Paite National Council.
Comment:
K. Zawla, Mangkhoset Kipgen,
and T.S. Gangte are all from the Indian side, they therefore are familiar
with the Chhinlung myth. No one from the Burma side of the border to this
point except my book "Zo History".
In response to his foot note I reproduce what I I
wrote in Zo History (page 5 -6): There are intellectuals who translate Zo as
"Higlanders". They automatically conclude that the people
call themselves 'Zo' or 'Highlanders' because they live in the
highlands. This is simply absurd because they called themselves
"ZO" when they lived in the plains of the Chindwin Valley. Zo might
mean highland but never highlanders. Another translation of Zo as
"uncultured or uncivilized" comes from the Haka's bawiphun
or royalty, who regard their southern neighbours as uncultured and
uncivilized. To translate Zo as "uncultured or uncivilized" because
of the Haka attitudes towards their neighbours is misleading and cannot be
taken seriously. A people will never adopt or care for a name used to
degrade them."
Dr. Sakhong has purposefully
misquoted my statement.
In another article and
publication, where Dr. Sakhong was the Co-Editor, he reproduces an article
(in the series, Peaceful Co-Existence, Series 6, page 38) by the Chin Forum,
in which he is also a member. Dr. Sakhong differed from himself and
says:
"The term 'Chin' is believed
to have been derived from the term Khrang, or Khlang, which in Southern Chin
dialect still means simply "people," and which has come to be
pronounced "Chin" as a result of systematic phonetic changes in the
language, from which the term was borrowed into English."
This contradicts what he
says in the 26 pages from 58-83 of his book.
The Paite National Council is based in Churachanpur ,
Manipur, India, where the Paite and the Hmar live side by side and the name
"Chhinlung " is quite popular.
Other significant organizations that accepted the
Chinlung tradition of the origin of the Chin as historical fact include a religious
group of Mizo tribe of Chin, who claim themselves as the lost tribe of
Israel, and founded the "Chhinlung-Israel People Convention" since
1970s. They also claim that "Mizo's Jews connection goes back more than
1,000 years to a remote cave called Chinlung in China where the scattered remnants of
the lost Jewish tribe of Menashe were holed up. They called themselves Chin, after the cave Chhinlung."10
Another group is the Christian Evangelical Groups in the Mizoram State of
India, which produced a popular Gospel song that has, for all intents and
purposes, become a Chin national anthem on both sides of the Indo-Burma
border. The song recognized Chinlung as the original homeland of the Chin,
as the verse goes:
1.
Unau te u in
dam tlang lo maw? Rinumna chibai in dawng thin em? CHINLUNG chung kanram
chevela rni te, Insuih khawrn leh zai i rel ang uh.
Cho,
Aw, thang
leh,fa te'n engnge kan ti tak ang le! Kan chanvo kan ngil neihna kong chu,
thawk chuak tur in engnge kan ti tak arag le! Insuih khawm leh ;ai i rel ang
u.
2.
Unau te u, han
dawn ngun ve te u, khuavel unau hmandang hriat tir zel in, Kan nih na chung
Pathian lo rel ruat sa ang khan, Insuih khawm leh ;ai i rel ang u
9Ibid. . 2
'° Fathers in TIME. February 28, 2000 [Italics are added!]. According to the
TIME Magazine's report and other sources, some 400 Mizo youths are
granted resident permit in Israel since 1980s. as believers
of the Jewish faith. See also, Chin Forum Information Service, March 2000.
61
The plain translation is:
1.
Brothers are
you all in good health? Shall we speak to each other in trust? Yes, we all
are the descendents of Chinlung, We are the children of our fatherland
Let us now
prepare for our re-unification
Cho.
Youth! What
are your plans
Shall we call
upon our responsibilities Let us prepare for our re-unification
Brothers! let
us think carefully
For the people
surrounded us to understand Like God has already planned
Let us prepare
for our re-unification
Comment:
Dr. Sakhong's
suggestion that the Chin National Anthem is sung by both sides of the
Indo-Burma is a fabrication because he himself does not speak the Duhlian
dialect and does not understand what the song says. Although he does not
acknowledged it, He asked me to translate the song and with my brother Thawng
we translated for him. If he has been singing the song often I would
think that he would be able to translate it. The Chin people have developed
several dialects because of difficult terrain in their homeland. Thus a song
popular in one area is unknown in other areas.. The song was popular in
Mizoram State but not in the Chin State.
.
The
literal meaning of Chinlung is
"the cave or the hole of the Chin", and this has the same meaning
as the Burmese word for Chindwin as
in the "Chindwin River", that also is - "the hole of the
Chin" or "the river of the Chin."" However, the
word Chinlung can
also be translated as "the cave or the hole where our people originally
lived" or "the place from which our ancestors originated." 12 Thus,
the word Chin without
the suffix lung istranslated
simply as "people" or "a community of people."" A
Chin scholar, Lian Uk, therefore defines the termChin as follows:
"The Chin and several of its synonymous names
generally means 'People' and the name Chinland is generally translated as
'Our Land' reflecting the strong fundamental relationship they maintain with
their land.""
Similarly,
Carey and Tuck, who were the first to bring the Chin people under the system
of British administration, defined the word Chin as 'man or people'. They recorded that the
term Chin is
"the Burmese corruption of the Chinese 'Jin' or 'Jen' meaning 'man or
people'."''
" Lehman 1963, 20
'z Sakhong, Z.
1983, 7 " Lehman 19,
'° Lian Uk
1968, 2
15 Carey and Tuck 1896; reprinted in 1983, 3
Comment:
The sound of Chhin and Chin are not the same. In Mizoram
when they write Chhin it sounds more like Ciin or Sin. Thus Chin and Chhin
are not the same. "lung" means rock. It does not mean cave.. I
consulted Kenneth Vanbik of University of Southern California at Berkeley. He
is adamant that Dr. Sakhong's translation of Chhinlung as a cave is
wrong. The translation of Chhinlung or Sinlung is Chhin rock or
Sin rock but not Chhin cave or Sin cave.
Evidently, the word 'Chin' had been used from the very
beginning not only by the Chin themselves but also by their neighboring
peoples, such a, Kachin, Shan and Burman, to denote the
people who occupied the Valley of the Chindwin River. While the Kachin and
the Shan still called the Chin "Khyan". "Khiang" or
"Chiang", the Burmese usage seems to have changed dramatically from
"Khyan" ( ctif; ) to "Chin" ( csif; )."
Comment:
In another article and
publication, where Dr. Sakhong was the Co-Editor, he reproduces an article
(in the series, Peaceful Co-Existence, Series 6, page 38) by the Chin Forum,
in which he is also a member. Dr. Sakhong differed from himself and
says:
"The term 'Chin' is believed
to have been derived from the term Khrang, or Khlang, which in Southern Chin
dialect still means simply "people," and which has come to be
pronounced "Chin" as a result of systematic phonetic changes in the
language, from which the term was borrowed into English."
This contradicts what he
says in the 26 pages from 58-83 of his book.
In a couple of stone inscriptions, erected by King
Kyanzittha (1084-1113), the name Chin is spelled "Khyan" (c'I'if;
)." As far as historical and linguistic records are concerned, these
stone inscriptions are the strongest evidence indicating that the name Chin was in use before the eleventh century A.D.
Prior to the
British annexation in 1896, there have been seventeen written records in
English regarding research on what was then called the "Chin-Kuki
linguistic people". These early writings variously referred to what is
now called and spelled, "Chin", as "Khyeng",
"Khang", "Khlang", "Khyang", "Khyan",
"Kiayn", "Chiang", "Chi'en", "Chien",
and so on. One of the earliest Western writers to note the existence of the
hill tribes of Chin in the western mountains of Burma was Father Sangermono,
who lived in Burma as a Catholic missionary from 1783 to 1796 A.D. In his now
classical book:The Burmese
Empire, published one
hundred years after his death. he spelled the name Chin as "Chien"
and the Chin Hills as the "Chein .Mountains". He thus recorded:
"To the
east of Chein Mountain between 20"30' and 21"30' latitude is a
petty nation called 'Jo' [Yaw]. They are supposed to have been Chien, who in
the progress of time, have become Burmanized, speaking their language,
although corruptly, and adopting their Customs.""
16 It has to
be noted that in Burmese a combination of alphabets ' KH' is pronounced as
'CH'. " Luce 1959,75-109.
18 Sangermano 1833* reprinted in 1995, 43.Explanation
within bracket is done by John Jardine, who wrote an introduction and notes
when the book was first published in 1833, some one hundred years after
Father Sangermano passed away. As John Jardine had explained quite clearly,
what Sangermano described as "Jo" is not the "Jo" group
of Zomi tribe of Chin, but the "Yaw" people who occupied the Gankaw
Valley of Upper Chindwin. This particular point had been misinterpreted by
many scholars, especially Zomi scholars including Vum Kho Hau and Sing Kho
Khai, sometimes quite knowingly. Vum Kho Hau, for instance, writes in his
book: Profile of
Burma Frontier Man, "From time immemorial we call ourselves Zo (Jo,
Yaw). This fact had been admirably recorded by Father V. Sangermano since the
year 1783 when he made his headquarter at Ava." See Vum Kho Hau 1963,
238.
:
Comment:
Dr. Sakhong discredited Vum Kho Hau and Sing Kho Khai in
his footnote, although it is a known fact as documented also by Father
Sangermo, the Yaw country was the home land of the Chin before they moved to
the hills. Because the Chin people call themselves Zo the name of the
land remain the Zo country. The Zo people there lived together with the
Burman after the collapsed of the Pagan Kingdom as they moved east of the
Irrawaddy River. The people now speak a mixture of Burman and Zo
language. It is called Yaw now because the Burmese write the word Zo as
Yaw.
In Assam and Bengal, the Chin - particularly the Zomi
tribe who are living close to that area - were known as "Kuki".
The Bengali word for Kuki means "hill-people or highlanders" which was,
as Reid described in 1893:
"(O)riginally applied to the tribe or tribes
occupying the tracks immediately to the south of Cachar. It is now employed
in a comprehensive sense, to indicate those living to the west of the
Kaladyne River, while to the west they are designated as Shendus. On the
other hand, to anyone approaching them from Burma side, the Shendus would be
known as Chiang, synonymous with Khyen, and pronounced as 'Chin ......
The designation of Kuki was seldom used by the Chin
people themselves, not even by the Zomi tribe in what is now the Manipur
State of India, for whom the word is intended. Soppit, who was Assistant
Commissioner of Burma and later Sub-Divisional Officer in the North Cacher
Hills, Assam, remarked in 1893 in his study of Lushai-Kuki:
"The designation of Kuki is never used by the
tribes themselves, though many of them answer to it when addressed, knowing
it to be the Bengali term for their people
Shakespeare,
who was one of the authorities on the Chin, said in 1912 that:
"The term Kuki has come to have a fairly definite
meaning, and we now understand by it certain ... clans, with well marked
characteristics, belonging to the Tibeto-Burman stock. On the Chittagong
border, the term
is loosely applied to most of the inhabitants of the
interior hills beyond the Chittagong Hills Tracks; in the Cachar it generally
means some families of the Thado and Khuathlang clans, locally distinguished
as new Kuki and old Kuki. Now-a-days, the term is hardly employed, having
been superseded by Lushai in the Chin Hills, and generally on the Burma
border all these clans are called Chin. These Kuki are more closely allied to
the Chakmas, and the Lushai are more closely to their eastern neighbours who
are known as Chin."
And he
concluded, by writing:
"Nevertheless,
there is no doubt that the Kukis, Lushais and Chins are all of the same
race.""
" Reid,
Col. S. 1893, reprinted in 1983, 5 =° Soppit 1893, reprinted in 1978, 2
21 Shakespear 1912, 8; cited also in
Gangte 1993, 21
In
1826, almost one hundred years before Shakespeare published his book, Major
Snodgrass, who contacted the Chin people from the Burma side, had already
confirmed that Kukis and Lushai are of the Chin nation, but he spelled Chin
as Kiayn. He also mentioned Chinram as "Independent Kiayn Country, "22 in his The Burmese War,in which he gave a
detailed account of the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824-26. Sir Author Phayer
still spelt Chindwin as "Khyendweng" in his History of Burma, first published
in 1883.'3 It was in 1891 that the term "Chin", to
be written as "CHIN", was first used by Major W.G. Hughes in his
military report, and then by A.G.E. Newland in his book: The Images of War; and the
conventional spelling for the name became legalized as the official term
by The Chin Hills Regulation in
1896.24
(ii)
The Myth of Common Descent
Traditional accounts of the origin
of the Chin people, of course, have been obscured by myths and mythologies.
In fact, myths and mythologies - together with symbols, values and other
collective memories - are important elements of what Clifford Geertz called
"primordial identities" which so often define and differentiate the
Chin as a distinctive people and nationality throughout history. As noted
already, one such myth was the traditional account that had been handed down
through generations describing how the Chin "came out of the bowels of
the earth or a cave called Chin-lung or Cin-lung."25 According
to some it was located somewhere in China ,26 others claimed it to be in Tibet,27 and some
suggested that it must be somewhere in the Chindwin Valley since the literal
meaning of Chindwin is "the cave or the hole of the Chin ."28I shall come back to the debate
on the location of Chinlung, but here I shall concentrate only on the
traditional account of the origin of the Chin.
22 Snodgrass 1827, 320 (see on map as well)
23 Phayer 1883, reprinted in 1967, 7
24 Newland 1894.
25 Gangte 1993, 14
26 Zawla 1976, 2
27 Ginzathang
1973, 7
28 Gangte 1993, 14
Almost all of the Chin tribes and
clans have promulgated similar but slightly different versions of the myth,
which brings the ancestors of the Chin out from the hole or the bowels of
earth. The Ralte clan/group of the Mizo tribe, also known as the Lushai, who
are now living in the Mizoram State in India, have had a tradition of what is
now generally known as 'Chinlung tradition', that brings their progenitors
from the bowels of the earth. The story was translated into English and
recorded by Lt. Col. J. Shakespear in 1912 as follows:
"[Once
upon a time when the great darkness called Thimzing fell
upon the world.] many awful thing happened. Everything except the skulls of
animals killed in the chase became alive, dry wood revived, even stones
become alive and produced leaves, so men had nothing to burn. The successful
hunters who had accumulated large stocks of trophies of their skill were able
to live using them as fuel."
"After this terrible catastrophe, Thimzing, the
world was again re-peopled by men and women issuing from the hole of the
earth called 'Chinlung'.29
Shakespear
described another similar story:
"The place whence all people
sprang is called 'Chinglung'. All the clans came out of that place. The two
Ralte came out together, and began at once chattering, and this made Pathian
[The Supreme God] think there were too many men, and so he shut down the
stone ."30
Another very similar story of the
origin of the Chin, which also is connected with the Chinlung tradition, as
handed down among the Mara group of the Laimi tribe - also known as the
Lakher - was recorded by N. E. Parry in 1932:
"Long ago, before the great
darkness called Khazanghra fell upon the world, men all came
out of the hole below the earth. As the founder of each Mara group came out
of the earth he call his name. Tlongsai called out, "1 am
Tlongsai"; Zeuhnang called out, "I am Zeuhnang"; Hawthai
called out, "I am Hawthai"; Sabeu called out, "I am
Sabeu"; Heima called out, "I am Heima." Accordingly God
thought that a very large number of Mara had come out and stopped the way.
When the Lushai came out of the hole, however, only the first one to come out
called out, 'I am Lushai', and all the Shakespeare 7912,
93-94 30 [bid., 94
rest came out silently. God, only
hearing one man announce his arrival, thought that only one Lushai had come
out, and gave them a much longer time, during which Lushais were pouring out
of the hole silently in great numbers. It is for this reason that Lushais to
this day are more numerous than Maras. After all men had come out of the hole
in the earth God made their languages different, and they remain so to this
day."''
The Khawngsai
group of the Zomi tribe, also known as Khawngsai Kuki, had their own version
of the origin of the Chin, which brings the Chin's ancestors from the bowels
of the earth and relates their reaching its surface as follows:
"Once upon a time, mankind used
to lived under the earth, or rather inside it. One day the brother of
Khawngsai's King was hunting hedgehogs, when his dog in pursuit of one,
entered a cavern, and waiting for it to return he remained at the mouth.
After a lapse of sometime, the dog having not returned, its master determined
to go in and see what had become of it. He did not find the dog, but
observing its tracks and following them, he found himself suddenly on the
surface of the earth. The scene presented to his view both pleased and
astonished him. Returning to his brother, he related his adventure, and
counseled him to annex the new country to his territory, which the King did
."'=
All Sources of
Chin traditions maintain that their ancestors originated from 'Chinlung' or
'Cin-lung'. Sometimes the name for 'Chinlung' or 'Cin-lung' can be different,
depending on the specific Chin dialect - such as Khul, Khur, and Lung-kua,
etc. - but it always means 'cave' or 'hole' no matter what the dialect.
Comment:
Khul
means cave, Chhinlung means Chhin rock. As an academician proper
translation and truth should be emphasized.
The reason
Chin-lung was abandoned, however, varies from one source to another.
Depending very much on the dialect and local traditions, some said that
Chin-lung was abandoned as a result of an adventure, or because of the great
darkness called Khazanghra, Thimzing or Chunmui. In contrast to the stories above, some
traditions maintain that their original settlement was destroyed by the flood.
The Laimi tribe from the Haka and Thlantlang areas had a very well-known myth
called Ngun Nu
Tuanbia, which related
the destruction of human life on Earth by the flood. The Zophei also had
their own version of the story about the flood called Tuirang-aapia (literal meaning: "white
water/river is pouring out or gushing"), which destroyed their original
settlement. The story goes as follows:
" Parry
1932, 4
'= McCulloch
1957, 55
"Once upon a time. all the
humankind in this world lived together in one village. In the middle of the
village there was a huge stone, and underneath the stone was a cave that in
turn was connected with the endless sea of water called Tipi-thuam-thum. In
this cave dwelt a very large snake called Paribui or Gimpi, which seized one
of the village children every night and ate them. The villagers were in
despair at the depredations committed by the snake, so they made a strong
hook, tied it on the rope, impaled a dog on the hook and threw it to the
snake, which swallowed the dog and with it the fish hook. The villagers then
tried to pull out the snake, but with all their efforts they could not do so-
and only succeeded in pulling out enough of the snake to go five times round
the rock at the mouth of the hole. and then, as they could not pull out any
more of the snake, they cut off the part that they pulled out, and the
snake's tail and the rest of the body fell back into the deep cave with a
fearful noise. From that night water came pouring out of the snake's hole and
covered the whole village and destroyed the original settlement of mankind.
Since then people were scattered to every corner of the world and began to
speak different languages. And, it was this flood, which drove the ancestors
of the Chin proper to take refuge in the Chin Hills."
It is interesting to note that
many of the Chin tribes called the Chindwin River, the "White
River", that is in Chin - Tui-rang,
Tuikhang, Tirang, or Tuipui-ia, etc; all have the same
meaning but differ only in term of dialect. Thus, modern historians, not
least Hutton, Sing Kho Khai and Gangte, believe that what the traditional
account had remembered about the flood story, which destroyed the Chin's
original settlement might be the flood of the Chindwin River, and they
therefore claim that the Chin's original settlement was in the Chindwin
Valley and nowhere else.
C. The Chin Concept of Ram
In traditional Chin thought, Miphun cannot exist without Ram. The Chin therefore define
themselves as a Miphun with
the strong reference to Ram, that
is - the original homeland, a particular locus and territory, which they all
collectively claim to be their own. At the same time, they identify members
of a community as "being from the same original homeland.""
The inner link between the concepts of Miphun and Ram was
strengthened in Chin society through the worship of Khua-hrum. As Anthony Smith
convincingly argues, "Each homeland posses a center or centers that are
'' Ceu Man- 1981, 12-19. The Mara tradition of similar
story was recorded by Parry 1932, 561 (part of the English text here is taken
from Parry's translation!).
" Smith,
A. 1986, 29
deemed
to be 'sacred' in a religio-ethnic sense ."35 In Chin society, Khuahrum were the sacred centers, which stood as
protectors of both men and land. I shall describe in further detail about the
worship of Khua-hrum, the
interrelationship between god, people and land in the next chapter.
For the
Chin people, the concept of ram, or
what Anthony Smith calls the "ethnic homeland", refers not only to
the territory in which they are residing, i.e. present Chinram, but also the
'original homeland' where their ancestors once lived as a people and a
community. What matters most in terms of their association with the original
homeland is that "it has a symbolic geographical center, a sacred
habitat, a 'homeland', to which the people may symbolically return, even when
its members are scattered ...and have lost their
[physical I homeland centuries ago."" Ethnicity does not
cease to be ethnicity simply because of the fact that the they were expelled
from their original homeland, or because they were artificially divided into
different countries, "for ethnicity is a matter of myths, memories,
values and symbols, and not material possessions or political powers, both of
which require a habitat for their realization."" Thus, the Chin
concept of ram as
the meaning of the 'territory' and 'original homeland' are relevant to miphun. The relevance of the
'original homeland' is:
"Not only because of it is
actually possessed, but also because of an alleged and felt symbiosis between
a certain piece of earth and 'its' community. Again, poetic and symbolic
qualities possess greater potency than everyday attributes-, a land of dream is far more significant than any
actual terrain.""
I shall therefore trace the
history of the Chin's settlements, i.e. not only in present Chinram but also
in their original 'homeland' in the Chindwin Valley, in the following
sections.
(i)
Migration Patterns
As highlighted already in previous sections, all sources
of the Chin tradition maintain that the ancestors of the Chin people
originated from the cave called Chinlung. However, in the absence of written
documents, it is difficult
"Ibid..
28 36 Ibid.
37 Ibid. 31 Ibid.
to locate the
exact place where Chinlung existed. Scholars and researchers therefore give
various opinions as to the location of Chinlung.
K. Zawla, a Mizo historian from the India side of
Chinram, suggests that the location of Chinlung might be somewhere in modern
China, and the "Ralte group [of the Mizo tribe] were probably one the
first groups to depart from Chinlung."39 Here, Zawla quoted Shakespeare
and accepted the Chin legend as historical fact. He also claimed that the
Chin came out of Chinlung in about 225 B.C., during the reign of Shih Hungti,
whose cruelty was then at its height at the time he constructed the Great
Wall of China. Zawla relates the story of the Ch'ing ruling dynasty in
Chinese history in a fascinating manner. He uses local legends known as Tuanbia (literally: "stories or events from the
old-days") and many stories which are recorded by early travelers and
British administrators in Chinram, as well as modern historical research on
ancient China. Naturally, this kind of compound story-telling has little or
no value in a historical sense, but is nevertheless important in terms of
socially reconstructing collective memories as identity-creating-resources.
A number of other theories have been advanced in this
connection, more noticeably by Sing Kho Khai and Chawn Kio."40 Both of
them believe that the Chin ancestors are either the Ch' ing or Ch'iang in
Chinese history, which are "old generic designations for the non-Chinese
tribes of the Kansu-Tibetan frontier, and indicate the Ch'iang as a shepherd
people, the Ch'ing as a jungle people.""' Thus, according to
Chinese history, both the Ch'iang and Ch'ing were regarded as "barbarian
tribes."" Gin Za Tuang - in a slightly different manner than Zawla,
Sing Kho Khai, and Chawn Kio - claims that the location of 'Chinlung' was
believed to be in Tibet." Gin Za Tuang, nevertheless, maintains that the
Chin ancestors were Ch' iang, but he mentions nothing about the Ch'ing.
In fact, Gin
Za Tuang simply follows Than Tun's and G H Luce's theory of the origin of
Tibeto-Bunmans and other groups of humans, who were believed to be the
ancestors of the Southeast Asian peoples. According to Professors Than Tun
and Gordon Luce," the Ch'iang were not just the ancestors of the Chin
but of the entire Tibeto-Burman group, and they "enjoyed a civilization
39 Zawla
1976, 2.
40 Sine Kho
Khai 1984, and Chawn Kio 1993, 12-21. 41 Sing Kho Khai 1984,
53
'
4= Ibid.. 21
43 Gin Za Thang 1973, 5. Cited also by Sing Kho Khai
1984, 10; and Gangte 1993, 14
44 Both Professors Than Tun and Gordon
Luce are regarded as the most well known scholars in the study of ancient
Burmese history, including the Chin.as advanced as the Chinese, who disturbed
them so much that they moved south."" Regarding this, Professor
Gordon Luce says:
"With the expansion of China, the
Ch'iang had either the choice to be absorbed or to become nomads in the
wilds. It was a hard choice, between liberty and civilization. Your ancestors
chose liberty; and they must have gallantly maintained it. But the cost was
heavy. It cost them 2000 years of progress. If the Ch' iang of 3000 BC were
equals of the Chinese civilization, the Chin and the Burmans of 700 AD were not
nearly as advanced as the Chinese in 1300 BC."46
Before they
moved to the wilderness, along the edges of western China and eastern Tibet,
the ancient homelands of Ch'iang and all other TibetoBurman groups,
according to Enriquez, lied somewhere in the Northwest, possibly in Kansu,
between Gobi and northwestern Tibet." Thus, it is now generally believed
that the Tibeto-Burman group and other Mongoloid stock, who now occupy
Southeast Asia and Northeast India, migrated in three waves in the following
chronological order:
1. The
Mon-Khmer (Talaing, Palaung, En Raing, Pa-o, Khasi, Annimite.) 2. The
Tibeto-Burman (Pyu, Kanzan, Thet, Burman, Chin, Kachin, Naga, Lolo.)
3. The Tai-Chinese (Shan, Saimese, and Karen.)
The
Tibeto-Burman group initially moved toward the West and thereafter subdivided
themselves into several groups. They follow different routes, one group
reaching northern Tibet, where some of them stayed behind, while others moved
on until they reached Burma in three waves. These people were:
l . The Chin-
Kachin-Naga group
2. The Burman and Old-Burman (Pyu, Kanzan, Thet) group
3. The Lolo group."
45 Than Tun 1988. 3
46 Cited by Than Tun 1988, 4
47 Enriquez
1932, 7-8
" Ibid.,
This migration
pattern theory, as mentioned above, is mainly been adopted by historians like
Than Tun and Gordon Luce. However, anthropologists like Edmund Leach believe
that "the hypothesis that the Southeast Asian peoples as known today
immigrated from the region of China is a pure myth."" The main
difference between the historical approach and the anthropological approach
is that while historians begin their historical reconstruction with the
origins and immigration of the ancestors, anthropologists start with
"the development within the general region of Burma of symbiotic
socio-cultural systems: civilizations and hill societies.""'
However, both historians and anthropologists agree - as historical
linguistics, archaeology, and racial relationship definitely indicate - that
the ancestors of these various peoples did indeed come from the North. But,
anthropologists maintain their argument by saying that, "they did not
come as the social and cultural units we know today and cannot be identified
with any particular groups of today. "51 Their
main thesis is that the hill peoples and plain peoples are now defined by
their mutual relationships in present sites, because, for anthropologists,
ethnicity was constructed within the realm of social interaction between
neighboring reference groups.
The
anthropological approach could be very helpful, especially when we
investigate the pre-historical context of the Chin people where no written
documents recorded by the people themselves exist. Thus, based on ethnic and
linguistic differentiation, not on a written document, Lehman was able to
demonstrate that "the ancestors of the Chin and the Burman must have
been distinct from each other even before they first appeared in Burma. "52 And he
continues:
"Undoubtedly, these various
ancestral groups were descended in part from groups immigrating into present
Burma, starting about the beginning of Christian era. But it is also probable
that some of these groups were in Burma in the remote past, long before a
date indicated by any present historical evidence. We are not justified,
however, in attaching more than linguistic significance to the terms 'Chin'
and 'Burman' at such dates."
"Cited by
Lehman 1963, 11 s" Ibid., 22
" Ibid.,
'= Ibid.,
And he concludes, by saying:
"Chin history begins after A.D. 750, with the
development of Burman civilization and Chin interaction with it.""
Chin
anthropologists like T. S. Gangte seems eager to agree with Leach and Lehman.
Like Leach and Lehman, Gangte rejects hypothetical theories proposed by Zawla
and Gin Za Tuang, who locate Chinlung somewhere in China and Tibet,
respectively, as myths. "In the absence of any written corroboration or
the existence of historical evidence to support them," he said, "such
hypothetical theories are considered highly subjective and conjectural. They
are, therefore, taken with a pinch of salt. They remain only as
legends."54 He nevertheless accepted the Chinlung tradition as the
origin of the Chin and even claims that the Chindwin Valley is where Chin
history begins. Similar to Gangte, the "Khuangsai source of Chin
tradition mentions that the location of Chin-lung was somewhere in the
Chindwin area. "55
(ii) The Chin's Homeland of Chindwin
Professor Than
Tun claims that Tibeto-Burman groups of the Burman came down into present
Bunna via the Salween and Nmai'kha Valleys, and reached the northern Shan
State before AD 713. But before they were able to settle themselves in the
delta area of lrrawady Valley, "the rise of Nanchao checked their
movements soon after 713."'6 The Nanchao made continuous
war with neighboring powers such as the Pyu who had founded the Halin Kingdom
in central Burma. In 835 the Nanchao plundered the delta areas of Burma, and
in 863 they went further east to Hanoi. However, by the end of the ninth
century the Nanchao power collapsed, because according to Than Tun "they
had exhausted themselves."57 Only after the collapse of the Nanchao,
were the Burman able to move further South into the plains of Burma.
The Chin,
according to Professor Luce, descended from western China and eastern Tibet
into the South via the Hukong Valley,58 which is a completely different route
than the Burman had taken. Thus, Lehman's theory
" Ibid., 22
" Gangte 1993, 17
55 Sing Kho Khai
1984, 10 "Than Tun 1988, 3
" Ibid.,
5' Luce
1959, 75-109
is quite convincing that the ancestors of the Chin and the
Burman were distinct from
each other even when they first appeared in Burma. There is ample evidence
that the Chin were the first who settled in the Chindwin Valley. The Pagan
inscriptions dating from the eleventh century onward refer to the Chin of the
Chindwin Valley. There is also persistent reference in the legends of almost
all the Chin tribes to a former home in the Chindwin Valley. Chin original
myths uniformly refer to the ruling lineage when speaking of the original
homeland in the valley." Archeological evidence supports this
interpretation." Sing Kho Khai therefore claims that:
"The literal meaning of the name `Chindwin' definitely
suggests that the Chindwin area was primarily inhabited by a tribe called the
Chin.""
Vumson
goes even further by saying:
"When the Burman descended to the plains of central
Burma, during the ninth century, the Chin people were already in the Chindwin Valley."62
As far as historical evidence of
the Chin settlement in the Chindwin Valley is concerned, some of the most
reliable sources come from the Burman inscriptions erected by King
Kyanzzittha and other kings during the peak of the Pagan dynasty. According
to Professor Gordon Luce, who was a real expert on Pagan inscription,
"Chins and Chindwin (`Hole of the Chins') are mentioned in Pagan
inscriptions from the thirteenth century."" The earliest Pagan
inscriptions put the Burman in upper Burma in roughly the middle of the ninth
century A.D. Professor Luce therefore suggested that the Chin settlement in
the Chindwin Valley began in the middle of the eighth century, while allowing
for the possibility of a date as far back as the fourth century AD. Lalthanglian,
a Mizo historian, also gives the eighth century A.D. as the possible date for
the Chin settlement in the Chindwin Valley. 14
'y Lalthanglian 1976, 9
60 Vumson mentioned that the "remains of Chin settlements are still found today in the Chindwin Valley. Two miles
from Sibani village, not far from Monywa, is a Chin ritual ground. The memorial stone was, in earlier days, about thirteen
feet (4.3 m) high, but now decayed from exposure. The Burmese called it Chin paya or Chin god." See Vumson 1986, 34.
" Sing
Kho Khai 1984. 36 62 Vumson 1986, 35
63 Luce 1959(a), 19-31 " Lalthanglian 1976, 71
Before the Chin made their
settlement in the Chindwin Valley, there had been kingdoms of the Mon and the
Pye in the major river valley of Burma. Sak or Thet and Kandu in Upper Burma,
and also the Shan in the eastern country, but no one occupied the Chindwin
Valley until the Chin made their home there. The Burman fought against the
other occupants of the area, such as Thet, Mon and Pyu, but they did not
fight the Chin. G. H. Luce writes;
"The Pagan Burman had wars with
the Thets (Sak), the Kandu (Kantu'), the Mons, the Shans and the Wa-Palaungs,
but he called the Chins `friends'. Moreover, while he pushed far up the Yaw,
the Mu and the Irawaddy, he apparently did not go up the Chindwin. I cannot
identify any old place of the Chindwin much further north than Monywa. From
all this 1 infer that in the Pagan period the home of the Chin was mainly in
the Chindwin Valley above Monyaw."65
In his major writing, "Old
Kyakse and the Coming of the Burmans", Professor Luce also mentioned the
Chin settlement in Chindwin and their relation with the Burman as follows:
"If the Chins had joined the Thet
peoples in opposing the Burmans, the latters' conquest of the central plains
might have been precarious. But the Thets probably hated the Chins, whose
descent from the Hukong Valley had cut off their western tribes in Manipur,
and overwhelmed their tenure of Chindwin. Burman strategy here was to
conciliate the Chins. They advanced up the Lower Chindwin only as far as
Monywa and Alone, called the Chins Khyan, "friends", and seem to have agreed to leave
them free to occupy the whole Upper Chindwin Valley. There is no mention of
any fighting between the Chins and the Burmans; and whereas the Pagan Burmans
soon occupied the M'u Valley at least as far as Mliytu' (Myedu) and the Khaksan, Yaw and Krow Valleys as far as the Pu'nton (Po'ndaung) Range and perhaps Thilin, I know of no place up the Chindwin much
beyond Munrwa (Monywa) and the Pankli' 10 tuik (ten `taik' of Bagyi), mentioned in
Old Burmese." "
Based on the Burman inscriptions
of the Pagan Kingdom, which refer to the Chin as comrades and allies in the
Chindwin Valley, Prof. G. Luce even suggested that the word "Chin"
might come from the Burmese word Thunge-chin "friend".
But this is very unlikely, because the word Chin had already been very
well-recognized not only by the Burman but also by other peoples such as
Kachin and Shan, even before the Chin made their settlement
Luce 1959 (a).
?6 `''' Luce 1959 (b). 89
in the Chindwin Valley. The Kachin,
for instance, who never came down to the Chindwin Valley but remained in the
upper Hukong Valley and present Kachin Hills, called the Chin Khiang or Chiang. So did the Shan. Thus, it is very obvious
that the term "Chin" had been used to denote the Chin people long
before the Chindwin Valley became the homeland of the Chin. And the term
Chindwin comes from the `Chin' as in "the hole of the Chin" or
"the river of the Chin", but not the other way around.
(iii) Collective Memories of Chindwin
Over the
course of time, the Chin people moved up from the eastern bank of the
Chindwin River to the Upper Chindwin of the Kale Valley. Although we do not
know exactly when and why, the date can be set approximately to the final
years of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth century.
Until the fall of the Pagan dynasty in 1295, the Pagan inscriptions
continuously mentioned that the Chins were in between the eastern bank of the
Upper Chindwin and west of the Irrawaddy River. Thus, it can be assumed that
the Chin settlement in the Kale Valley began just before the end of
thirteenth century A.D. The reason is equally unknown. Perhaps the flood
destroyed their settlement as oral traditions remembered it; or as Luce has
suggested, "the Chin were left to themselves in Upper Chindwin."6'
As far as linguistic evidence is concerned, traditional accounts of the flood
story seem more reasonable than Professor Luce's suggestion.
The
traditional Chin account from the Zophei group of the Laimi tribe has
recounted the fact that the flood from the low valley had driven their
ancestors to the mountains on other side of the river, that is in Chin: Khatlei, Khalei or Khale. Thus, it is believed that the root
word of Kale is Khalei, and the meaning, of course, is the "other side of
the river.""
Comment:
Kale is a Shan word. It has
nothing to do with a Chin word. Dr. Sakhong merely speculates because he does
not search deep enough into the story. As to seen above Dr. Sakhong
based the Chhinlung myth and the original place of the "Chin"
settlement by various native authors without having been trained in the field
anthrolopology, linguistics, and history. It would have been more reasonable
to base the origin of the people by scholars in history, anthropology, and
linguistics. He kept repeating the destruction of their settlement by
flood. But the truth is closer to the reality that the war between
Manipur and the Kale Shan Sawbwa caused the people to scatter in many directions.
After their
original settlement in the Chindwin Valley was destroyed by the flood,
according to the traditional account, the Chin moved over to Upper Chindwin,
and some groups such as the Asho went as far as the Pandaung Hills and other
hills near the western part of the Chindwin River. Since then the Chin people
have been broken into different tribes and speak different
b' Ibid.
68 The term
Kale is Myanmarnized/Burmanized version of Khalei. Literal meaning of Kale or Khale in Burmese is "Children"
which make no sense for geographical name. Thus, linguistic study confirmed
not only the Chin traditional account of flood story, but also the root word
of the name 'Kale Valley'.
dialects. Many different myths and
legends exist that explain why they broke into distinct tribes and speak
different dialects. One such story is recorded by B. S. Carey and N. N. Tuck:
"They (the Chin) became very
powerful and finding no more enemies on earth, they proposed to pass their
time capturing the Sun. They therefore set about a sort of Jacob's ladder
with poles, and gradually mounted them higher and higher from the earth and
nearer to their goal, the Sun. However, the work became tedious; they
quarreled among themselves, and one day, when half of the people were climbing
high up on the pole, all eager to seize the Sun, the other half below cut it
down. It fell down northwards, dashing the people beyond the Run River on the
Kale border and the present site of Torrzam. These people were not damaged by
the fall, but suddenly struck with confusion of tongues, they were unable to
communicate with each other and did not know the way home again. Thus, they
broke into distinct tribes and spoke different languages.""
Another story from the Zophei
area, also known as the leather book, relates not only the story of the Chins
being broken up into distinct tribes but also how the written language of the
Chin came into being:
"[n the beginning, when the stones were soft, all
mankind spoke the same language, and there was no war on earth. But just
before the darkness called Chun-mui came to the earth. God
gave different languages to different peoples and instructed them to write on
something else. While the Chin ancestors carefully inscribed their language
on leather, the Burman ancestors, who were very lazy, wrote their language on
stone, which was soft. However, soon after they had made the inscription of
their languages, the `darkness' came and the Sun disappeared from the earth.
During the `darkness' the stone became hard but the leather got wet. Before
the Sun came back to the earth, and while the wet leather was still very
smelly, a hungry dog ate up the leather, and in this way, the Chin ancestors
lost their written language.
"When the Sun came back to the
earth, the Chin ancestors realized that while they had lost their written
language, the Burman language which was written on the stone had turned into
`the magic of letters'. Moreover, while the sons of Burman spoke the same
language, the sons of Chin spoke different dialects because their common
language was eaten up together with the leather by the hungry dog. Thus, the
ancestor of the Chin prepared to make war against the Burman in order to
capture `the magic of letters'. Although the Burmans were weaker and lazier,
the Chin did not win the war because `the magic of letters' united all the
sons of the Burman. Since the sons of
69 Carey and
Tuck 1896, 146
Chin spoke different dialects, their
fathers could not even give them the war order to fight the Burman. It was
for this reason that the Chin broke into distinct tribes and speak different
dialects ."70
Another story connected with the
"magic of letters" comes from the tradition of the Mizo tribe,
which was recorded by Shakespear in 1912." According to Mizo tradition,
God gave mankind not only different languages but different talents as well:
"to the ancestor of the Poi or Laimi tribe he gave a fighting sword,
while the ancestor of the Lushai tribe only received a cloth, which is the
reason that the Poi tribes are braver than the Lushais."72 In contrast
to the Zophei tradition, the Mizo story tells that `the magic of letters' was
given to the white man, not to the Burman. Shakespear therefore concludes, by
saying that "I was told he (the white man) had received the knowledge of
reading and writing - a curious instance of the pen being considered mightier
than the sword. "73
(iv)
From Chindwin Valley to Present Chinram
As far
as historical evidence is concerned, the Chin lived peacefully in Upper
Chindwin of the Kale-Kabaw Valley for at least a hundred years, from the fall
of Pagan in 1295 to the founding of the Shan's Fortress City of Kale-myo in
1395. There is no historical evidence that, between those periods, the Chin's
life in the Kale Valley was disturbed either by natural disaster or by
political events. During that period, the Chin founded their capital at
Khampat in the Kabaw Valley. Lalthanglian, a Mizo historian, and M. Kipgen, a
Zomi historian, both claim that the Khampat era was "the most glorious
period" in Chin history." Kipgen claims that "most of the
major clans, who now inhabit the Chin State of Burma, Mizoram, Manipur,
Cachar and Tripura, are believed to have lived together there under a great
chief having the same culture and speaking the same language.""
But in
the year 1395 when "the Shan built the great city of Kalemyo with double
walls," at the foot of what is now called the Chin Hills, 20 miles west
of the Chindwin River, a century of peaceful life in the Kale
'° Sakhong
1969, 11 (quotation here is my translation). " On "the magic of
letter", see further in Chapter 5. 'z Shakespear 1912, 95
73 Ibid.
74
Lalthanglian 1976. 87-89 75 Kipgen 1996, 39
Valley had
broken up." As a matter of fact, the Shan had become the rising power in
the region of what is now called "Upper Chindwin" and "Central
Burma" by the middle of twelfth century. Before they conquered the Chin
country of the Kale Valley, the Shan had already dominated the regions by
conquering the then most powerful kingdom of Pagan in 1295. They continued to
fight among themselves and with the Burman kingdom of Ava, which was founded
after the fall of Pagan by King Thadominphya in 1364. The Shan finally
conquered Ava in 1529. Although Ava was recaptured by the Burman King
Bayinnaung in 1555, the Kale Valley remained under the rule of Shan until the
British period. During the next century after they had conquered the Chin
country of the Kale Valley, the Shan also annexed Assam and established the
Ahong dynasty, which lasted for more than two centuries.
According to Sing Kho Khai and Lalthanglian, the Chin
did not leave the Kale Valley soon after the Shan had conquered the region.
The Chin traditions of the Zomi and Mizo tribes, which were accepted as
historical facts by Sing Kho Khai (1984) and Lalthanglian (1978)
respectively, mentioned that the Chins lived in the Kale Valley side by side
with the Shan for a certain period. Zomi tradition, as noted by Sing Kho
Khai, goes on to relate that "while they were living in the Kale Valley,
a prince came up from below and governed the town of Kale-myo. During the
reign of that prince the people were forced to work very hard in the
construction of the fortress and double walls of the town."" The
hardship of the forced labor was said to be so great, according to Naylor, that
"the fingers of workers, which were accidentally cut-off, filled a big
basket ."78 The tradition continues to relate that
the Chins, who were unable to bear the hardship of manual labor, moved up to
the hills region to establish such a new settlement as "Chin Nwe",
which was located in the present township of Tiddim of the Chin State in
Burma. Professor D. G. E. Hall, a well-known historian, confirms that the
Shans were the one who "drove the Chin out of the Chindwin Valley into
the western hills" of present Chinram.79
According to
the legend, which Lalthanglian accepted as historical fact, the Chin planted
a Banyan sapling at the site of an altar where they used to worship
their Khuahrum,
"° just before
they were forced to abandon Khampat.
" Luce 1959(b), 26-27 "Sing Kho
Khai 1984, 43 " Naylor 1937, 3
79 Hall 1968, 158
""
According to M. Kipgen, the Banyan tree was "at the palace site"
(1996:40).
They took a pledge at the sacrificial ceremony to
their Khuahrum that "they would return to
Khampat, their permanent home, when the sapling had grown into a tree and
when its spreading branches touched the earth.""
We do not know exactly when the Chin left Khampat and
the KaleKabaw Valley, to settle in the hilly region of Chinram. But we can trace, at least approximately, the
periods from the Shan and the Burma chronicles from the East and the Manipur
chronicles from the West. The Manipur chronicles first mentioned the Chin
people, known to them as Kuki, in the year 1554.1= Thus, it is
certain that the Chin settlement in present Chinram began only after the
founding of Kale-myo in 1395, and reached the farmost northern region of
their settlement in the present Manipur State of India in about 1554.
According to
Sing Kho Khai, the first settlement they made in present Chinram was called
"Chin Nwe", or "Cinnaui" as he spelt it. The Chins lived
together in Chin Nwe for a certain period. But they split into tribal groups
because of "their struggle against each other for political supremacy. "83 Economics
may have been the compelling reason, because Chin Nwe, a rather small, hilly
region could not provide enough land for the self-sufficient
agriculturally-oriented economic system of peasant society. Thus, one group
had made their new settlement in "Lai-lung", which was located in
the present township of Falam, and they eventually became the "Laimi
tribe."84 Another group who first settled in "Locom"
eventually became the Mizo tribe, who now populate part of the Mizoram State
in India. From Chin Nwe some groups moved up to the North, and they are now
known as "Zomi", meaning northern people, or highlanders. Prior to
these settlements, there is no historical evidence that differentiates the
Chin into the Liami, Mizo and Zomi tribes, etc. Only the national name of "Chin"
is represented in the records. Until that time, there were no such tribal
names as Asho, Cho', Khuami, Laimi, Mizo and Zomi. Thus, B. S. Carey, who
" Kipgen 1996, 40-41; This is said to have actually
happened in 1916, in which year Saingunvaua (Sai Ngun Vau) and his party left
for Mizoram for Khampat in Kabaw Valley where they made a new settlement in
order to fulfil the old prophecy. Now, Khampat once again become the center
of the Chin community in Kale-Kabaw Valley, and more than onehalf of the
inhabitant's population in Kale-Kabaw Valley are Chins. See Lalthangliana
1976, 87-89.
"= See
Shakespear 1955, 94-111, cited also in F. K. Lehman 1963, 25 83 Sing Kho Khai
1984, 41
84 Sakhong, Z.
1983, 5
r
knew
very well about the Biblical story of the fall of mankind," described
Chin Nwe as the "the Chin Garden of Eden", which indicated
"before the fall came upon the Chin people", to use the symbolic
term."
Comment:
Dr.
Sakhong deceived the reader into thinking that every place or name that
sounds close enough to the word Chin should be Chin. There is no such a
place called Chin New. What Sing Kho Khai refers to is a place called
Ciimnuai. It is situated near the Saizang Village in the Tedim area.
Some of the Chin tribes, however,
did not move over to the hills but remained in the Chindwin Valley,
especially in remote areas like the Gankaw Valley and the Kale-Kabaw Valley
of Upper Chindwin. They are still called even today by their original name
but with suffixes like Chin-pun, Chinme, etc., because of their old-fashioned
tattooed faces. Asho groups, as mentioned earlier, split away from the main
groups even before they moved to Upper Chindwin. They first lived in the
Pandaung Hills, and then scattered around the Irrawady Delta, Pegu Yoma,
Arakan Yoma, and some of the Asho even reached the Chittagaung Hills Tracks
in what is now Bangladesh. 17 In Arakan and Chittagaung they are
still known by their old name as "Khyeng".
D. The Chin Split into Tribal Groups
and Tual Communities
As far
as historical evidence is concerned, the Chin were known by no other name
than CHIN, until they made their settlement in Chin Nwe. However, after they
were expelled from their original homeland, the Kale Valley in Upper
Chindwin, by the flood as oral traditions recount it - or conquered by the
Shan as modern scholars have suggested - the Chin split into different tribal
groups speaking different dialects, with different tribal names.
Undoubtedly,
a vast majority of the Chin people moved over to the hill regions of the
present Chin State in Burma, the Mizoram and Manipur States in India, and the
Chittagaung Hills Tracks in Bangladesh. But some groups, as mentioned,
remained in their original homeland of the Chindwin Valley, and later
scattered into such areas as the Sagaing, Maqwi, Pakukko, Irrawady divisions
of present Burma. In accordance with general contemporary usage, the Chinram
designates the northwestern part of Burma, northeastern part of India, and
the Chittagaung Hills Tracks of Bangladesh, between approximately Lat. N.
15 B. S. Carey was the grandson of Dr. William Carey, a prominent English
Baptist missionary to Serampore in India in 1794.
86 Carey and Tuck 1986, 127 17 Lian Uk 1968, 7
20' to 26' and Long. 92' to 95'.
Politically it is divided by three international borderlines, namely those
between Burma, Bangladesh and India.
Scholars
generally agree that there are six major tribal groups of the Chin, namely
the 1) Asho, 2) Cho' or Sho, 3) Khuami or M'ro, 4) Laimi, 5) Mizo (Lushai)
and 6) Zomi." The tribal groups can be divided into several sub-tribes
or Tualcommunities, as we will see in Chapter Three.
The
term "tribal group" in Chin concept is "a social group
comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves,
dependents, or adopted strangers."" In other words, they are a
group of the same people whose ancestors made their settlement in a certain
place together, after their common original homeland in the Kale Valley was
destroyed. The Laimi tribe, for instance, is made up of the descendents of
the group who made their settlement at Lai-lung, after they were forced to
leave the Kale Valley. Thus, the term "tribe" as a Chin concept
does not refer to common ancestors or common family ties but to a social
group of the same ethnic nationality, who settled in a certain place. As the
names imply, the tribal groups among the Chin rather denote geographical
areas and the ownership of the land; for example, Asho means the plain
dwellers, Cho means southerners, Khuami may be translated as "the native
people", Laimi means descendent of the Lai-lung or the "central
people" as Stevenson defines it,"' Zomi or Mizo means the northern
people, and so on. The tribal group therefore is not a divisive term, it only
denotes how the Chin are split into various groups because of having lost
their original homeland of Chindwin.
In the
course of time, different tribal groups gradually developed their own tribal
dialects and identities, which in turn were integrated through the ritual
systems of Khua-hrum worship. Because of difficulties in
communication between the different groups, different local dialects and
customs were gradually developed. This level of group can be called a subtribal
group or Tual community in Chin. The Tual community was usually begun by the
same family or clan, settling in the same village. However, as the community
became larger and the newcomers increased, they would also establish
satellite settlements and villages, although they all shared the
principle Tual village when they worshiped their guardian
god called Khuahrum. I shall discuss further details of the
nature of the Tual community in the next chapter. This kind of sub-tribal
group or Tual community therefore
" Vumson 1986, 40
Merriam
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
" See Stevenson 1943, which is exclusively
about the Laimi tribe of Chin.
was
usually ruled by a single Chief or the patriarch of the clan and his
descendents. The Lautu group of the Laimi tribe, for instance, was ruled by
the Lian Chin clan, who worshiped the Bawinu River as their guardian Khua-hrurn. The entire community
of Lautu - altogether some fifteen villages - shared the Tual of their
principle village Hnaring. Likewise, the Zophei group of the Laimi tribe,
more than a twenty-village-large community, shared the Tual worship of their principle
village Leitak, and so on.
The
significance of different Tual communities
is that although they developed their own local spoken dialect, they all used
the same "mother tongue" tribal dialect when they composed a song
and an epic. To give an example, among the Laimi tribe there are several
sub-tribal groups, such as the Zophei, Senthang, Lautu, etc. All these groups
have their own local spoken dialects; some are quite different from the main
Lai dialect. But when they composed traditional songs and epics called Hla-do, Hla-pi, and others, they
all used their mother dialect, the Lai dialect, and sang in it. However,
because of communication difficulties, feelings of close kinship between
tribal groups were no longer strong, sometimes replaced by Tual community-oriented
sub-tribal group or clan identities. It was because of this reason that the
British administrators, as we will see in Chapter Three, adopted the Tual
community of sub-tribal groups as the basic structure for what they called
the "Circle Administration".
Against this background, we now
proceed to explore the Chin traditional ways of life, Phunglam, which expressed itself
within the Tual community
at the level of clan or extended family within the different sub-groups,
which I have illustrated in the Chin tribal diagram."" See
Diagram.
Comment:
The physical appearance of the
Chin people belong to the Mongoloid race. It has nothing to do with the
Mongolian people. This is one of the major flaws of the thesis. See the
top of the table
DR. Sakhong divided the Chin
people into different people such as the Laimi Tribe, Zomi Tribe, Mizo Tribe,
etc. which is not proper. When the Chin people say Laimi that means Lai
person or people and the word covers the whole of the Chin people. So as Zomi
means Zo people or Zo person and the word covers the whole people including
those who live in Bangladesh or Mizoram and Manipur.. Similarly Mizo means Zo
people or person.
The diagram is also one of the
flaws of the Thesis. In Zo history I myself made the same mistake in dividing
the people into tribal groups. They are not tribal groups but rather
they are clan groups. The military government uses this kind of
division to divide the people. They insist there are as much as 54
national races in the Chin State. In reality these "races" or
"tribal groups" are family groups. For example as a native of the
"Zomi tribe" as defined by Dr. Sakhong all the members listed speak
a dialect and they trace their origin to a man named Songtu or
Cahhawngthu. They are not a" tribal" group but a family. The
same people are members in Dr.Sakhong's "Mizo Tribe" for example
Fanai, Tlau, Ralte should be group perhapsbelong to the Lai family. Family
members of the Hualngo as member of the "Mizo tribe" are prominent
members of the "Zomi tribe" example the Gualnam clan in Kaptel and
Heilei.. The Pang in the Asho tribal group as defined by Dr. Sakhong speak
more of the Zahau dialect than the Asho dialect. Kenneth Vanbik, in personal
communication, told me that the dialects of Asho and Cho or Sho are closer to
the descendents of Songthu than any other clan. Therefore an honest academic
approach to the clan and family connection of the people need to be
persued.
This kind of diagram
encourages the Burmese military in their endeavor to divide and rule the
country as any colonial power would have done.
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Source: guitefamily.blogspot.com
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