Kachin
"Kachin" is the collective name for a related family of highland peoples who live in northeastern Myanmar (Burma) as well as adjoining parts of China's Yunnan Province and northeast India. The Kachin language is classified as a branch of the Tibeto-Burmese linguistic group, and the Kachin people are culturally distinct from the Shan, Burman, and Chinese communities that inhabit many of the same areas.
Within Kachin state, six ethnic subgroups are regarded as the main branches of the Kachin peoples: the Jinghpaw, Maru, Lashi, Azi, Nung-Rawang, and Lisu. Elsewhere in Myanmar the Lisu are not included as Kachin. Moreover, there are significant variations in language and dialect among the different Kachin subgroups. In recent decades, this has led to the promotion of the dialect of the Jinghpaw majority as the standardized form of Kachin. The nationality term "Wunpawng" is also used by most Kachins to describe themselves.
The Kachins are thought to have been among the last migrants to arrive in present-day Myanmar, crossing the mountains from China within the past thousandyears. Today Kachin-speakers are the majority ethnic group throughout much of the Kachin state and also parts of the northern Shan state where around 100,000 Kachins live. Population statistics are disputed, with Kachin leaders claiming a Kachin population in Myanmar of around 1 million, compared with government estimates of half that number.
A Kachin couple in northern Myanmar in 1942. (BETTMANN/CORBIS)Until the British annexation of present-day Myanmar in the nineteenth century, most Kachins were traditional spirit-worshipers, inhabiting the higher mountain regions where they practiced swidden (slashand-burn) agriculture. Under British rule, however, many Kachins converted to Christianity and moved down to the plains. In modern Myanmar, most Kachins are Christians, predominantly Baptists.
Traditional customs nevertheless persist in many areas, including the manau celebration festivals, where costumed dancers progress in snaking columns around brightly decorated spirit posts. The Kachins have also retained a determined reputation for independence and for martial abilities in conflict. These were highlighted during World War II when many Kachins, nicknamed the "Amiable Assassins," fought on the Allied side against the Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945.
A particular characteristic of the Kachin peoples is their unique clan system, which links all subgroups and individuals together. All Kachins have a familial tie through their clans, and there are customs prescribing which members of which clans can marry one another. The clan system was analyzed by the British anthropologist Edmund Leach, who published his famous study, Political Systems of Highland Burma, in 1954.
Despite the civil war that broke out in 1961, many traditional aspects of Kachin culture survived the following decades of conflict. Kachin communities, however, suffered enormous dislocation and loss of life before the 1994 cease-fire between the government and the insurgent Kachin Independence Organization.
Further Reading
Dell, Elizabeth, ed. (2000) Burma: Frontier Photographs, 1918–35. London: Merrell Publishers.
Fellowes-Gordon, Ian. (1971) Amiable Assassins: The Story of the Kachin Guerrillas of North Burma. London: Robert Hale.
Gilhodes, C. (1922) The Kachins: Religion and Customs. Calcutta, India: Catholic Orphan Press.
Leach, Edmund. (1954) Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structures. London: G. Bell & Son.
Lintner, Bertil. (1997) The Kachin: Lords of Northern Burma. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Teak House.
——. (1990) Land of Jade: A Journey through Insurgent Burma. Edinburgh, U.K.: Kiscadale.
Tegenfeldt, Herman. (1974) A Century of Growth: The Kachin Baptist Church of Burma. South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.
This is the complete article, containing 552 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
