(17)
Taungthu; Padaung, Bre, Sawngtüng and the like. Further south the term Karen is applied to all the tribes (except the Taungthus) alike.
The Tais' point of entry into Burma was in the Shweli valley, and their course from the Shweli onwards lay partly to the north-west into the north of Upper Burma and Assam and partly to the south into the Shan States and finally into the Laos States and Siam, It is probable that they first began to arrive in Burma before the commencement of the Christian era, but it seems fairly clear that the migration swarm did not assume considerable dimensions till at least the sixth century and that the wave was moving steadily southwards and westwards for a matter of seven or eight hundred years after this. The result has been the peopling of the easternmost and northernmost portions of the Province by the Shans, who are found not only in the Shan States but throughout the whole of the northern half of Upper Burma. A branch of the Tai race has extended into Assam, and a small Shan colony that appears to have belonged to this branch is found isolated among the Kachins and Khunnongs at Khamti in the unadministered country round the headwaters of the Irrawaddy.
