Page:The Tribes Of Burma - 20.png

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

(20)

(like the term "Gwepya" used for describing some of the least dressed of these hill dwellers) are merely Burmese nicknames for the first two tribes. The Chinboks (Khopas, Pamuns) are found only in the Pakokku Chin Hills, and as a rule only to the north of Mount Victoria. They, as well as the Yindus, have been very fully described by Major Rainey and Captain Rigby. The Chinboks totalled 9,013 persons in 1901. The people referred to by the Burmans as Chinmes are a branch of the Chinboks. The Yindus occupy the country to the south of the Chinboks and extend into the hills to the west of the Pakokku Hill Tract proper. Their total in the last named tract in 1901 was 2,469, but a large number of Yindus who lived in an unadministered block of upland between the Pakokku Chin Hills and the Arakan Division escaped enumeration at the last census. Besides the Yindus proper there are a number of smaller tribes scattered through the Pakdkku Chin Hills and the Districts of Northern Arakan, Akyab and Kyaukpyu who may be lumped in the same general category with them. The first of these to be mentioned are the Welaung Chins in the north of the Pakokku Tract, who have in the past been regarded as, so to speak, a connecting link between the Chinboks and the Haka Chins of the Chin Hills proper. A punitive expedition sent in 1906 into the Welaung country showed, however, that its inhabitants were more probably connected with the tribes alluded to by Major Hughes as living to the east of the Northern Arakan District who are now known generally as Lemro Chins (Captain Rigby's M'hangs, Twisips, etc.). The Shendus (namely, the Yallaings, Lallaings, Sabaungs and Bokes) of the unadministered tract that lies to the north of the Arakan Hill Tracts appear to come into much the same class as the Welaung Chins as also do the Anus of Northern Arakan (588 in 1901). In the unadministered block between the Pakdkku Chin Hill Tract and Arakan alluded