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nearer to Shan or to some of the Chin dialects." It is not improbable that the Yaws were actually the result of a fusion similar to that which produced the Taungthas, but for want of specific data they have been treated as a Burman tribe. Of a similar mixed stock are the Hpons, who are found in the upper defile of the Irrawaddy between Bhamo and Myitkyina. The accounts given of their wanderings by these people (who are described at pages 566-567 of the Upper Burma Gazetteer) point to a Chinese origin, but their language is undoubtedly Tibeto-Burman with affinities with Burmese and Maru, and, though they have been practically absorbed by the Shans among whom they live (no Hpons were returned as such at the 1901 Census), it seems probable that originally they had nothing of the Shan in their composition. The Yabeins are or were the silk-weavers of Lower Burma. A description of them will be found at page 198 of Volume I of the 1891 Census Report and at page 183 of Volume I of the British Burma Gazetteer. Whatever the cause of their separation, whether ostracized by reason of their calling or not, there can be no doubt that they were originally of Burman stock. There are still a certain number of persons, mainly in the Hanthawaddy and Pegu Districts who are willing to be looked upon as Yabeins. Their total in 1901 was 2,252.
Mention may be made at this point of the Tavoyans and the Danus, to whom frequent reference has been made in Gazetteers and Census Reports in the past. The former who numbered 948 in 1901, are merely the descendants of the original Arakanese settlers in Tavoy who still speak a dialect of Arakanese, with a slight admixture of Siamese. The latter are nothing more or less than Burmese-Shan half breeds. They are found for the most part on the foot-hills in the Shan States and in the Burmese districts adjoinincr the States. They speak Burmese or Shan or both and dress
