(41)
the Was are quoted in the note at page 95 below. The fullest account of the wild Was yet published is contained in the Upper Burma Gazetteer. The Northern Was are at a very low stage of civilization and their dress is of the scantiest, whereas the women of many of the tame Was further south cover themselves very fully.
Other Mon Khmer Tribes: Kamus, Yaos, Miaotzus, Danaws
Reference may be made here to three tribes of Mon Khtner extraction whose habitat lies outside Burma but close to the Burma border and a few of whom have come to settle within British territory. The first of these, the Kamus, Kamets or Lamets (described at pages 521—523 of the Upper Burma Gazetteer, Part I, Volume I) are evidently closely connected with the Was. They inhabit Siamese and French territory, but 141 of them (probably timber coolies and mahouts) were found within the limits of the Province at the 1901 Census, mostly in the Thaton and Amherst Districts. The Yaos and the Miaotzus, the other two of the three tribes aforesaid, are residents of China. Descriptions of the Miaotzu (Hmeng [1]) are given at page 597 and of the Yaos at page 601 of the Upper Burma Gazetteer. They have been classified as Mon Khmers by Major Davies, and there seems but little reason to doubt the correctness of his classification. Both are widely spread through South-Western China. The 1901 Census returns showed no Yaos or Miaotzus, but it is certain that up till recently at any rate there were two or three Yao villages in Kengtung. Such Miaotzu villages as there are in British
- ↑ * The Meos or Man Mèos of French observers (vide, e.g., Mission Pavie, Paris, 19O2, Volume V, page 218, and Volume III, page 39, and "Deux ans dansle Haut. Tonkin." A. Billet, Lille, 1896—98, page 127).
