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to above are what Captain Rigby calls the Cane belly Chins, a community who have many points of affinity with the Yindus and should, no doubt, be classed with them. The Kyaws of the Northern Arakan Hill Tracts (215 in 1901) came on the other hand, in a class of their own. They appear to be more nearly allied to the Lushais than the Chins proper. Of the Chins of the Akyab and Kyaukpyu Districts the great bulk are in all probability Central Chins. They are the Pos, the Monyins, the Kos and the Kayins of the Po Ko Tract, described by Mr. Korper, and the Ledus from the neighbourhood of Minbya. So far as has at present been ascertained, they are of what may be called Yindu stock, though it has been suggested that the first three are connected with the Chinbons referred to below. The hill dwellers known in the past as Kus are, there is reason to believe, the Kos of the Kyaukpyu District.
The total in 1901 of the Central Chins (excluding the Kamis and Mros) was somewhere about 50,000. The precise figure cannot be given, as a considerable portion of the Central Chin country was excluded from the area in which a regular census was taken. Generally speaking the people are primitive and backward. Their men's dress is scanty. Their women generally wear the shortest of skirts and tattoo their faces either in lines or clots. Bead ornaments are worn by both sexes and the men's weapons are elaborate and picturesque.
West of the Po Ko Tract in the Kyaukpyu District near the Bay of Bengal is the Sittu Chin country. The Sittus are a Southern Chin tribe, and from their territory southwards is the country of the Southern Chins (known sometimes as Saingbaungs), whose women wear a long smock and have their faces for the most part tattooed a uniform blue black. Besides peopling the southern end of the
