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the surrounding Arakanese population. There are very early references to the Saks in the annals of Burma [1] and it is possible that at one time the term Sak was applied indiscriminately to all the Chins who occupied the hills to the west of Burma proper. Mr. Houghton infers from a comparison of a Sak with a Kadu vocabulary that the Saks were not Chins, but were related to the Kachins and Nagas, but the similarity may be accounted for by the fact that there is in all probability a faint Chin element in the Kadus, and, as, geographically, the Saks are much more likely to be of Chin than of Kachin or Naga stock, it seems advisable to treat them, till more definite data are available, as an Arakanese-Chin hybrid. In all only 230 persons returned themselves as Saks or Thets in the Akyab District in 1901. An attempt was made in 1901 to get some particulars about this community, but it was unsuccessful. The Saks seem likely to disappear altogether before long.
The Kadus
A link that may be looked upon as connecting the Chins with the communities to the east is provided by the Kadus of the Katha District of Upper Burma. The Chin element in the Kadus is very faint. They are for the most part, like the Danus, a Burmese-Shan compound, but they have also an appreciable mixture of Kachin besides the trace of Chin. They are the result of a fusion of all four stocks, though how much of each of the component parts went to make up the whole it is impossible now to say. Their language, which contains a large number of Kachin and a few apparently Chin words as well as Burmese and Shan, is fast dying out and they are now more or less Burmanized. For this reason
- ↑ Vide British Burma Gazetteer, Volume I, page 236.
