The Pacification of BurmaCrosthwaite, C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd)
History
The Pacification of Burma
Crosthwaite, C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd)
Burma -- History -- 1824-1948
Tribes called the Chinbôks, claiming to be of the same stock as the
Hakas but speaking a different language, are found at the head-waters
of the Maw and Yaw Rivers. Farther south, at the sources of the Saw and
Salin and on the eastern slopes of the Môn Valley, live the Yendus.
Below them, and southernmost of all the Chins, are the Chinbons, who
from the Môn on the east extend along the border of the Mimbu district
into the Akyab and Kyaukpyu districts of Lower Burma.
These three tribes were less fierce than their kindred to the north,
and possessed only the arms of savage warfare--the bow and arrow and
spear. Some of them, those on the borders of the Tilin township at the
headquarters of the Maw River, were noted for cattle-lifting. But the
Chinbôks on the Yaw and the Yendus on the Saw and Salin Rivers rivalled
the Siyins as slave-raiders. At the commencement of the winter of 1889
there were twenty-one captives in the possession of these tribes. They
had made twelve raids since December, 1888, in which five villagers had
been killed and sixteen carried off. Many had been wounded in resisting
or escaping, and large sums had been extracted as ransom.
It was decided, in making up the account against these savages, not to
go back behind December, 1888. In that month a notable raid had been
committed on Taunggyo in the Pauk township, in which thirty-two persons
were carried off and held to ransom at nine pounds sterling each, which
appears to have settled down as the sum beyond which the ability or
affection of the Burman would not go (see p. 318). After this crime
trade with the plains had been prohibited to the Chinbôks, so far as
lay in our power.
The difficulty in dealing with them lay in their want of cohesion
and the absence of any sort of tribal bond. With the Shans there
were the Sawbwas; with the Chins to the north there were the tribal
divisions, more or less marked, with chiefs who could speak, or at
any rate profess to speak, for their people. But with the people with
whom we were now to come in contact there was an absence of political
organization beyond the village, which was usually very small. It was
necessary to visit as many as possible of the villages concerned in
the raids, to receive the submission of each, and to impose fines for
misconduct; and as an obligatory condition to insist on the surrender
of captives, and the repayment of ransoms, not going back farther than
December, 1888. Substantial guarantees for the future were also to be
exacted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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