ABOUT KACHIN

Introduction: You are welcome, and we do want to say thank you for your visit to our kachinnews room. You are now in the web, I hope that you can learn about the Kachin people who are missing in media world and feel something for these lost tribes of the world.

1. Who are the kachin people?

The Kachin, similar to jinghpaw, Singpho, chingpaw, and Ye Jen are the inhabitant of Assam and Arunachal pradesh in the North Eastern region of India, Kachin land, Shan state and Wa state of Myanmar, Yunnan province of China and few villages at Chiangmai in Thailand, Tibet and Laos. The six ethnic group of people: Rowang, Laovoh (maru) , Lachid (lashi), Azi, Lisu , and Jinghpaw belong to Kachin nationality. They use Jinghpaw as their common language. So the Kachin people are called among themselves “Jinghpaw wunpawng sha ni.” There are about one million Kachins in Myanmar.

2. Their original places

Kachin forefathers and elders (from age to age) tell younger generations that a group of people (kachin) moved down slowly from Tibetan plateau (the so called majoi shingra bum) to western China and then to northern Myanmar in about ten century A.D. They stopped in some fertile-places such as Mahkum madam (Mahkum Gang-China Boarder), mali hku majoi, chyaihku majoi, and hkranghku majoi, living there for some centuries. Manau dance are usually celebrated for fraternity, prosperity, victory and for farewell among the brethren and close relatives. They departed to different parts of northern Myanmar, northeast India, Yunan province in china, and northern and eastern Shan state after manau dance at hkranghku majoi.

3. Religious freedom to the emergence of kachin revolution

Their (Kachin of Myanmar) religion was animism, (very few in Buddhism ) but they believed in the creator God, the God of Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence. They called upon this God in time of great need. They called this God “Hpan ningsang Chye ningchyang”(Creator and Omniscience God). The major changes took place (in their life) when the British occupied Kachin land and when Christianity was accepted by the people.

The American Missionary Eugenia Kincaid who worked in Prone (Pye) was the first missionary met Kachin people in Mogawng in 1837, on his survey trip to Hugawng area and Eastern India. He was strongly touched when he saw Kachin people, so he wrote to the mission society in America to send missionaries to Kachin land. The first missionary to Kachin people was Albert J. Lyon. He went to Bhamo (Manmaw) in 1878 to work together with Karen missionaries and Dr. Josiah Cushing, the missionary to the Shan people in Taunggo area. Lyon suffered from malaria (black fever) and died on March 15,1878, one month after his arrival. Then William H. Roberts came to Bhamo in 1879, January 12. He recomplished great mission work among the Kachin, Karen missionaries. Bo Gale Shue lin, S’peh, Ko hte and others worker along with the American missionaries. Because of their effort, seven Kachin had been converted and baptized at Bumwa in 1882, March 19 as the first fruits. The Roberts opened the first primary school in Bhamo for Kachin people.

Dr. Ola Hanson came to Bhamo in 1890, December 22. The missionaries tried their best to introduce (create) Kachin writing (literature) using Burmese alphabets but they found difficulty to have correct pronunciations for some words. Therefore, Dr. Ola Hanson used Roman alphabet in creating Kachin literature. It was successfully completed and accepted by the government in 1895. Then Dr. Ola Hanson compiled a Kachin-English dictionary and translated hymnal and the Holy Bible into Kachin. Now Kachin became new people who have their own literature and Bible. Another twenty-four American missionaries and over twenty Karen opened mission schools, hostels, hospitals, health centers and other development programmers. All these activities stopped because of the nationalization programmer of the socialist government in 1963-64. Especially in 1960,when the promulgation of the law in the parliament declaring Buddhism as the State religion by the prime minister U Nu’s government most of the Kachin devoted Christians turn into Kachin Independent Organization and joined the insurgent to fight against the center government of Burma.

Historically Kachin people were never under the ruling dynasty of any king system. They were living in their own land and had their own chiefs, leaders called ‘Duwas’. However after they took independence from British they were ignored to test the essence of independence in Burma. Thus to create real meaning of independence for the Kachin people Kachin Independent Army has to be appeared and had fought for over 40 years. But still they have not reached to their goal. Currently there are three armed groups (3-K: Kachin Independence Army, Kachin Defense Army, and New Democratic Army-Kachin) inside Burma. Three of them are in agreement to abandon the armed insurgency path and enter the legal fold of the Burmese military junta. Therefore Kachin people are under four different types of military rule.