The Kachins Religion and Customs

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In the North and North-East of Burma are found he savage tribes, which the Burmese and after them the English call "Kachins." They call themselves Chimpaws; they pretend to come from the sources of the Irrawaddy; the fact is they come from the North, and that little by little they have succeeded in becoming the masters of the range of mountains, which they now inhabit, partly in Burma and partly in Yunnan.

The Kachins, properly so called, comprise five principal tribes: the Marips, the Lathongs, the Laphais, the Nkhums and the Marans. We may add to them the Marus, the Atsis and the Lachyis, who live in the same countries and whose ways and customs are nearly the same. They worship a multitude of Nats or Spirits to whom they offer continually sacrifices of animals in order to appease them or secure their good will. They are living in a great number of villages presided over by a du-wa, who is a more or less influential chief according to his intelligence, but always looked up to, because, according to tradition, he descends from a race superior to that of the rest of men, and is the master of the land, which forms his territory.

As I am working at the evangelisation of the Kauri,a sub-tribe of the Laphais, it is especially of them I can speak; but what I shall say about them will nevertheless be more or less applicable to the Kachins in general. Before writing about their ways and customs, I think it good to record their mythology as the Jai- are savage.

Narrators of the traditions) transmit it to one another by word of mouth (the Kachins have no writing) and tell it to the people on great feast days. Besides, in those legends are found the origin and the explanation of a good number of superstitions and customs now existing. The old bard whom I luckily found takes four days and four nights narrating them I will leave aside what is less important and abridge the two long stories, yet keeping what is essential and translating as far as possible the very words of the "grandfather", a name which age, rank and science have given in these parts to the Jai-wa of whom I speak.

Well, at the great solemnities, our grandfather puts on a long robe, covers his head with a helmet adorned with tusks of a wild boar and long feathers, asks the good spirits and the shades of his ancestors to come and sit down at his side to assist him, and majestically commences his recital.

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