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The
Colonial British in Burma or Myanmar have given political freedom to the
Karen people and Christianity was embraced. There
are more than 7 million Karen people in today Myanmar
and another about half a million in neighboring
Thailand.
The
Karen people occupy a long strip of country on the east
of Myanmar at the border to Thailand and a
considerable portion of the Irrawaddy or Ayeyarwady
Delta. All the Karen people of Thailand and Myanmar came
more or less from today Toungoo region.
Toungoo
is in
east-central Myanmar on the bank of the Sittang River.
The
Shan people with the wide trousers and flapping hat
plus a deep instinct for trade are concentrated in
Myanmar Shan State, the area around Inle Lake and to the
north and east. Shan princes and Sabwas were very
notable Myanmar people during British colonial times and
before.
The Shan
people spread into Burma from South-western China
about two thousand years ago. Their migration was
initiated by the pressure of the Chinese, and as the
pressure increased they moved from the valley of the Shweli river, its first home in Burma, southwards to
present day
Thailand, eastward to
Vietnam, and north
and west to even reaching the Brahmaputra and founded
the Ahom kingdom of Assam. In Myanmar far down into
south east Myanmar at
Mergui or Myeik.
In the
north they spread over the whole of the upper
territories of the
Ayeyarwady or Irrawaddy from
Myanmar People Irrawaddy River at Bagan
Myitkyina and
along the Chindwin, where traces of their former
supremacy survive in the principalities of Singkaling,
Hkamti and Thaungdut. They have ruled at Ava and
Amarapura, and were very close to take over then Burma.
Myanmar Chin Lady smoking Pipe plus Face Tattoo
The
Chin and Kachin people have long been at war
with the rest of Burma even after the British
established their colonial rule over Myanmar, the Chin and
the Kachin continued to make war upon the British
Colonial Empire.
Their
protection lay in the rough Myanmar Himalaya mountains
of the north - Myanmar Kachins -, and the extremely
rough terrain of the north west of Myanmar were the Chin
people have their villages in today Chin State.
Of the Myanmar Chin people in the hills which
separate central Myanmar from Arakan or today Rakhine
and Assam in India there are two great divisions, the
Northern Myanmar Chin people and the Southern.
Their
tribes lap over into the subsidiary valleys which lie
between the Irrawaddy or Ayeyarwady and the main area of the Arakan or
Rakhine Loma.
The Northern Chin
People have a bigger territory,
known administratively as " The Chin Hills." It consists
of a much broken and contorted mass of mountains
intersected by deep valleys. The use of tribal face
tattoo is very common and a normal addition to the women
beauty.
The
Northern Chin have a strong tribal organization and
time has developed each of their tribes a separate
idiosyncrasy.
The
Myanmar Chin people, a warrior ethnic group are one
of the the rough ethnic
group of Myanmar together with the Naga in upper north
west.
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