Kachin people

The peoples of Kachin (Jingpo: Ga Hkyeng red soil; Burmese: ကချင်လူမျိုး; MLCTS: ka. hkyang lu myui:, pronounced [kətɕɪ̀ɰ̃ lù mjó]), more precisely known as Jingpho Wunpong (Jingpho: Jinghpaw Wunpawng the Confederation of Jingpo) or simply Wunpong (the Confederation), are a confederation of ethnic groups who inhabit the Kachin Hills in northern Myanmar's Kachin State and neighbouring Yunnan Province, China, and Arunachal Pradesh, Assam in Northeastern India. About one million Kachin peoples live in the region. The term Kachin people is often used interchangeably with the main subset, called the Jingpo people in China.

Kachin traditional dress

The Jingpho language common to many of the Kachin has a variety of dialects and is written with a Latin-based script created in the late nineteenth century. A Burmese script version was subsequently developed. The Singhpo dialect is spoken in Northeast India and Jingpho in Southwest China.[1]

Kachins c. 1900

Kachin is an ethnicity that comprises various linguistic groups with overlapping territories and integrated social structures. Contemporary usage of Kachin relates to a grouping of six ethnicities: Rawang, the Lisu, the Jingpo, the Zaiwa, the Lashi/Lachik and the Lawngwaw/Maru.[2][3] Some definitions distinguish Kachin and Shan (Tai) peoples though some Kachin people have demonstrated the over-simplicity of the concept of lineage-based ethnic identity by culturally "becoming Shans".[4]

There are many theories of how Kachin people got their name. One of them comes from American baptist missionary Dr. Eugenio Kincaid. When he arrived to the northern part of Myanmar, firstly he met with the Gahkyeng people. When he asked them who they were, they replied that they were the villagers from Gahkyeng. Therefore, he wrote "Ga hkyeng" in his notes. European writers called the Kachins "Kakhyens" until 1899. The book "The Great Queen is Coming 1890" described Major Ecy Brong was the first person who started using "Kachin" in Roman script.[5]